Being human is full of contradiction. It is all our condition that we must seek balance between our love for and our need to use the beauty, abundance, and biodiversity of the world that cares for us all.

I’m lying on a mat of black spruce boughs that covers the teepee floor, listening to the rain falling, and watching the fire burn in the central circle of stones. It’s cold outside, and every now and then a gust of wind swirls and pushes its way in under the door flap and makes the fire flare a little.

The hydrostatic gearing on the four-wheeler whines when I let up on the throttle. The machine slows on the narrow logging bridge crossing Nahmakanta Stream, and the plastic buckets in the trailer roll forward, clattering against the metal mesh of the trailer box.

I’m sitting in camp this evening, here on the southernmost lands of the James Bay Cree, watching the dragonflies diving and feeding on the mosquitoes that are getting thicker as the light fades.

It’s the middle of March and I’m standing this morning just about midway between fifty-three-and fifty-four-degrees north latitude, outside of the town of Radisson in northern Québec. It’s snowing now and the wind is cutting, though it was sunny and calm at dawn. My vantage point is the top of the spillway of the Robert Bourassa Dam – part of the world’s largest hydro-electric facility – above the so-called Giant’s Stairway.