Autumn Peltier: Water Is Sacred

Future Voices Magazine · Issue 01

She stood on a stool to reach the microphone.

At 13, Autumn Peltier addressed 193 member states at the United Nations General Assembly — and when she finished, even the diplomats were quiet for a moment. Not because she had used technical language or cited treaties. Because she had said the thing they all already knew and kept postponing: our water is alive, and we are failing it.

Autumn is Anishinaabe, from the Wikwemikong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island — the largest freshwater island in the world, set in the Great Lakes. She was raised with the teaching of nibi giikendaaswin, the knowledge of water: that water is not a resource to be managed, but a living relative to be protected.

She didn't wait for permission

At 8 years old, Autumn visited a neighboring First Nation for a water ceremony and discovered the community had been under a boil-water advisory for a decade. The tap water was unsafe. The ceremony bowl was ceremonial. The contrast lodged itself in her.

By 12, she was confronting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an Assembly of First Nations gathering in Gatineau, Quebec — presented with a ceremonial copper water bowl as a gesture of treaty respect, she went off-script. She told him, to his face, that she was very unhappy with his choices on pipelines and Indigenous water rights. A room of officials watched a seventh-grader say what their negotiations hadn't managed in years.

"I am very unhappy with the choices you've made." — Autumn Peltier, to Prime Minister Trudeau, 2016

The UN podium, age 13

In March 2018, the United Nations invited her to speak at the launch of the International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development. Her flight was cancelled three times. She and her mother drove 15 hours from Ontario.

When she got there, she stood on a stool behind the podium so she could reach the microphone, and she said this:

"No one should have to worry if the water is clean or if they will run out of water. No child should grow up not knowing what clean water is or never know what running water is. We all have a right to this water as we need it — not just rich people, all people."

She told CBC afterward that she wasn't nervous. "I felt like they all wanted to hear what I had to say, and I felt heard."

Chief Water Commissioner at 14

When her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin — the legendary "Grandmother Water Walker" who had trekked the shores of all five Great Lakes to draw attention to water threats — passed away in 2019, Autumn was formally appointed Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation, representing 40 First Nations across Ontario.

She was 14.

That same year she returned to the UN for the Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit. She had one line that traveled:

"We can't eat money or drink oil."

The work since

Since her UN appearances, Autumn has:

Partnered with the Dreamcatcher Charitable Foundation to bring clean water to over 500 First Nations reserve homes without government funding
Circulated a clean water petition in 2022 that gathered over 112,000 signatures, presented to the House of Commons before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
Received the Sovereign Medal of Exceptional Volunteerism from the Governor General of Canada (2019)
Been nominated four times for the International Children's Peace Prize (2017, 2018, 2019, 2022)
Received the Community Hero Award at the Canada Walk of Fame Gala (2023)

None of this resolved the boil-water advisories in the communities near her home. That's the point she keeps making.

"We need more political will — because the money exists, the expertise exists, and the only thing that's missing is a real commitment."

What she says to young people

Asked what advice she'd give others who want to do this work:

"Learn as much as you can from your elders and your teachers. Learn your history. Learn your language. Pay attention to the climate and the animals. Have respect for all living things. If you have an idea, act and make it happen. Don't be shy — anyone can do this work."

She also said: "Have fun and be a kid as much as you can."

She means both.

Future Voices Magazine spotlights youth activists shaping the world. Autumn Peltier continues her work as Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation.