Albert Marshall is among the most respected wisdom keepers of the Mi’kmaq people whose territory of Mi’kma’ki includes all of Atlantic Canada plus parts of both Quebec and Maine. I’ve known him since my family and I sailed our little boat into the harbor of Eskasoni, Cape Breton in 1990. At that time his brilliant wife Murdena was deeply involved with what she called native spirituality and Albert was a tradesman, a machinist, a carpenter. He and I talked a lot about our shared passion for building things. Both of them are residential school survivors. Then as her health declined she became his teacher, his inspiration, his guide in carrying on the work of strengthening and sharing the traditional wisdom of their people.

Today Albert himself is much in demand as a speaker and a teacher, an authority on matters as diverse as traditional healing and teaching, the Mi’kmaq language, indigenous ways of understanding science and the environment. He’s particularly celebrated for his concept of two-eyed seeing, using the insights of western science in combination with the traditional wisdom of his culture and language to obtain a depth of understanding that neither could achieve alone.