Looking Back to Walk Forward

A PKOLS reflection on 2025 and what comes next

As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself sitting with gratitude, exhaustion, hope, and a deep sense of responsibility all at once. This year asked a lot of us. It asked us to remember things that were never meant to be forgotten, to speak truths that are still uncomfortable, and to keep showing up even when the work felt slow or heavy.

At PKOLS, 2025 was not about spectacle. It was about continuity.

It was about stones placed long ago still holding their shape. It was about water remembering its paths. It was about language, land, and lineage refusing to disappear.

A year of remembering and rebuilding

This year reminded me that cultural work is not linear. Some days felt like breakthroughs: moments where Elders’ voices carried clearly, youth leaned in with curiosity, and community showed up with open hands. Other days felt like standing in strong current pushing against erasure, bureaucracy, and the quiet fatigue that comes from being asked, again and again, to explain why this work matters.

But it does matter.

Every storypole conversation, every place-name spoken aloud, every child hearing their ancestral language even imperfectly moved us closer to balance. 2025 showed me that restoration is not about returning to a frozen past; it is about restoring relationships: with land, with water, with one another, and with truth.

What I learned this year

If 2025 taught me anything, it’s this:

• Healing is collective, not individual.

• Indigenous knowledge is not supplemental—it is foundational.

• Stewardship is not symbolic; it is practiced, daily, and often unseen.

• And most importantly: the work continues whether it is funded, applauded, or ignored.

We are not doing this for recognition.

We are doing this because our ancestors never stopped.And because future generations are already watching.

A book coming soon

Out of this year out of the walking, listening, grieving, laughing, and remembering a book has taken shape.

This upcoming book is not just a collection of words.

It is a vessel.

A reflection.

A record of what it means to live between worlds while refusing to let any of them be erased. It weaves personal memory with collective history, land-based truth with lived experience, and asks readers gently but firmly to reconsider what they think they know about this place.

It is a book shaped by saltwater, stones, voices, and time.

More details will be shared soon, but I want to say this now: this book exists because of community.

Because of those who trusted me with their stories, their corrections, their patience, and their love. It belongs as much to them as it does to me.

Stepping into the next season

As we move toward 2026, PKOLS remains rooted in the same commitments: preserving knowledge of land and sea, supporting Indigenous-led stewardship, and telling the truths that this place carries.

We are not done.

We are just getting clearer.

Thank you to everyone who walked with us this year whether loudly or quietly, publicly or behind the scenes.

Your presence mattered more than you know.

The stones are still here.

The water is still moving.

And so are we.

Josiah ~ PKOLS