Chrissy takes a walk. To Toronto. WIth her friends

Chrissy Swain's walk from Northwestern Ontario to Toronto began as a dream.

"This is a spiritual journey, not a protest," Swain told a public forum last night in Sault Ste. Marie.

She's leading 21 fellow walkers who started their odyssey on April 30 in in Kenora, near their home community of Grassy Narrows.

For Swain, the journey has been intensely personal.

"We walk to protect our mother the earth," she says. "Every day brings another message. The idea for the walk came from a spiritual dream and it also came out of frustration of seeing all these people being arrested for trying to stand up for the land and their rights."

So one day this past winter Chrissy (shown) called her aunt, Maria Swain.

She told her she was going to go for a walk.

To Toronto.

"I told her to have a nice time," Maria recalls with a laugh. "She told me she thought it might be just us but she had to do it."

Chrissy told her aunt about her dream of walking across Lake Superior and into the rising sun, which to her symbolizes the beginning of a new day.

Maria said she would be honoured to come with Chrissy and they began to plan the trip.

As word of their intent spread, others in their home community of Grassy Narrows asked to join them too.

Many were young people who wanted to do something more and different to protect the earth.

"Five years ago we put up a blockade," says Chrissy. "Before that, we went to the Canadian government and we wrote letters to try to get them to stop cutting the trees and poisoning the land with chemicals on our traditional lands. But it was for nothing."

Now, Swain says they walk and pray instead.

Seven of the walkers and Maria Swain, who drives the support van, were at the table for last night's forum.

Each stood to give their own reasons for walking.

Young Blood, a young Six Nations man, left his family, including his infant son, to walk on an injured knee for his people.

"Becoming involved with my people has become a life-changing experience," he said. "I will probably miss my son's first steps, but I think of it as if I am taking them for him out here on the road."

Toby and Katrina, both from Grassy Narrows, came to support Swain and for the earth.

Darleen from Saugeen First Nation said she's walking to support Swain and to help her people who work and live on traplines that have been poisoned by sprayed programs.

Darleen and Young Blood are among several who have joined the group as it travelled from community to community.

Some, like Garden River First Nation Chief Lyle Sayers, join the group for a relatively short time.

Sayers was among locals who walked with the group from Second Line Road to the Rankin site of Batchewana First Nation yesterday afternoon.

Swain said that each of the eight or more communities the group has passed through has opened their homes to them.

"We brought camping equipment, expecting to sleep beside the road sometimes," said Young Blood. "We've never used it."

Since leaving Kenora, they've found hot food and a place to stay every night and Garden River has been added to the list of hosts.

They haven't always found a pleasant walk, though.

"Not long after we started, we had some OPP officers come and stop us on the road, asking all of us for our names and wanting to know where we were going and why," she said. "At one point they even came to where we were staying and took one young man away without his shoes. We had to go to the station in the middle of the night to get him back."

They have been walking about 100 kilometres a day to protect our mother and it's taking a toll on some member's health as well.

Several are in need of knee braces.

Shoes have worn through and socks are wearing thin.

Last night, they stayed in the healing lodge in Garden River.

Today, they are hoping for a chance to bring their messages to National Chief Phil Fontaine.

Those who plan to continue the distance, hope to make it to Toronto by May 26.

They will join others who plan to erect a tent city at Queen's Park in an effort to raise awareness of Anishnawbe issues in the province.

Swain said the group plans to continue its journey even though a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed this week between the Ontario government and Grassy Nations First Nation.

"We're showing our community we have to work together to make a difference," she said. "We want to wake up all our communities."

Swain said the MOU signed on Monday has done nothing to stop the logging or spraying on traditional lands, so she doesn't see a reason for her people back in Grassy Narrows to take down the blockade.

"If they want us to stop, they have to stop until this is resolved," she said.

As reported earlier in SooToday.com, the MOU signed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Grassy Narrows is intended to bring about a long-term agreement for the protection, management and use of the Whiskey Jack Forest.

In about four years.

Meanwhile, Swain says she believes Abitibi-consolidated will continue to cut in the Whiskey Jack Forest where her people have lived for many generations.

She wants to see a stop to cutting in the disputed areas while negotiations are ongoing, because she's afraid there will be little left to agree on by the time they conclude negotiations.

Swain also said Mother Earth needs the walkers to continue the journey to Toronto for the many communities they've found along the way who also need to send a message to Queen's Park and to each other.

"Our young people are experiencing a spiritual awakening," said Maria Swain. "I'm proud to see that warrior spirit coming out in them as we journey."

She explained that the young walkers are changing in very positive ways, learning to work together to protect the earth, to help their communities and to be good family members.

"This is the warrior way," she said.

The group hoped to have an opportunity to carry its message to Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, who was trying to arrange a meeting with leaders of the nearby First Nation Community of Serpent River today.