Indigenous water protectors will host the 6th annual Water Is Life Festival in Petoskey

By Ren Brabenec | August 17, 2024

One look at a map is all it takes to understand Michigan’s unique connection to water. The state’s legal boundaries extend into Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior, giving the Great Lakes State 40,000 square miles of water, 40 percent of the state’s total “land area.” We are home to 20 percent of all the earth’s fresh water, and the state is blessed with 3,288 miles of shoreline, more than any other place in North America.

But Indigenous water advocates worry that the everyday presence of water in our lives could lead us to take this resource for granted. And given the current threats our waters face from pollution, overuse, invasive species and habitat destruction, the stakes are high.

Water + Women

“The Water Is Life Festival is an annual event where we celebrate our connection to water and draw strength from community so that we can work toward living holistically with water and protecting it from those who seek to exploit or endanger it.”

Jannan Cornstalk reads this statement from the Water Is Life Festival mission and introduces us to the ethos of the event. Cornstalk is the director and founder of the festival, which will celebrate its 6th annual event on August 31st at 200 Wachtel Ave in Petoskey.

For Cornstalk, a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, water conservation is more than just the necessary work we all must do to ensure our planet’s most important resource is preserved for generations to come.

“This is also a deeply spiritual and functional responsibility,” says Cornstalk. “Indigenous women are at the center of this, because traditionally Indigenous women are protectors of water.”

Cornstalk is an expression of a tradition that spans generations and dates back to well before European colonization of the Americas, to a time when indigenous women collected water for their families and communities while preserving and protecting water sources. Water conservation may look different today, but the message is the same: water is life.

A path to protection

Cornstalk founded the Water Is Life Festival in 2019 because she believed the best way to fulfill her mission as a water protector was to bring people together to celebrate and learn more about our waterways. For Cornstalk, it’s about growing the movement and breaking away from the mindset of taking everything for granted.

“The festival gives us the opportunity to talk to people and encourage them to do the good work that needs to be done around land and water,” says Cornstalk. “The festival creates human connections, strengthens the community and educates interested participants about the importance of water conservation and the importance of being good stewards of the blessing that is our water.”

The water protectors don’t have the lobbyists, cash and political clout that oil companies or mining companies have. But they have a voice, and the more voices the better.

The impacts extend from Petoskey. For example, the State of Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) recently delayed and potentially halted a controversial Tilden Mine expansion proposal. The proposal involved expanding an iron ore mine in a sensitive wetland ecosystem in the Upper Peninsula. According to the organization Citizens for Superior, this is “a major victory for the power of public participation. Cleveland Cliffs withdrew its application to fill 77.9 acres of wetlands and 4,661 linear feet of a stream with mine waste after EGLE pointed out unresolved issues with the application, including tribal coordination and cumulative watershed impacts.”

According to Citizens for Superior, EGLE only pressured Cleveland Cliffs to withdraw the permit because water conservationists from across Michigan had alerted EGLE and the EPA to the dangers such an expansion would pose to surrounding wetlands.

This story is proof that Cornstalk’s theory is sound. She believes that the voices of water protectors – strong, loud and united – can be more influential than exploitative interests and the dollars they wave. And there’s no better time to make your voice heard than now.

“Water is a unique element that does not exist on Earth or in our universe,” says Cornstalk. “We cannot exist without water. It is our relative.”

This year’s festival

The motto of the Water Is Life Festival is to collect first hundreds, then thousands and finally millions of voices for water conservation. This year’s event is set to be the biggest yet.

“We’ll be talking about all the different ways water connects us,” says Cornstalk. “We’ll be raising awareness and educating people by bringing them together at the festival. We’ll help people have an experience that connects them to water. Then they’ll go back to their communities and share that experience with their loved ones. We hope the festival inspires new generations of water protectors to return to their communities and continue the good work of water conservation.”

This year’s event will take place on Saturday, August 31st from 12pm-9pm and will include vendors and food trucks. There will also be live entertainment including headliners Patty PerShayla & The Accidentals, Alina Morr & Urban Tropical, Dave Kroon, Pete Kehoes, Seth Bernard and Ruby John.

Visitors are asked to register before the festival for a chance to win a prize. Cornstalk and other event organizers also host a Friday Night Feast/Potluck in Wolverine the night before the festival. Over the weekend, there is the option to camp at the Lost Tamarack Lodge. Visitors are asked to bring their own water bottles, plates and silverware to help the festival reduce its carbon footprint.

For more information and to register, visit the festival website at waterislifefestival.org.