James Kataquapit and Monique Edwards of Attawapiskat First Nation ride their canoe down the Attawapiskat river on Oct. 25, 2025.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Adrian Sutherland is a recording artist from Attawapiskat on James Bay and author of the new book The Work of Our Hands: A Cree Meditation on the Real World.
When you say the word “Attawapiskat” to most Canadians, a specific loop of imagery begins to play. They see the headlines. They see the poverty and the despair. They see sagging mould-filled houses with generations packed tight inside. They see the substance abuse, the suicide crises, and the decaying water system that has become a national symbol for the everyday injustice faced by First Nations communities.
I cannot tell you that those images are false. Life here is hard. The struggle is visible; it is etched into the infrastructure and the faces of my neighbours.
So, the question I am asked most often – by journalists, by fans, sometimes even by friends in the south – is simple: Why? Why does a Juno-nominated musician choose to stay here? Why, when I have seen the world and have the means to leave, do I raise my son in the very place the rest of the country pities?
It is a fair question. But the answer cannot be found in a political talking point or a policy paper. The answer is in the dirt. It is in the cold. The answer to why I live here is found entirely in how I live here.
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It comes down to a reality that many of us have lost touch with: the concrete, undeniable truth of the physical world.
To understand my choice, you have to look at my hands. In a single week, these hands might hold a guitar, playing a melody that must be technically precise to ring true. But those same hands will also hold a hammer to repair a wall, a rifle to hunt for sustenance, and a heavy canister used to haul water to my family home because the pipes aren’t reliable. They will gather the specific materials needed to construct a traditional Cree sweat lodge.
This is not just “chores” or “survival.” It is a philosophy. I don’t just paint a portion of the world few of us have ever seen; I am trying to lay out the way the world itself teaches us right and wrong.
We live in an era of subjectivity, where truth is often debated in abstract terms on screens. But up here, the land does not debate. If you construct the sweat lodge poorly, it will not hold heat, or it will collapse. If you do not respect the weather, you will freeze. If you play the musical note off-key, it sounds dissonant. The physical world has contours and hard edges. It teaches you quickly that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach it.
This is what I call the “prepolitical.”
Rangers and Indigenous teenagers skin a caribou for dinner at a young bush camp that teaches survival skills in Attawapiskat in April, 2016.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
I realized recently that anyone reading this – or reading my new book – might immediately put their guard up, expecting a political diatribe. I am a Cree man, writing about Attawapiskat; surely, I am about to list the failures of the federal government. And yes, I have a bone to pick with policies that have left my community behind. The anger is there, and it is righteous.
But if you look closer, you will see a paradox that breaks the stereotype. I am a Ranger. I wear the uniform. I am sworn to defend this country and its government. I am not an outsider looking to tear things down; I am a defender of the land and the people, regardless of their politics.
The land, you see, is the great equalizer. It is the “prepolitical” space. When you are out on the land, the politics of the Prime Minister do not matter. The budget deficit does not matter. What matters is your competence, your respect for the environment, and your ability to work with your hands to survive.
This is the lesson I want my son to learn. I want him to know that freedom is not the absence of difficulty. Freedom is the ability to choose a difficult path and the competence to walk it.
Everyday life in Attawapiskat means choosing the hard path. It can wear you down. The immensity of the north is intimidating; it is a world that is very tough and indifferent to your comfort. But there is something here that outweighs the difficulty, something that makes the struggle worth it.
These are the ancestral lands of my people. This is where I was taught to honour those who came before me, to honour those here today, and those yet to come. When I step out into that bush, I do not feel the despair of the headlines. I feel alive. I feel safe. I feel protected.
There is a presence here. It feels as though my ancestors are always with me, watching me, guiding me, and walking alongside me. I could not replicate that feeling in a condo in Toronto. I could not teach my son what it means to be Cree by showing him pictures in a museum. I have to show him the water. I have to show him the ice. I wanted to make sure that my children and grandchildren experienced, either wholly or partially, what I had growing up.
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We often mistake ease for freedom. We think that if we can buy everything we need, if we never have to sweat or freeze or haul our own water, we are free. But I argue the opposite is true. When we lose the connection to the “work of our hands,” we lose our agency. We become dependent on systems we don’t understand and can’t fix.
In Attawapiskat, despite the systemic failures, there is a profound agency in our daily survival. There is a music to it – a rhythm of gathering, fixing, hunting, building.
My songs are not just for my people, or for people who already agree with me. They are for all of us. Politics often demands we turn our backs on those who see things differently, but the land demands we work together. If your snowmobile breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you don’t ask the person stopping to help you who they voted for. You ask if they have a wrench.
That is the space where we can find each other again. Not in the arguments, but in the tools. Not in the headlines, but in the landscape.
I stay in Attawapiskat because it is the only place where the world makes total sense to me. It is the only place where the jagged edges of reality fit the shape of my soul. I stay because I want my son to know that he is not a victim of history, but a survivor of it, capable of building his own warmth in the cold.
That is what I wish Canadians knew. We are not just surviving here; in the hardest ways possible, we are living. And we are free.