Ni kaakiihtwaamaan itootamihk waapamishoon aan mii wiichaytoowuk: I am practice reflected in relationships

Michif-Métis denotes a way of life that is bound to specific political, historical, cultural and linguistic ethos, with specific ties to complex kinship systems with humans, earth and cosmological beings. As a Michif woman, growing up away from my relatives and land in Manitoba, I had always felt that the tether that connects my spiritual being to my ancestors was frayed because I did not grow up in a close-knit Michif community. I realized that it is not necessarily where you are that matters, but it is about how we are practising the relationships in the places we find ourselves. Through an animate and kinetic journey expressed by layering text and photos, this article is an attempt to peel back the layers and reveal some of the nuances and con/textualizations of being and becoming Michif. I explore my own expressions and practices of my self-understandings through my interactions within places in and near Mohkinstsis, Calgary, that allow me to express and affirm ni kaakiihtwaamaan itootamihk waapamishoon aan mii wiichaytoowuk – ‘I am practice reflected in relationships’.