"When Swift Fox's father picks her up to go visit her aunties, uncles, and cousins, her belly is already full of butterflies. And when he tells her that today is the day that she'll learn how to be Mi'kmaq, the butterflies grow even bigger. Though her father reassures her that Mi'kmaq is who she is from her eyes to her toes, Swift Fox doesn't understand what that means"--

Rebecca Thomas is a Mi’kmaw woman registered with Lennox Island First Nation. She is the daughter of a residential school survivor and unrelenting advocate for her community. She is a published poet and was the Halifax Poet Laureate from 2016 to 2018. She lives in K’jipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki.