a return to land, truth, and love.

A conversation with Knowledge Keeper Joe Jones about restoring balance between people, energy, and that which sustains us.

At the 2025 Indigenous Lands Symposium, our Digital Media Specialist Waabshkigan Shane Monague joined Mikanak Joe Jones of Garden River First Nation in Bawaating, where a community round dance became the setting for memories from the land.

Joe is an Elder and knowledge carrier who has dedicated his life to teaching Anishinaabe children, youth, and community members about living in relationship with the land in the ways of the Anishinaabek. He also works alongside the TEK Elders, a collective committed to protecting North Shore Anishinaabe territory from the spraying of toxic glyphosate.

Kitigan Ziibii, Garden River, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

My name is Joe Jones from Garden River. My Anishinaabe name is Mikinak n’dizhnikaaz, ndodem Waabsheshii. That’s “Turtle” and Marten is my clan.

Shane: What are some of your favourite memories you have on the land/out in the bush?

My favourite memories out in the bush is being myself, and when we were kids, my parents had  some discipline for us. Like when in the summertime, there were gardens and all kinds of little chores to do. We used to be outside in the garden or getting water or chopping some wood for supper that evening and a lot of little stuff like that.

Some of the boys would be going to the bush and were watching us work outside, and our dad would say, “you want to go with them, you finish your chores first before you go catch up with them”. And those were the good memories. We got up to them up there [after we would finish]. The river was about half a mile to a mile away. We’d catch up with them, go swimming, bring our sling shots, go chase squirrels and hunt squirrels, and all that stuff. Just being in the bush with our friends and all that, it was a lot of fun. - learn to swim, and do - I wouldn't say crazy things but just being ourselves in the bush and playing, doing things, slide down clay banks: make a slide out of it, just splash water on the clay and slide in the big deep hole along the river. Oh yeah, a lot of stuff.

And as I  go into the schools and try to [do] some land-based training, it's unbelievable how much kids don't go in the bush. But some do get excited and really want to go back. So it excites me, because we understand that's our home, and our mother provides everything for us.

And when we were kids, this [was] about 60 years ago or so. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of the things back there. We worked with each other, and of course we all had little arguments, and push & fight and all that, but nobody seriously got hurt. It was just having your little squabbles and get over it, forget it, and move on. That was a good thing. But as you grow older, you know when you have squabbles, everybody hangs onto a lot of stuff and it hurts a lot of people. It’s not like [how it was] anymore.

Anyway… I learned to go rabbit-snaring, punch-hunting,  all that stuff. I used to go rabbit snaring. The one thing that I learned one time from an elderly man, I didn't have anything in my snare, so I shot a rabbit. So I took it to him, and he said - well, you usually get 25 cents back then, that was good enough for a pop and chip bag way back then - so I took him the rabbit. He took it in the house. He caught me on the road one day, and he says, “Come to my house, I got something for you.” so I went over there, and he put that rabbit in the freezer, and he gave it back to me “I don't want this rabbit”. So I said, “okay”, and took it. “What's wrong with it?” He says, “You shot it.” I said, “Yeah”. “I don't eat those rabbits that got shot. Only ones that were snared”. Eventually he told me “I use the whole part of the body”, and if you shoot it, it does something to them. “It's not the same”, he says. When you shoot it, I understand it shocks the animal and it does something. There's a slight difference in there [between snaring and shooting]. And that was one of those memories that I have of that. And I found that that not only him that told me about that, but after all when I started telling my rabbit [unclear], they used to ask, “is it shot? Is it shot?” No, it's snared. I said “I snared this one”, “okay”, and that's the one they would take. See, even back then, see those memories that we learned, I didn't  know at the time what it meant. But now they used part of it, they said, you clean it in a way that they did back then [pre-contact], but they never washed it off with water the way they do things today. Because with that blood and that's still on the meat, it was some kind of like a, there's medicine in there for whatever purposes. So that's how everybody used to cook it. I didn't know that until I got grown up and started cooking. When I was doing it myself, “don't wash it!, just throw it in there and there's something in there that will help you”, they said. See… when they say “help you”, they don't tell you the whole story! So when you grow up, you figure these things out. Yeah, a lot of good memories, really. Even when I started hunting, there was a lot of fun too.

Shane: Who taught you how to hunt?

My brothers, my older brothers. Yeah… well, you learn when you're out there with the rabbit snaring and you’re doing a lot of things. Everything just kind of naturally falls in place, well back then. Used to hunt ducks…  everything, really. Well, hunting, when [we] had our slingshots, we used to bring a couple old cans from home or whatever we had. [We’d] go find some potatoes and go in the bush and shoot some squirrels, throw them in a pot - skin them and throw them in a pot with potatoes with all the friends we had out in the bush, that’s what we used to do.

We’d spend the whole day out there in the bush. Come home around six, seven o'clock haha.  Yeah, we spent most of the time in the bush back then. We used to have slingshot wars with thorn apples. Stung a little harder sometimes, especially if you got close. We used to even tie - cedar used to float down the river once in a while, and they'd jam up along the rivers and places- We used to grab two or three of them and tie them together and float down on the raft, a bunch of us. Sometimes you’d have two or three rafts and little rafting races and we would also fast water and they’d bust up and break on us haha. Oh yeah, a lot of fun.

Shane: Could you imagine what your life would be like if you didn't have those experiences? Like, if you didn't have that connection to the river or to the land?

To me, losing that connection when you’re kids and after you grow up, and start chasing girls wherever else. Then, see, we went to day school and there's a lot of religion in there. And then as we get older, there's more responsibility, and then we kind of lost the “bush” thing, see?

So I was away from, I was always in it, but away from what we did when we were kids, having all that kind of fun.  And I didn't have much of an education, so I had a lot of odd jobs, but never any steady job. So, like I say, when I got my baptized, got my English name, there was a lot going on in the reserve, and our culture and tradition [were] coming back. Our elders would talk about it - And there's a bunch of them down up along the St. Mary's, Echo River, Garden River, and Root River - Every once in a while, some guys would come out from out west or down Michigan, “Anybody want to go get their [spirit] names and their clan and their colors?” [the elders would ask]. I thought about it for about one to two years, I guess, before I finally made up my mind to go get my true identity. And that's when I turned my life around back to our Anishinaabeg life, and going back in the bush more. My brother was having a hard time with keeping up - well, he had a job at the steel plant - and keeping up with these traps, so I started helping them. And I got in tune with Mother Nature again, and I'm still there today - with my true identity as an Anishinaabeg person.

I don't go to church anymore. That's not for me. My sisters and brothers still go there, but that’s when I learned respect, being out there in Mother Nature, you respect everything, and that's their life, that's not yours. If they want to go, that's up to them. They don't like it, but that's who I am. I'm not going to argue with anybody. I quit because I know who I am today.

Shane: And that’s because of that connection on the land like you said

Yeah! It's happiness out there,  I find it, anyway. When you find your true identity, you know more about yourself. And the more I know - or it comes from Mother Nature and all the animals, whatever - it's exciting.

Shane: It’s empowering, too eh? it gives you a confidence, to know how to harvest something, and look after yourself

Yeah, even harvesting animals or fishing and hunting all that, so you're always doing something, see and you're always aware of what you're doing. See as you get older you know your you know your strengths and your own capabilities of what you could do and what you shouldn't do and all that stuff  so if you know you're going to do something kind of iffy and chancy, you got to be aware of that, if you fall down you break an arm, break a leg, you're the one, and usually I'm alone, you gotta figure out ‘how am I gonna get out of here’ if you do break an arm, break a leg, or your ski-doo breaks down, or your bike, whatever it is, eh. So that's what it's taught me: your own capabilities to take care of yourself.

Shane: To think long term, and not just in the moment, right? Like, if you are and need to be considering ‘what happens if I’m trapped out here alone’… I think that's something that we don't see. It's so easy to forget nowadays, because we have everything. We have refrigerators, and we have phones to call for help. I feel like these conveniences are making our minds… smaller?

Yeah. See, that's what we're talking about is when you're out there, if something happens to you, my capability is I could build myself a shelter, really, you know, I got that badly hurt. And wait till the morning and figure things out. There's always a way to do something. And if you know your distance where the next road is, where somebody might be going by, or ‘how far am I away from home’, ‘can I do this?’  Or ‘I have to go so far’ and put up another lean-to over night again, it all depends. The capabilities of understanding myself, what to do, and understanding everything's in front of you to provide for me to shelter myself, and maybe a squirrel will go by, i could grab him, or I could hit him with an axe or something. See? And there's bugs and everything else to eat out there. It's just one beautiful mystery that keeps on growing.

Shane: That leads into my next question. They say “Mother Earth” because she gives and she gives, she looks after us, she raises us, and we come from her, and that makes you want to protect her. But sometimes in our communities not everyone understands this. So for those that do - those that are on the frontlines of land defense - what are some other ways that those young people can do to protect their territories?

Some of the young people, some of my nieces and nephews are coming to me and saying, “can you take me in the bush to go snaring?”  Sure. I talk the way I'm talking to you, you know, ‘do this, do that’. And if you catch them, you got to cook it and eat it. You don't just, you know, catch it and leave it. Yeah, and teach them that when that animal's gone, it’s giving up his life to feed us. There’s always something to be taught. It's the goodness that you do, people don't want to recognize you as being a good person. To me, we're living in a negative world today. You don't hear anything really good, you don't see anything very good, because everything's very fast-paced and [there’s] no time to take the time for yourself to be yourself. And you find that out in the bush. It's even just going for a walk in the bush with the kids. They're completely happy. They fool around, they play just like when I was a kid. But when you're at home, they're always on iPads or doing whatever. What is stimulating them to do anything? So when they ask me to take them in the bush, I do. And they're stimulated because of what we do. Somebody gets excited if they catch a rabbit. “I'm gonna run home and show my mom and dad”, and that makes me proud, because they're proud of something, they did something, they caught something, and they're proud of that. And that's what our kids need. Not only the kids, our grownups, the ones that don't understand that way of life. That's why, to me, our education system didn't work for us in the Western society. And all through the years, see, it's not to blame anybody to understand that I'm part of that blame, but I understand the blame is not ours, it's the system that we went through to get an education on the western side. I said, okay, now I want to talk about our education, our school.

Where's our school? Who taught us that? They say “it's hard to bring it back”, “we lost everything”. You’re never gonna lose everything if you got a good heart. Even people that know me, some will come up and say, “you're doing a good job with the kids”. You get recognition by one or two people, not by the whole community. “Why do you want to go with him? He's no good. He doesn't do nothing” or “Oh he’s still cutting wood”.

I still cut wood for my place. When they (the band) put the gas line down there, they said, “everybody”, so I went to apply to get gas for my home. “No, you're too far out of the way”. So I said, okay, well, how much is he gonna charge me to bring gas to my house? “The first hundred feet is free, but after that it was $100 a foot”… You gotta be kidding. So, I'll just keep burning wood I said. I have no problem. My life is doing something basically every day. Walking somewhere, cutting wood, doing something that keeps me moving. And if I didn't have my Anishinaabe life, I'd probably be sitting at home wondering this, wondering that. It's a completeness of my understanding of our Anishinaabe life in my heart to do things that I'm capable of doing and understanding, and try to teach, when they come, to teach them as much as I can. And sometimes the parents say, “don't go to the guy no more, he don't know nothing”. So then the kid feels bad. He doesn't know. It's not the kid's fault. Don't blame the kids. The kids want to come in the bush. I said the parents don't want him to come and go in the bush and learn that stuff [because they tell them] “That's not gonna help you”. See? everything is a problem sometimes. But there's so many different ways to solve those problems. The kid is happy, and you take it away from him. When he gets older, some of them come back, “can you take me in the bush?” “What about your mom and dad?” “No. I'm not gonna tell them”. So, okay, I'll take you in the bush, and we're gonna talk. Once he gets everything comfortable and relaxed, you know, “it's no good to fool your mom and dad. You should tell them where you are” and I tell him, you want to go in the bush, you're not doing anything wrong, just explain the best you can. And when he goes back home, I don't know if he tells his parents or not, but see, he gets the honor of himself to give him that choice to tell the truth, and the truth will not hurt anybody.

I mentioned a few times at some of my talks, everybody says, “you gotta be kind”, okay? So what does ‘kind’ mean, I ask myself. Is kindness being quiet? Every time I bring up the topic, nobody will know - is that being [kind]? Telling [others] to be quiet again and don't talk about it?  I says, well, I'm tired of being kind and being quiet. I'm going to be kind in truth to all of us in here. And everybody gets mad [when I do this]. “Don't bring him back to our meetings” [they say].  That's all right, I says.  But at least when I'm here, you know where I stand on issues and things like that, And [many of] you just want to sing and dance, and nothing’s getting resolved. And that's why we're in the mess today, and nobody wants to hear it. Not only my reserve, right across Turtle Island, we're all in the mess. Something we're living through to learn something.

Shane: I agree, my Rez is the same way. There’s always going to be those people who bring negativity to good work and it doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it, it’s like the negativity is almost inevitable. It’s disappointing, but I guess that’s reality. Like how you said, there could be challenges that you come across when out on the land, but there’s always going to be solutions that we can create by using the gift of our minds.

Yeah, see there's a lot of  negative things. There's always something that will block you from what you want to do.  So I'll do what I can for the people that want it. And it's growing, it's getting bigger. They say, “well, go to Joe's, he'll do something for you”.  ‘Okay, send him down, send her down’.  And the kids get sad, they want to go in the sweat. “You better ask your mother” [I tell them] “My mom's gonna tell me no”. “Well, just tell them you were talking to me, and if she don't let you in, ask your mom to come on down and talk to me, I'll talk to her.” if she decides not to or his dad or his mom, whoever he's living with at the time. I'll just say ‘he wants it, this is the opportunity to do it. And if you'd like to, you could come in’. They change their mind. It's gonna do it once, but once the boy does it, he’ll hold that and he'll understand that if he wants something, he knows how to get it,  but not to be afraid of it. Our kids sometimes are being taught to be afraid of [cultural practices], and it's not a good thing. And when they hold that in their sight, it infests their way of life. And we have enough of that problem already.

Shane: This kind of repeats the previous question, but what actions do you personally want to see our people take in order to protect the land and the water so that we can continue going out and trapping and being ourselves? Because I felt the same way after having lived out on the land for half a year. Being out in the bush is one of the only places where you can really feel like you can breathe, and really be yourself. And how do we protect that?  What would you want to see?

What would I like to see? I'd like to see more of us in the bush and getting to know the land [and] what it provides, and that mother nature is a place to be relaxed. Forget about your worries, your tensions, whatever you're going through and sit by a river, a lake in peace and quiet. Sit there and listen. And Mother Earth's emotions will absorb into your heart and let you have that relaxation in life [knowing] that someone cares. And the people that care, fight for what is good. Goodness is always going to win. Because the goodness of life is inside that nurturing of our mother. The nurturing of Mother Earth will provide all of what we need. Everybody dreams of a house, big, fancy everything. [In my house] they got everything there and they sit down and relax and all that. So I got a home that's very comfortable. I got a lot of animals, birds in there that I got taxidermied up. So it's a place that people come and say, “oh, it's nice and cozy and comfortable in here” so what is that in there is part of Mother Nature's own life, sitting in my home. And the wood stove, oh, it's so relaxing. “I just could fall asleep here”, people say. “Well, go ahead, fall asleep here. The sweat lodge won't be ready for another half an hour. If you just want to sit down and relax, you don't have to talk. I’ll shake you up or wake you up when it's time to go”. So some do doze off for a few a few minutes “jeez, I fell asleep for a little while” haha.  See, but that’s how [my] home is very relaxing, just like Mother Nature is. Part of it is in there. It comes within each and every one of us.

And [Mother Nature] also teaches you not to be afraid of the truth. And a lot of people don't like the truth because of the mess we're in. They hide. I don't if that's a good word. Some people say to be kind, and they hide behind those words, see? And today's technology, you can [throw in] all the technology you want, but they hide behind the technology because they're not facing a person that's asking questions or asking about “How come this in our band office”, “how come that?” And if you're not facing a person, they could say anything on that technology you have today. But the reason for me saying this is, face talk is what I'd like to have. I don't do computers, I don't have a cell phone, because there's - what do you call that - Not good ‘service.  [The cellphones] only have one bar or whatever they need [where I live]. “So, how come you don't have all that stuff?” “Well I don't need it” I says. You want to talk to me? There's a landline there. You got a phone there. Call me. Maybe once a week my phone will ring, and it's the wrong number. No, I'm just kidding, hahaha.  So you can have fun with anything. That's what I say: You can make fun. And people need, we need, to have some fun, laughing at stuff in our life. There's not very much of it, I'll tell you that much. Everybody's in a crisis mode of something.

Shane: What can non-indigenous people do to more meaningfully help us, as Anishinaabeg, do what we need to do to fulfil our responsibilities as stewards of these lands?

The white people? Talk to them, and talking to them and showing, doing things. That works for me, but it will also work for you. But you have to understand, this is our way of life. It will help you. See, our way of  living and our people always help people. It doesn't matter what color, race, everything. See when the first settlers [arrived], they didn't know what to do. They lost a lot of stuff. But we helped them to survive. So that's the kindness we showed to all people and all living beings. Spirituality. So when we understand that, the white men understand that we help them, but they want to stab us in the back. Why you stabbing them in back? Well, something's going to happen. Someday you're gonna understand what is that purpose of you stabbing me in the back when I actually helped you. Now if he was hurt, I'd do the same thing, I'd probably help him again. It's not a judgment. He does not understand. And a lot of, not only white people, a lot of our own people don't understand this, because of the Western Society education.

You see, they say [that kindness] is lost. It's not lost because it's in our hearts. Whether we live it or not, it's there for us. You can't take an Anishinaabe [away from] being born Anishinaabe; you can take it away by the education, but he still has that spirit of Anishinaabe people. Doesn't matter where he goes or what he thinks he is. That's why I say when I found my true identity, I didn't go back to the church. It's not for me. We were chosen here when they created this world for us to look after Mother Earth - Turtle Island. So that [responsibility] is ours. So when you respect that Turtle Island, you're respecting all the women that you run across. Those are the ones that will sustain our life. I wish I was a woman. No, I'm just kidding, hahaha.

Shane: Do you have anything other messages you would want to share with Indigenous peoples?

All Anishinaabe people have a good heart right across through a lot it. And that good heart. to wake that up, the goodness in each and every one of us, from coast to coast to coast, as they say. [Our teachings, world view, and culture is a] revolving and never-ending story. Just like our life is never-ending. The human will die, but the spirit will live. 

When all our people understand our own selves, we will become united again, and be strong, and tell all our governments, the world, that it's ours, belongs to us. This is our home. You're not going to destroy it anymore. We're going to see it. We're going to run it the way we always have, and bring back the joy and life and excitement of being an Anishinaabe person.

Quit the arguments and quit the ... you know, when you put all these lines and borders, see, there's no borders in our Anishinaabe way of life. But when you learn that in the Western system, it's about ‘you gotta get permission’. I fight that all the time, ‘border’ this and that. I even tell them, “hang on one sec before you go any further, you know what you're telling me? You're over-regulating me and you're putting boundaries, and I'm not going to live like that”. And we got to start saying that and stand up and be proud of who we are. I had enough of that.

Just like when the kids go in the bush, “oh, you can't take them to the water”, “you can't do this”.  To me, that's not right. How am I going to teach those kids?  can't bring him over here, gotta have so many regulations, then they're gonna sue me. Sue me for what? How's a kid gonna learn if he's walking in bush and fall down and he's gonna sue me? See what you're teaching my kids, our kids, to sue each other? That's not right. We don't do that in our native way of life. We teach them. They're gonna fall down. Everybody's gonna fall. Even grown-ups fall down. See, in that system, they own. They say they own [the land]. No they don't. We'll get her back. The more we talk [with each other] the more we understand our purpose, and we all have a purpose in this life. Everything that lives has a purpose and we need that [purpose]. The smallest insect or the biggest moose around - everything has a purpose - and we understand that.

The government's getting afraid. But we've got to understand, we've got to unite. It only takes one person to start something in a good way. And like I said,  there's other people out there, but they just need some company to bring them up. Just a little bit of somebody saying “I can help him”. 

Keep talking, do good things,  people  will see it. The goodness will come back. It's out there.  There's people that are out there, being so quiet for so long. 

If you understand love,  love yourself first, then you begin to love everything.  When you love everything, you know a lot about something; your own self. Then comes respect. To honor that  way of life is an honor within all of us. And accept the truth, wrestle with it, talk about it, honor it.  That's when we'll move forward. We're gonna have arguments and everything else, but at least we'll be united in moving and understanding that we gotta do this together. And we all [must] stand up and be proud. And the kids will understand what an Anishinaabe person is.

(I mentioned to Joe how I was beginning to tear up from our time together and what he had shared with me)

The tearing up is knowing and sharing and caring. And you're not the only one that said that to me before. A lot of people say, you know, you're a very emotional man. No, I'm not a very emotional man. I understand what emotion is all about. See, that's what you learn a lot [about] out there [on the land]. Emotions… and there's so many emotions that people haven't even recognized that they know or haven't felt yet. When you can feel the wind on a calm day and a bright sunny day by a river, there's the emotion there that rejuvenates your spirituality. So that's why when people say they get a little choked up, [I say] “Good. You're crying for what's happening. You understand a little bit of the hurt that all our people went through. Now, [we will] have a little more courage to stand up and say something or do something or help something.”

Miigwech.

Photo by Invasive Species Centre

The TEK Elders are a collective of Anishinaabe knowledge keepers working to protect the lands and waters of the Robinson Huron Treaty territory. Rooted in ceremony and traditional ecological knowledge, they advocate against harmful forestry practices such as the aerial spraying of herbicides and call for the restoration of natural forest diversity. Through teachings, land-based education, and alliances with communities and organizations, the TEK Elders uphold Anishinaabe governance and responsibility to the land, ensuring that future generations can continue living in balance with all of creation.

To learn more about the work Joe Jones and other Anishinaabeg elders are doing, as well as for news, updates and key perspectives, visit: https://tekelders.ca/