One day, Angus went down to see his river. Helford flowed from the Atlantic, past Bosahan, up through Ponstantual Creek, and came to meet Angus in Roskymmer Woods. But, when Angus saw Helford, he felt fear for the river who he loved and where he grew up.
This river who held him afloat.
Helford was sick, poisoned and used as a sewer by the water company which alleged to own the water.¹
Angus cried out “Oh Helford! What can I do to help you? Who am I if you are gone?”²
Helford spoke softly, “you must leave my banks, like the kingfisher and the heron have done, to find new answers. Fly over the Atlantic which connects us and Québec. Learn from Mutehekau Shipu and the Innu who live alongside her.”
Angus accepted.
After many days of travelling, Angus came to the river who flows between the square rocky cliffs, the home of the Innu. When he arrived, he met Lydia Metokosho-Paradis, who was down by the river talking with her ancestors.³ He saw how the river sustained the Innu and how they cared for the river in return.⁴ Angus realised how he did not know of his ancestors. Of how Helford had been a busy highway for fishermen and smugglers. Of trigging for cockles but leaving the small ones for the future seasons. Angus vowed to return to his community and to work together to practice this original way of caring for life below water.⁵
Angus started to walk and began to see how the river was a place of healing, of navigation, a place to learn. The river was their pharmacy, their roads, their school, their institutions made stable by the river who flowed in each one of them. But now the Innu fought tirelessly against the dam which would drown the river and their way of life. Angus vowed to join them.⁶
He continued upstream. For the Innu, travel allowed them to be the ears and eyes of the river. Angus reflected not only on the environmental impact of his flight over the sea, but how it had drawn a barrier between him and the natural world; he knew nothing of the water that he had flown over. He lastly learnt from the Innu to change the language he used, to undo the categories of living and object which had hurt Helford for so long. For Mutehekau Shipu was the river! The river was alive! Mutehekau Shipu was well. Helford could be well again.
And that is the story of how Angus came to meet Mutehekau Shipu.
Citations
¹ Surfers Against Sewage, Water Quality Report 2025 https://www.sas.org.uk/resource/water-quality-report-2025/
² Natalie Diaz, The First Water is the Body : Postcolonial Love Poem (London: Faber & Faber, 2020) p.49
³ Robert Macfarlane, Is A River Alive (London: Penguin, 2026) p.237
⁴ Monica Feria-Tinta, A Barrister for the Earth (London: Faber & Faber, 2025) p.59
⁵ UN Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal14
⁶ SNAP Québec https://snapquebec.org
