What are the challenges we face around water in Western Canada?

What are our rights to water? Does water itself have rights?

Water Rites: Reimagining Water in the West documents the many ways that water flows through our lives, connecting the humans, animals and plants that all depend on this precious and endangered resource.

Essays from scholars, activists, environmentalists, and human rights advocates illuminate the diverse issues surrounding water in Alberta, including the right to access clean drinking water, the competing demands of the resource development industry and Indigenous communities, and the dwindling supply of fresh water in the face of human-caused climate change. Statements from community organizations detail the challenges facing watersheds, and the actions being taken to mitigate these problems. With a special focus on Environmental and Indigenous issues, Water Rites explores how deeply water is tied to human life.

These essays are complemented by full-colour portfolios of work by contemporary painters, photographers, and installation artists who explore our relation to water. Reproductions of historical paintings, engravings and film stills demonstrate how water has shaped our country's cultural imaginary from its beginnings, proving that water is a vital resource for our lives and our imaginations.

Jim Ellis is Professor of English and Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary. He has written widely on art, literatue and film, and has served on the boards of Truck Gallery and Calgary Cinematheque.

Jim Ellis' profile page

Interspersed with full-colour photographs, maps, and artwork, the chapters from fourteen contributors address a wonderfully wide range of water-related topics . . . By incorporating narratives documenting both pressing problems and collaborative solutions, the volume presents the reader with both a sense of urgency and the possibility of justice and change, bringing us one step closer to reimagining water in the west.

—Zander Albertson, BC Studies

Water Rights is an insightful, moving, beautiful book. Melding the scholarly with the narrative and the artistic, the volume provides a unique contribution to the literature around water security and well-being.

—Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, Great Plains Research

Visually cohesive and elegant . . . recommended for anyone seeking to environmental studies work with Native perspectives and instructors looking for holistic approaches to environmental issues.

—Ellen Ahlness, Electronic Green Journal