Fact-based journalism that sparks the Canadian conversation

Articles Business Environment Health Politics Arts & Culture Society

Special Series Hope You’re Well For the Love of the Game Living Rooms In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration Terra Cognita More special series >

For the Love of the Game

In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration

More special series >

Events The Walrus Talks The Walrus Video Room The Walrus Leadership Roundtables The Walrus Leadership Forums Article Club

The Walrus Video Room

The Walrus Leadership Roundtables

The Walrus Leadership Forums

Subscribe Renew your subscription Change your address Magazine Issues Newsletters Podcasts

Renew your subscription

The Walrus Lab Hire The Walrus Lab Amazon First Novel Award

Amazon First Novel Award

With the Artemis II Mission, the Lunar Land Grab Begins

The moon once belonged to everyone. Soon it will belong to the rich

Traditionally, stories about the Cree trickster Wîsahkêcâhk are only told when there is snow on the ground, which means, as the planet rapidly warms, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to tell them. Vancouver, where I live, didn’t see a single snowflake until February. So instead of the legend of the creation of the moon, I’ll tell you her name: tipiskâwi-pîsim, night sun. In Anishinaabemowin, she is Nookomis Dibik-Giizis, the revered Grandmother Moon. Though almost every acre on land has been claimed by one nation or another, the moon has been a shared locus of imagination and significance, if only because she was out of reach. For hundreds of generations, we could only gaze at her from the Earth; now, for the first time in more than half a century, humans will pass over her face like a curious hand.

We put ‘u’ in neighbour and you in Canada’s conversation. Enjoy a roundup of Canada’s best writing. Sign up for The Walrus newsletter and get trusted Canadian journalism straight in your inbox.

When Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen blasts off as part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, he will become the first Canadian on a moon mission. The fifty-year-old astronaut had not yet been born the last time humans travelled so far into space, nor had any of his three crew members. Their ten-day space cruise, around the moon and back, has been publicized in a way that was unimaginable to the crew of that final Apollo mission; commander Reid Wiseman has been sharing weekly updates on Instagram, as has Hansen in his patriotically bilingual updates on his own account. Several articles have described how toilet technology has improved since the last moon missions; such is the fervent, abiding fascination with the logistics of space travel.

The blast of patriotic enthusiasm accompanying the mission seems powerful enough to fuel its launch,........

© The Walrus