Learning from water … plus more local events

You’re reading the April 17, 2025 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

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Hello, and welcome to the arts and community newsletter from Peterborough Currents. I’m Alex, and I send this email every Thursday. 

This week, I’m spotlighting an exciting new local book: Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. The book will be released next week, and a launch event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 22 at Take Cover Books.

As always, I’ve also got a few more event listings for you at the end of the email as well.

Let’s get started!

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Celebrated local Nishnaabeg writer to launch new book at Take Cover Books

Local Nishnaabeg poet, musician, writer and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson will launch her newest book, Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead, at Take Cover Books next week.

“Writers obviously have a love for indie bookstores, and to have one in our community again is so special,” said Simpson, who is from Alderville First Nation. “I feel really, really lucky to have that presence in the community … I think it’s going to be a really lovely kind of hometown evening, so I’m pretty excited.”

The event, taking place from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on April 22, will include intimate readings from the book and a moment of remembrance for Curve Lake elder Doug Williams, whom Simpson described as a “tremendous influence” on both her life and her writing. Williams passed away in July 2022.

Theory of Water is a reflection on water as a teacher and connector of all living things. “In this book, water was a collaborator and a teacher for me,” Simpson said. “I was thinking about this global water cycle, and how it cycles, and has cycled throughout time … I was thinking about how water travels inside my body, outside of my body, from Peterborough to every living being in every place on the planet.”

The book is deeply rooted in Simpson’s traditional territory, from Jackson Creek to the lakes north of Nogojiwanong. Simpson learns alongside water as she skis across snowy trails in Jackson Park and paddles on the Otonabee River. “I have a lot of love for the land and the environment around here, and the lakes and the rivers,” she said. “For me, it’s a very, very inspiring place.”

In the book, Simpson pays attention to what water has to teach us, and she deepens her understanding of the reciprocity-driven ethic of her ancestors as she does so. Water heals. Water sustains. Water connects. It offers a model for how human beings should live, she argues. “The never ending flow of the global water cycle reciprocally nourishes life on the planet and teaches us about accountability,” she writes.

The book tackles the injustices of capitalism and colonialism, and imagines a future beyond those “world-ending” modes of being, inspired by the persistence of water. Despite everything, water “is still here,” she writes. “Still coping and trying and flowing. Still moving.”

Simpson hopes that her book offers readers comfort, perspective and encouragement during these stressful times. “I hope that people come out of the book just feeling a little calmer and maybe looking at the world a little differently,” she said. “Maybe they would come out finding a little bit of solace in the book and finding some energy to continue to face our present moment with as much love and kindness and new ideas as possible.”

(With files from Will Pearson)

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Revisit our 2021 interview with Simpson

Currents first interviewed Leanne Betasamosake Simpson back in 2021, when she released her Polaris Prize-shortlisted record, Theory of Ice. In that interview, Simpson discussed the role that art plays in building a more just world.

“In my artistic work, I try to operate from a place of generative refusal,” Simpson said. “I’m using that colonial reality and the violence that has been presented to me as inevitable and normal, and then generating an alternative, building a world that’s different and is Anishinaabe, but exists in the present.”

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What’s happening in Peterborough this weekend?

• High voltage rock and blues group The Hounds of Thunder will play a free concert at The Black Horse Pub this Friday night from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. 
  
• Clean Up Peterborough, The City of Peterborough and Peterborough DBIA invite locals to participate in The Unsmoke Butt Blitz this Saturday to help clean up downtown. Folks are asked to bring an old container or jar to collect cigarette butts in. Gloves, buckets and litter pickers for larger trash will be provided. The group will meet at Quaker Foods City Square at 10 a.m.
  
• Belleview Hill Farms will host a family-friendly Easter event this Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. There will be live music, an Easter egg hunt, horse rides, art activities and more. Admission to the farm is free, but organizers recommend bringing cash for vendors and paid activities.
  
• Local glam punk group My Fair Lady will bring a special Chicks and Bunnies show to The Pig’s Ear Tavern this Sunday at 9 p.m. Cover costs $5 for the Easter extravaganza show.
  
• The New Canadians Centre will host its second annual Health Fair for Newcomers to Canada next Wednesday, April 23 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event is free and drop-ins are welcome. Visitors will learn about health and wellness services in Peterborough, with presentations, activities and more than 24 agency booths onsite.

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