Kaella-Marie Earle is Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong and Aroland First Nation. She is an emissions engineer at Enbridge Gas and vice-chair of the Indigenous advisory committee at the Canada Energy Regulator.
I grinned out the car window as my good friend Denise Boyer-Payette reminded me of the day we first met – a moment that neither of us could have predicted would lead me into the very industry I once strongly opposed.
”The first time I met you, you slammed a book on the table and declared that the university should divest from oil and gas. And I thought to myself, ‘I’d follow you anywhere,’ ” she said with a laugh.
It’s strange how things turned out. No one expected me, least of all myself, to become an engineer in oil and gas. Yet here I am.
As I grow older, I spend more time reflecting on how I got here. Being Anishinaabe in the oil and gas industry hasn’t always been easy, and it still isn’t. I often ask myself: Am I betraying my people? Am I really standing up for Anishinaabeg? Am I acting out of love for the land and indinawemaaganidog – all my relations?
Turtle Island is burning, flooding and enduring drought at unprecedented rates. Our animal relatives are disappearing, and disease plagues the land. It seems that every week, new assertions of rights through legal means inspire oppositional reactions from government and industry instead of collaborative ones. It echoes the end-of-world aadizookaan, stories Anishinaabeg have passed down from time immemorial. But perhaps inside of this story, there is hope.
Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow is such a story. In it, the world ends, and Anishinaabe are finding ways to survive. But what stood out to me is the deeper message: Our teachings, the Anishinaabe way of knowing, offer a returning pathway to safety. In many of our aadizookaan, it’s when Nanaboozhoo, a spirit and trickster figure, and the animals return to those teachings that they find a way out of their world-ending predicaments.
These aadizookaan make up the identity of Anishinaabeg. As Globe journalist and author Tanya Talaga writes, this is “The Knowing,” a process of returning to who we are, to the stories, land and relations that shape us. For Anishinaabe people, belonging comes from knowing where we’re from. It’s the foundation of safety, something that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – which may have been inspired by Siksika (Blackfoot) teachings – emphasizes as being essential to human well-being. Psychology Today further defines belonging as the principle from which all other needs flow.
So, who am I?
I am Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong and Aroland First Nation. I was born in Sudbury – N’Swakamok – on Atikameksheng and Wahnapitae territory. My father, an electrician turned engineer, immersed me in the world of energy. Some of my earliest memories are of him describing his work with stars in his eyes, designing power systems, or showing me photos of the projects he managed. I grew up in an energy house; it’s no wonder energy became an important thread in my life.
But my identity also carries the weight of my family’s history with Indian residential and day schools. Those schools severed my connection to Anishinaabemowin, my language, and disrupted the knowing of who I am. As a child, the stories of what happened to my relatives felt like a haunting secret – a terrifying truth that hovered over us but rarely got spoken aloud. Learning about Canada’s genocide against my people as an adult fuelled an ancestral rage in me. Many of my relatives did not have the privilege to allow themselves to feel. And my anger fuelled a journey to reclaim myself.
I threw myself into Anishinaabe teachings. I ran experiential learning camps to revitalize Anishinaabe knowledge. I poured my heart out at Anishinaabe women’s talking circles, made my own drum, sang and went to ceremonies. I listened to young people share their grief at the Feathers of Hope event in Thunder Bay. I beaded and crafted leather mitts out of deer hide and rabbit fur. I bathed in cedar water and breathed in the cool air of Animkii Wajiw in my mother’s homeland in Treaty 9. I watched the soft glow of the grandfather and grandmother asiniik – sweat-lodge stones that symbolize wisdom, our ancestors and the knowledge of the land – and I prayed.
I grieved for myself and my family. The grief enveloped me. And I let it, for a while. It was another end of the world, after all. But the grief couldn’t last forever. I transformed it into advocacy.
Colonization has always been intertwined with resource extraction – especially mining and energy. I’m a staunch Sudburian, and Sudbury has been a mecca of environmental devastation. It taught me well. For a long time, my place felt clear: I stood against all of it, any action that harmed the land. Climate-change activism became an expression of my Anishinaabe identity. It felt like a reclamation of myself. I found my voice, speaking out at university, calling for divestment from oil and gas, organizing against pipelines such as the Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and even joining Al Gore’s Climate Reality training.
To my friend Denise’s earlier words, I was outspoken, and decided I’d become an environmental engineer. I finally knew who I was. It lit a fire in my heart. I’m made of the land, and I’ll protect it. Because protecting it is protecting myself.
Then I got a co-op interview at Union Gas (now Enbridge Gas).
Waaseyaa ndzhnikaaz, Wiikwemkoong minwaa Aroland ndoonjibaa, mkwa ndodem, Anishinaabe kwe ndaaw. My name is Bright Light. I belong to Wiikwemoong and Aroland First Nations. I’m of the bear clan. I’m Anishinaabe.
Haudenosaunee teachings, shared with me by Joe Martin from Six Nations, introduced me to the Two Row Wampum – a legal agreement between settlers and First Nations that says we travel together, side by side, without interfering with one another. In my mind, I imagine it as a peaceful weaving, with two parallel and equal threads. But Canada hasn’t honoured these types of agreements. Instead, our paths are knotted together, with colonialism’s threads binding us in historic disregard for the self-determination and inherent rights of our peoples.
For me, existing in the oil and gas industry is about untangling those knots, and honouring my bear clan duty to protect the people and promote peace. These teachings, along with years of soliciting advice from elders and other Anishinaabe leaders, live in my bones.
My first job interview in oil and gas was in 2018 (working in gas pipeline construction), and six years later, I’m still here. I’m an emissions and industrial decarbonization engineer, working on designing the future of net-zero operations at the Dawn Hub storage facility. Not out of resignation, but purpose. To protect my people, and myself, in the best way I can. To impart hope and confidence in others.
I want to stand up for First Nations’ human rights in energy. I want to build up the capacity for allyship for First Nations among those who hold power in this country. I want to stand up for the implementation of harm-reducing strategies in oil and gas through an industrial decarbonization and transition in energy. I want to protect energy security.
I want to redefine the way engineers and other energy professionals understand “the safety of the public” – our highest and most revered value – to more readily include First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. I want to redefine safety through an Anishinaabe lens so that people understand the safety of the land is our safety. I want to work with the best energy professionals in the world to redefine what energy looks like for the betterment of the land.
I genuinely believe in the goodness of the people who exist here. It isn’t what I expected. But I’ve been heartened to meet young oil and gas workers keen to reduce emissions, as well as front-line workers who have fed their families for generations from the pipeline business and are looking to protect their livelihoods. Many kind people in leadership have made space for me to be authentic. And I have been. The expansion of the way people understand safety here has been instrumental in a change of praxis: one that is kinder to the land, and one that inspires and empowers people to create a more just and sustainable energy future.
Anishinaabe teachings tell us to always approach with the spirit of humility and friendship. When you prioritize both of these, blended with the four basic concepts of decision-making authority, land stewardship, respect for our culture, and including our governments and laws, much of the non-technical risk to energy and mining will be mitigated, energy transition and remediation plans will be strengthened, and we’ll be starting to build a new way to develop resources.
It’s not perfect, and I don’t have all of the answers. But what I do know is that oil and gas is where I expect the most exciting and innovative energy transition change to stem from.
It’ll take a village to steer ourselves out of this end-of-the-world we are currently finding ourselves in. But armed with my knowing, I lean confidently into it. Our ancient aadizookaan confirm that the future of energy needs Anishinaabe. And our people, together with the energy industry, can build a more self-determining and prosperous future.
We can strengthen each other and write the story of a more just energy future. So aambe – let’s go.