People & Culture

Our Country: Tantoo Cardinal on belonging to the land 

The Cree and Métis actress on coming to terms with the transformation 0f her hometown

  • Published Jun 09, 2025
  • Updated Jun 17
  • 295 words
  • 2 minutes
(Illustration by Natasha Donovan)
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I was born in Fort McMurray, Alta. and grew up in the nearby community of Anzac. Whenever you saw anybody on the road, you always said hello. We shared moose meat, grew gardens and fished. We’d laugh and tell stories and cherish our musicians, dancers and jiggers. A railroad through the community was our line to the outside world.

It was also a time when companies came to Fort McMurray for oil and gas exploration. Today, the city is known as the heart of the tar sands, but I remember it quite differently. I left when I was 15 to attend high school. When I returned 15 years later with my son, on the same train I left on, the world I once knew no longer existed.

There were now roads and lines and wells everywhere. Houses had disappeared, replaced with muddy parking lots. The animals we used to live off of tasted different. Everything was nearly unrecognizable, save for a few trees that still had carvings I’d etched into them years before. I felt a sense of displacement.

I still long for the beauty that once was, but I have developed a new relationship with the Earth. Wherever I go is a place I belong — whether it’s the badlands, mountains or boreal forest, I accept it’s part of the world and the creation we’re in. Mining is depleting this living organism we’re part of, and it’s impacting us all, from the air we breathe to the water that surrounds us. Everything is connected; the oceans are the womb of Mother Earth. Everywhere we are is part of everywhere else.

Fort McMurray is on Treaty 8 territory, the traditional lands of the Cree and Dene Peoples and part of the Métis homelands.

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This story is from the May/June 2025 Issue

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