It was time to take a stand. That’s the conclusion Sharon Day, an Ojibwe and Two-Spirit elder, came to after hearing that the Minnesota Department of Transportation intended to transform Hiawatha Avenue into Highway 55, linking the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with downtown Minneapolis. The proposed expansion, Day worried, could pollute Coldwater Spring, a natural spring that both Dakota and Ojibwe people consider sacred and of immense cultural significance.

For centuries, the cool, clean waters of Coldwater Spring brought Native people together. Dakota and Ojibwe people traveled to the spring to trade, to engage in diplomacy, to dance and renew friendships, and to nurture the delicate ecosystem that groundwater flowing into the spring gave life to.

But Coldwater Spring also attracted Europeans. Fur traders routinely passed through the area, and by the early 19th century, the United States established a military reservation on adjacent lands. As white settler communities grew into what we now know as Minneapolis-Saint Paul, the Minnesota Historical Society erected a marker linking Coldwater Spring to the frontier spirit of white settlers. In so doing, they rewrote the spring’s story by erasing Native people from the region’s history.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s proposed highway, Day realized, threatened to perpetuate this historical erasure and could lead to environmental disaster. For her, taking a stand aligns with how her Ojibwe and Two-Spirit ancestors would have responded to the situation.

But what is meant by the term, Two-Spirit?  

In my new book, Reclaiming Two-Spirits, I describe how the term, Two-Spirit, emerged in 1990 after the Third International Gathering of Gay and Lesbian Indians in Winnipeg, Canada. Two-Spirit, an English translation of the Ojibwe niizh manidoowag, is often thought of as a noun—an umbrella term for a person with both male and female spirits or qualities. But the reality is far more complex.  

Two-Spirit is more verb than noun, a dynamic short-hand that provides Native people with a language to describe their fluid gender roles and sexual identities as they journey through different life stages. Since 1990, Two-Spirit has also given Native people a sense of pan-Indigenous community, inspiring individuals to reclaim gender-fluid cultures specific to their tribal nations.    

Day’s activism and commitment to social and environmental justice reflects her appreciation of Two-Spirit values. Historically, Two-Spirit people cared for children. And they were knowledge keepers, matchmakers, medicine people, and environmental stewards. Yet five centuries of colonialism have changed Two-Spirits’ roles. In the 1980s, for instance, Day left her job with the state of Minnesota to design curricula and guide efforts to implement culturally-specific care for Native people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. By the late 1990s, Day turned her attention to environmental issues and raising awareness about the importance of clean waterways.

In a 2019 interview, she reflected on her life and identity as both a lesbian woman and a Two-Spirit Ojibwe, connecting her gender and sexuality to her activism, while remaining open to what the future might hold. Day spoke in intersectional terms, using language that acknowledged historical change and eschewed the binary logic of Western epistemologies. “Sometimes people say about Two-Spirit people that we are spiritual people, and historically we were spiritual people, and we were name givers, and we were this and that and the other thing,” she said. “I like to say we are everywhere, and we do everything.”

Caregivers and Environmental Stewards

If her life is defined by creativity and dynamism, so too is the history of Two-Spirit people.  Two-Spirit people were important as caregivers and environmental stewards. For example, during his second voyage to Florida in 1562, the French Huguenot, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, reported how “an Indian woman of tall bodice” gave them fresh drinking water. He referred to this person, a Timucuan, as a “hermaphrodite,” one of the many derogatory euphemisms that Europeans used to describe Two-Spirit people. Laudonnière and his men, suffering from dehydration, owed their lives to that Timucuan Two-Spirit, who was responsible for tending to the health of local rivers and freshwater springs.

Strewn across colonialism’s written archives and preserved by Indigenous knowledge keepers, Two-Spirit histories have been hidden in plain sight. For centuries, people like the Timucuan Two-Spirit, who saved Laudonnière’s life, have served as riverkeepers and water protectors. With their accumulated knowledge of local springs, creeks, and rivers, they have used their insights to monitor the health of waterways and mediate the spiritual relationship between the people of First Nations and the potable water that sustains them.

Water Protectors Take Action

In recent years, the intersection of Two-Spirit roles, identities, and environmental stewardship has come back into focus. For instance, in 2016 and 2017, the Two-Spirit Nation extended their support to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. At Oceti Sakowin, members of the Two-Spirit Nation —warriors, healers, and caregivers—united in their opposition to the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline—“the black snake.”

Similar work continues across Canada and the United States today. In recent years, Tara Houska, a tribal attorney and Couchiching First Nation citizen, has brought Indigenous women, trans, and Two-Spirit people together in the Giniw Collective, a grassroots effort to oppose construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline through Minnesota. Like the Two-Spirit Nation at Oceti Sakowin, the Giniw Collective is building on the work and wisdom of its ancestors by putting “their bodies on the line.” As 21^st century water protectors, they recognize how vital responsible stewardship of Mother Earth is during a climate crisis.

Water Walks

Day has been at the forefront of similar collaborative efforts for much of her adult life. She continues to elevate the visibility of Two-Spirit people through her care for America’s waterways. Inspired by Anishanabee elder, Josephine Mandamin, the founder of the water walks movement, Day still follows “the footsteps of the ancestors,” leading water walks along some of America’s most polluted rivers. Day’s goal in leading Nibi walks (Nibi is the Ojibwe word for water) is to raise awareness about the pollution of American rivers and to inspire action. It is also to remind us of how Indigenous women are the “carriers of the water” and that Two-Spirit people continue to bring people together to care for life-sustaining waters.

And what of Day’s 1998 efforts to stop construction of Highway 55? Unfortunately for Day and her allies, the highway was eventually built. However, Day’s consciousness-raising efforts resulted in design concessions. In 2003, eight layers of synthetic lining stretching over six acres were installed to protect groundwater that flowed into Coldwater Spring. It was a small concession, but it wouldn’t have happened without the energy and activism of Two-Spirit people like Sharon Day.