ICE Directional Gatherings
About
The Directional Gatherings intend to create space for the community to come together, spend time on the land and share visions for the future.
Your participation will help shape Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE) programs and solidarity work, ensuring they are reflective of current and ongoing realities.
Intentions
Our Directional Gatherings are rooted in strengthening relationships, exchanging knowledge, and shaping a clean energy future that rises from the land. Here’s what guides our path:
- Fostering Connections: We’re creating spaces for our people—both within and beyond the ICE circle—to build meaningful connections and support each other as relatives.
- Widening the Circle of ICE: By sharing our stories, the impacts we’re making, and the opportunities before us, we aim to spread awareness of Indigenous Clean Energy’s work and build our collective strength.
- Gathering Wisdom, Building Solutions: We’re bringing together our communities, governments, and industry partners to listen to our community needs and co-create clean energy solutions that are grounded in our cultural values.
- Honoring Our Ways: We cherish and share the insights from our grassroots efforts, the traditional knowledge passed down through generations, and the community-driven action that brings real change.
- Strengthening Our Council’s Guidance: Our ICE Advisory Council members hold a vital role in guiding this work, ensuring that diverse voices shape the direction of our programs and partnerships.
- Supporting Paths from Local to National: These gatherings help us identify regional paths forward and connect our people to a wider national network of resources, collaborators, and opportunities.
- Building Towards Our National Gathering: Our Directional Gathering conversations lay the foundation for our National Gathering, ensuring continuity, deeper collaboration, and long-term support across Turtle Island.
The Directions
North
- Iqaluit, NU
August / September 2025
South
- Manitoulin Island, ON
October 2025
East
- New Brunswick
October / November 2025
West
- British Columbia
February 2026
Central
- Dakota Dunes, SK
March 2026
About the Artwork
This artwork represents balance, connection, and the role of Indigenous stewardship in protecting the land and building a sustainable future.
The symmetrical design reflects the importance of balance within ourselves, our communities, and our relationship with the natural world. At the center, Indigenous people are gathered around water, symbolizing care, responsibility, and the relationship we hold as caretakers of the land.
The sun rises over trees, a river, and the sky. These elements represent sources of clean energy: solar, wind, water, and biomass. These aren’t just resources but living relations. Subtle faces are drawn into the trees and water to remind us of their spirit and presence. They are beings of their own, deserving of respect and care.
Above the landscape is the Thunderbird, a powerful being that offers protection. Its presence is a prayer for the land, for all its beings, for our people, and for the generations yet to come. The Thunderbird watches over everything, guarding what is sacred.
Surrounding the image is the medicine wheel. It holds the teachings of the four directions, the four elements, and the sacred cycles of life. The floral patterns in each quadrant speak to growth and connection.
This piece carries hope for a future rooted in respect, balance, and care for the land and all beings that so generously give us everything we need to live a good life.
-Annie Waabizii Courchene
Annie Waabizii Courchene is a proud Anishinaabe and Nehinaw artist from Sagkeeng First Nation. She works under her traditional name Waabizii, meaning “white swan,” a name given to her by her grandfather.
A multidisciplinary artist, her practice includes painting, sewing, beadwork, and tattooing.
Waabizii’s work is deeply inspired by her spirituality, ancestral knowledge, teachings, and the natural world. In a world shaped by settler colonialism, she sees art as a form of medicine, healing, and resistance.
Contact
- Danika Crow
Event Management Coordinator
danika.crow@indigenouscleanenergy.com
- Mackenzie Roop
National Energy and Climate Policy Analyst