Zoë Urness Photograph Canoe Family

Canoe Family “The warm and loving embracing of our daughter, during the shoot, reminds me of what it must have felt like for her in the womb. Looking at this image of us all snuggled in the canoe, I see unconditional love, and parents who will do anything to protect her. As an indigenous mother, it is my job to eliminate the effects of colonialism by being the one that ends intergenerational trauma that has passed down from generation to generation in Native communities. Raising my children in a loving environment, ensuring they know who they are, and where they come from, having healthy parents and a strong family. It is my job as an indigenous mother to nurture, love and teach our traditional ways, to ensure our culture will continue to be passed down to future generations. We chose to give our daughter the traditional name that I carry, Dem-I-Thia, it comes from a strong line of matriarchal women, seven generations back in my family. This is a name carried by my Grandma (Vera La