I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe. They will live forever.Īnd Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. “ Thomas-Muller finds hope in the growing movement of climate change activism, especially by children.Of course I want to be like them. “From selling drugs in a gang to organizing environmental campaigns against oil and gas extraction, the stories of Thomas-Muller’s life defy any one category to paint a complex picture of what it is to be a Cree man in Canada.”
His memoir is an artefact of transformation-a transformation of a hardened youth who endured more tragedy and danger than most of us can imagine into a defender of people, land and the notion that all species and systems are connected.” “In latest memoir, Life in the City of Dirty Water, he painfully and bravely reveals his journey through catastrophic pain, unbelievable odds and a reconnection to land, language and culture through his work defending Mother Earth. is a deep account of survivance against systems of oppression, intergenerational trauma and addiction, and about finding healing and highlighting his Cree experience.” Thomas-Muller not only writes about his upbringing in Winnipeg, which translated from Cree means ‘dirty water,’ he unravels how he began healing by using prayer and participating in his culture. “18 Canadian books for the memoir lover on your holiday shopping list” “12 books for the outdoor enthusiast on your holiday shopping list” Tying together personal stories of survival that bring the realities of the First Nations of this land into sharp focus, and lessons learned from a career as a frontline activist committed to addressing environmental injustice at a global scale, Thomas-Muller offers a narrative and vision of healing and responsibility. Now a leading organizer and activist on the frontlines of environmental resistance, Clayton brings his warrior spirit to the fight against the ongoing assault on Indigenous peoples’ lands by Big Oil. There have been many Clayton Thomas-Mullers: The child who played with toy planes as an escape from domestic and sexual abuse, enduring the intergenerational trauma of Canada’s residential school system the angry youngster who defended himself with fists and sharp wit against racism and violence, at school and on the streets of Winnipeg and small-town British Columbia the tough teenager who, at 17, managed a drug house run by members of his family, and slipped in and out of juvie, operating in a world of violence and pain.īut behind them all, there was another Clayton: the one who remained immersed in Cree spirituality, and who embraced the rituals and ways of thinking vital to his heritage the one who reconnected with the land during summer visits to his great-grandparents’ trapline in his home territory of Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba.Īnd it’s this version of Clayton that ultimately triumphed, finding healing by directly facing the trauma that he shares with Indigenous peoples around the world.
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 MANITOBA BOOK AWARDS’ MCNALLY ROBINSON BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD*Ī gritty and inspiring memoir from renowned Cree environmental activist Clayton Thomas-Muller, who escaped the world of drugs and gang life to take up the warrior’s fight against the assault on Indigenous peoples’ lands-and eventually the warrior’s spirituality.
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