Stars, rocks, and animals all hold sacred meaning for indigenous peoples. Some spiritual spaces have a sacred connection to water, a gift from The Creator. For the Coast Salish, Snoqualmie Falls, WA is where Moon the Transformer created the first people. Getting the upstream dam decommissioned will restore the sacred, natural flow of water. In BC, Drew sees the 365 circle formations in Okanagan Nation’s Spotted Lake and digs into its healing mud.

At the Calgary stampede’s sacred Elbow River camp, people from Treaty 7 Nations share family traditions in teepees dating back to 1912. In Edmonton a Navajo engineer uses her great-grandfather’s medicine teachings to help purify toxic water. Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum exhibits original canoes used on the waterways and a sacred room protects ancestral objects. They preserve connections between the past and present and respect the hallowed nature of indigenous artifacts. Water is universally important and has a sacred beauty.

In Going Native, celebrated humorist and author Drew Hayden Taylor examines the stereotypes and traditions of Indigenous identity while discovering cool new ways Indigenous people are shaping their culture in the 21st century.