When he speaks, he draws from two worlds — ancient and immediate.
A member of the Ktunaxa Nation’s Akisqnuk Band, Faro Burgoyne stood before an audience interested in water conservation to share wisdom: this land remembers, and water listens.
Faro was the opening presenter at a Wildsight-hosted event this spring that focused on recreation and water health in the Columbia Valley. In front of an audience of about 60 people at the Radium Hot Springs Centre, he began not with data or policy recommendations, but with the Ktunaxa Creation story, where characters shaped the land and water through conflict and journey. That story, Faro explained, mirrors the way his people have lived following two lifelines: the Columbia and Kootenay rivers.
“Water sustains life,” he said. “That’s what created an environment where we could stay and thrive as a people.”
Faro shared how, after years of feeling disconnected from his identity, he’s now working with the Ktunaxa Council and reconnecting with his cultural roots. That journey back was shaped, in part, by two memories.
The first was a moment at school, when he quietly removed recycling from the garbage. Another student watched him and quipped, “That’s what you guys are all about,” implying Indigenous people are ‘all about’ protecting the land.
“I wanted to oppose that — to say I’m not painted with the same brush as every Indigenous person — but I couldn’t argue with it,” said Faro. “To the core, I was like, ‘yeah, that’s my purpose. That’s what I have to do: take care of the land.’”
The second memory runs deeper. At 10 years old, Faro sat on the floor during a youth-elder engagement session, listening as a residential school survivor shared his story about how their people almost lost their culture.
“He had our full attention,” Faro recalled. “At the end, he looked at us and said, ‘It’s up to you: to carry on our culture, our traditions and to take care of this land.’”
Now, Faro takes the elder’s words a step further, noting it is not just up to his people to take care of this place: it’s up to all of us.
“You don’t have to be Indigenous to have this connection with the water. We all live here. We all drink this water. It makes up our bodies and sustains our lives.”Faro Burgoyne
If you form a relationship with water, if you truly listen to it, you begin to see it not as a resource, but as family: “You can consider it an ancestor,” he explained. “It provides for you — not the other way around.”
Faro said the Ktunaxa Nation is committed to stewarding and protecting water from contamination and further damage. He cited the selenium pollution problem in the Elk Valley as well as concerns around water quality in the Columbia Valley.
“We talk about the mighty Columbia River,” he said. “But here at the headwaters [near Canal Flats], it doesn’t even make it 10 kilometres before it’s polluted.”
He raised concerns about increasing contamination of Columbia Valley waters and shared that the Akisqnuk First Nation is committed to working with all levels of government to continue to steward and protect these waters for generations to come.
Faro ended his talk praising the community partners aligned and working with the Ktunaxa Nation on water-related issues, including the Lake Windermere Ambassadors, Columbia Lake Stewardship Society, and Wildsight.
“On behalf of ʔakisq̓nuk First Nation, we’re committed to collaborating with all levels of government and organizations to put an end to wake boats and to take it further: to steward our lakes and this powerful watershed,” he concluded.
