My Watermark is the Salmon River, Ontario.

I’m a single mom. I have eight brothers and one sister. I’m from Tyendinaga Mohawk territory. Traditionally the men would try and spear fish, and being the stubborn Mohawk woman that I am, I also learned to spear fish. I also learned to harvest my own. My uncle taught me to spear, and it wasn’t an easy task. However, years later it served me well, because for the most part we live off the land.

The first year, I learned to spear fish, I unknowingly took one of the last salmon out of the Salmon River. It was a big deal to the people on the shore. We no longer have salmon in our river, even though its the Salmon river, and it has been like that for many years now.

We still fish there, but we harvest pickerel, not salmon. In 2008, was the last time we saw the last sturgeons come out of the Bay of Quinte.