Born to be Brave

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food

And then he made Peace Walker and thought "I should give her a weird mean lesbian scientist girlfriend with a pixie cut who wears formal wear every day of her life and since soldier lady dies in snake eater it's doomed yuri where after soldier lady dies the scientist girlfriend is obsessed with her for the rest of her life"

Idaho banned Pride flags. Boise’s mayor wrapped the flagpoles in rainbow instead.

Idaho Governor Brad Little signed HB 561 into law last week, prohibiting government buildings from flying non-official flags, with fines of $2,000 a day for non-compliance. Boise had been flying a Pride flag for over a decade.

Within a week, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean had the city’s flagpoles wrapped in Pride colours. The rainbow wrapping sits on the pole itself, not as a flag. The city is also displaying a large “Creating a city for everyone” sign on City Hall and rainbow lighting around the building at night.

The city’s response was precise: “The city of Boise remains in compliance with the law and is not flying any city official Pride flags on our properties.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ted Hill, has openly stated his bill was specifically designed to target Boise for flying the Pride flag. The mayor’s response: comply with the letter of the law, and ignore its spirit entirely.

I went to “the club” for the first time recently—the gay kind, in the gayborhood, because I have no business going to “the club” anywhere else. Coincidentally, this was a few days before they painted the crosswalk over. I remember staring down, sad, thinking, “damn, they’ll be painting that over soon.” Sure enough, it was gone before the end of the weekend.

A week or so later, I happened to drive down that street while eking out my sad little delivery driver shift. I looked at the crosswalk. As much as someone got themselves arrested trying to fix it (based, btw), the rainbow was gone. Alas.

Then I looked up.

Every building on the street was decked out like a pride parade had fucking exploded. A lot of the people were decked out as well. It was even gayer than it had been before. I looked into the window of one of the bars and their TV was playing a series of graphics that basically said “they took our fucking crosswalk away, the bastards,” in a sea of what I can only imagine was every fucking rainbow flag they could find. I almost cried laughing.

While four leatherback sea turtle nests might not sound like a lot, it's the same number in a single year as were found in total during the ten year span between 2015-2025. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is also on the north edge of the species' range, so leatherback sea turtle nests are already not very common in the area.