© Maria Dunn, 2021

In July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Indigenous women started Pekiwewin, a peace and relief camp for people who were sleeping rough in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ / Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Pê-kîwêwin means "coming home" in Nêhiyawêwin (itwêwina online Plains Cree Dictionary; Alberta Language Technology Lab). I am grateful to Pekiwewin media liaison, and our city’s recent poet laureate (2023-2025), Shima Robinson, for taking the time to speak with me, give me feedback and encourage me to share this song.

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Listen my friends to the story I’ll tell

Concerning each person among us who dwells

Concerning each soul who calls this place home

Do you know where you’ll sleep as night falls down?

If you had no choice but a park or ravine

Or the side of a rail line, so easily seen

Will you be safe here? at the fence, on the ground

Near housing that’s empty, wealth all around

The drop-ins and shelters help where they can

But there’s not enough room so you might as well camp

With the pandemic scare, you’ll be far from the fray

And the valley beckons on a summer day

But you wake to be told: “you must move along”

Always packing, shifting, where to go now?

Or you come back to find your tent has been slashed

A strange way to help one whose hope has been smashed

Now July on the flats where the great river flows

They started a peace camp; there you could go

Where once Nêhiyawak gathered, on this very ground

Until settlers forced them beyond city bounds

Unsettling the settlers in this very land

The sheer number here shows the breach in the dam

How great is the need, how poorly it’s met

In sight, in mind, inconvenient, you bet!

In sight, in mind and demanding amends

An end to policing with violence

An end to destruction of the little they have

Care before any more fall through the cracks

No harm to those numbing their trauma too real

Without a safe haven, how do you heal?

Or with racism’s sting every day, every step?

Ceremony and prayer here, with love and respect

In the cold of November, the crisis still grave

The city evicted these poor and these brave

To another big shelter, bridge housing for some

In this shell game of misery, once more moved along

Some ask what the point was, point to debris

The remains of the camp after all had to leave

Shake the complacent, sharpen the light

On housing for all, a human right

Affordable housing, yes! everyone’s pledge

But our leaders have known this for years, still they hedge

A sacred fire in prayer and peace

Once more lights the flame under leaden feet

The story is not ended, we all must push on

As Pekiwewin did show for three months

With dignity, love, not in fear or alone

Build community, safety, a place to come home

Community, safety, a place to come home

Maria Dunn  vocal