Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Award-winning Dene activist and writer Katlia teaches us Indigenous ways to protect Mother Earth from destruction.

The Dene in Canada’s North West territories have lived alongside nature for many generations. From battling environmental racism on the front lines of historical environmental protests, to innovating sustainable resources, to living a balanced life through effective individual and collective governance, the Dene have long protected Mother Earth from destruction through their intricate knowledge systems, natural laws, and age-old principles.

Now more than ever, institutions and citizens alike are seeking out and relying on the resilience of Indigenous knowledge systems to help solve the climate crisis. This book brings together a diverse group of Dene elders on the subject of climate change to answer the calls for help. Adhering proudly to these responsibilities and values, Katlia (pronounced cat-lee-ah) writes a Dene manifesto fit to address the state of emergency we’re in. Informed by Katlia's decades-long award-winning work and advocacy as a writer and activist, and her life experiences as a Dene woman from the north, this book achieves global relevance by focusing on the local.

This is ancient information, but it’s new to those outside the Dene community, and Katlia's voice channels our collective energy toward surprisingly simple scalable solutions such as:

  • sustainable, ethical food sources as a path toward food sovereignty
  • intermittent renewables and innovative alternatives to heat and power homes
  • housing systems incorporating green technologies into cultural ways of knowing that include living off grid
  • cultural burning to mitigate out of control wildfires

With evidence of how this all works for the Dene people, we see how it might work for us as well. This generous, pragmatic, and hopeful book shows us how to find coexistence with Mother Earth and embrace the wisdom of our local Indigenous communities.

Mother Earth Is Our Elder features 10 original black-and-white photographs.

1147826830
Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Award-winning Dene activist and writer Katlia teaches us Indigenous ways to protect Mother Earth from destruction.

The Dene in Canada’s North West territories have lived alongside nature for many generations. From battling environmental racism on the front lines of historical environmental protests, to innovating sustainable resources, to living a balanced life through effective individual and collective governance, the Dene have long protected Mother Earth from destruction through their intricate knowledge systems, natural laws, and age-old principles.

Now more than ever, institutions and citizens alike are seeking out and relying on the resilience of Indigenous knowledge systems to help solve the climate crisis. This book brings together a diverse group of Dene elders on the subject of climate change to answer the calls for help. Adhering proudly to these responsibilities and values, Katlia (pronounced cat-lee-ah) writes a Dene manifesto fit to address the state of emergency we’re in. Informed by Katlia's decades-long award-winning work and advocacy as a writer and activist, and her life experiences as a Dene woman from the north, this book achieves global relevance by focusing on the local.

This is ancient information, but it’s new to those outside the Dene community, and Katlia's voice channels our collective energy toward surprisingly simple scalable solutions such as:

  • sustainable, ethical food sources as a path toward food sovereignty
  • intermittent renewables and innovative alternatives to heat and power homes
  • housing systems incorporating green technologies into cultural ways of knowing that include living off grid
  • cultural burning to mitigate out of control wildfires

With evidence of how this all works for the Dene people, we see how it might work for us as well. This generous, pragmatic, and hopeful book shows us how to find coexistence with Mother Earth and embrace the wisdom of our local Indigenous communities.

Mother Earth Is Our Elder features 10 original black-and-white photographs.

29.99 Pre Order
Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis

by Katlia (Catherine) Lafferty
Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Mother Earth Is Our Elder: Indigenous Solutions to the Climate Crisis

by Katlia (Catherine) Lafferty

Hardcover

$29.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on April 14, 2026

Related collections and offers


Overview

Award-winning Dene activist and writer Katlia teaches us Indigenous ways to protect Mother Earth from destruction.

The Dene in Canada’s North West territories have lived alongside nature for many generations. From battling environmental racism on the front lines of historical environmental protests, to innovating sustainable resources, to living a balanced life through effective individual and collective governance, the Dene have long protected Mother Earth from destruction through their intricate knowledge systems, natural laws, and age-old principles.

Now more than ever, institutions and citizens alike are seeking out and relying on the resilience of Indigenous knowledge systems to help solve the climate crisis. This book brings together a diverse group of Dene elders on the subject of climate change to answer the calls for help. Adhering proudly to these responsibilities and values, Katlia (pronounced cat-lee-ah) writes a Dene manifesto fit to address the state of emergency we’re in. Informed by Katlia's decades-long award-winning work and advocacy as a writer and activist, and her life experiences as a Dene woman from the north, this book achieves global relevance by focusing on the local.

This is ancient information, but it’s new to those outside the Dene community, and Katlia's voice channels our collective energy toward surprisingly simple scalable solutions such as:

  • sustainable, ethical food sources as a path toward food sovereignty
  • intermittent renewables and innovative alternatives to heat and power homes
  • housing systems incorporating green technologies into cultural ways of knowing that include living off grid
  • cultural burning to mitigate out of control wildfires

With evidence of how this all works for the Dene people, we see how it might work for us as well. This generous, pragmatic, and hopeful book shows us how to find coexistence with Mother Earth and embrace the wisdom of our local Indigenous communities.

Mother Earth Is Our Elder features 10 original black-and-white photographs.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780063397224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 04/14/2026
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Katlia is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation from Somba K’e (Yellowknife), Northwest Territories, Canada, an activist, and lawyer. Katlia's debut memoir, Northern Wildflower, was a top-selling book in the Northwest Territories and her debut novel Land-Water-Sky/Ndè-Ti-Yat'a was nominated for a 2021 Indigenous Voices Award and won the 2021 Adult Book Award at the NorthWords NWT Awards. In 2022, Katlia was appointed as the inaugural climate writer-in-residence at the West Vancouver Memorial Library.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews