Review of Walking Together, Working Together: Engaging Wisdom for Indigenous Well-Being by Leslie Main Johnson and Janelle Marie Baker (eds.)

This collection considers Indigenous well-being through a diversity of voices and pathways, distinct and interconnected.With the aim of supporting communities, Elders, and non-Indigenous people in working together to improve Indigenous wellbeing, it centres an inclusive and dynamic conception of well-being through holistic perspectives including ecological, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.Chapters cover contextualized discussions of traditional healing, plant knowledge, and foods, and guidance for culturally sensitive approaches to healing work with urban Indigenous communities, and for collaboration with Indigenous expertise in clinical practice.Recognizing the centrality of relationships, the collection offers opportunities to reflect on how relationships including those to the land, with self, spirituality, creativity, and to culture and community relate to well-being.The work of creating a space to engage with this knowledge in intercultural spaces is a delicate task, due to the brilliant complexity and diversity of relationships involved in culturally distinct Indigenous modes of connecting with well-being, the sacred and protected nature of those distinct medicines and expertise, and the legacy of settler colonial harms through the invalidation, appropriation, and criminalization of Indigenous Peoples' expertise.The authors present a collaborative and graceful process of respecting knowledge sharing, intellectual property, and sovereignty.Alone, chapters 2-3, spoken by Elders Harry Watchmaker, Camille Russell, and Hal Eagletail as Traditional Knowledge Keepers (TKKs), offer vital insights for anyone working to support Indigenous well-being in Alberta and beyond.But the point is there is nothing alone about these conversations, because they are not happening in isolation.They are deeply interconnected, as Elder Harry Watchmaker describes in his articulation of the work of inter-Indigenous cultural knowledge exchange between communities:"Going back to the past-more local Traditional Knowledge Keepers were utilized, they were more used in the community.As time goes, they pass on, and [there are] less Traditional Knowledge Keepers in our community.So we have to adopt Traditional Knowledge Keepers from other communities, other reserves to continue the teachings that we had at one time."(p.24) As he shifts in his narrative to give examples of teachings from his own community about what is important for well-being, one has the sense that this gently put statement from Watchmaker, as a Kehewin Cree Nation ceremonialist, may be more than a description of the task at hand.Is he calling in the capacity for cultural revitalization for all Nations who, as a result of colonization, have experienced disconnect from healing traditions?What a way to open the dialogue, establish a shared purpose, and set an intention of collaboration grounded in contextualized knowledge gathering processes, roles, and ontological connection.In chapter 3, Elder Camille (Pablo) Russell, from the Kainai Blackfoot First Nation, elucidated the work of collaboration between TKKs and settler colonial healthcare settings.Speaking about his role as a Traditional Wellness counsellor in an Indigenous health clinic in Calgary, Russell explains: