The Land in which we Live, Research, and Gather

Our presence on the territories in which we research and that are connected to our scholarly and performance work occurs in the context of settler colonialism. As researchers and artists, we work and live on lands traditionally occupied by many Indigenous nations with unique intellectual and creative practices, political systems, and ways of understanding the world. All Gatherings events and publications will include acknowledgement of ancestral Indigenous relationships to the places we work. You will find this throughout our website. This page provides a space for anyone participating in the Gatherings Project to present their personal land acknowledgement, in whatever format suits their individual expression. We appreciate the opportunity to elaborate on our gratitude, our intentions, and our treaty responsibilities.

jenn cole

STEPHEN JOHNSON

I acknowledge that Toronto, the community from which I am writing now, is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis. These lands are covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.  I am grateful to reside upon these lands. 

I also acknowledge the place of my birth, in Lowville, Halton County, historical home of these same nations, as well as the Atttiwonderonk (Neutral), in an area covered by the Brant Tract Treaties 3/8 of 1795/7.   In particular, I honour the memory of Levi Cornelius, Oneida of the Six Nations, resident of my community and the first citizen of the first nations that I ever knew.  I remember him with respect each day, though he passed way in 1958, as he paused to rest in the woods under Miller’s Mountain, while carrying water to his home.  He made his mark on my family, settlers from the city with no knowledge of the land or its people.  He taught the importance of patience and an irreverent humour in the face of ignorance, lessons that remain a signficant part of our family narrative.  We hope that we honour him as we live our lives. 

HEATHER FITZSIMMONS FREY

We are honoured to work, play, and conduct research here in amiskwaciywâskahikan (Edmonton, Beaver Hills House, ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ), in Treaty 6 Territory, a traditional gathering place for many Indigenous peoples: First Nations (including, but not limited to, nehiyawak (Cree), Nakota Sioux (Stoney), Denesuliné (Dene), Anishinaabe (Ojibway/Saulteaux), Kanien'kehá (Mohawk)), Inuit, and Métis (including people of Métis Nation Region 4), and many others since time immemorial.

As the late cultural knowledge keeper Roxanne Tootoosis taught us, we acknowledge that in sharing land, we have relational responsibilities towards the four-legged, the swimmers, the flyers, the rooted ones, the rocks, and the waters, and all who gather here and all those who call this territory home.

As researchers, we aspire to ask meaningful questions, and to listen carefully with our hearts, bodies, and minds: to hear what is said, and be attentive to what is not. We commit to learning to conduct ourselves according to the teachings of Elders, the teachings of the land, the knowledge held by children, and the principles of wahkohtowin. Into our research, we aspire to respectfully incorporate teachings of love, care, right relationships, and hope, brought to this land by the many diverse peoples who gather here today.

MADISON FRANCOEUR (ARTIST STATEMENT & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT)

The land that is known as amiskwaciywâskahikan or Edmonton has a deep and rich history stretching back since time immemmorial. I am a Métis artist from Saskatchewan, and for the last five years, I have been in Edmonton, living, working, and learning on this land.

I have come to understand that this land carries countless stories that can be told and perspectives that can be shared.

When considering how to represent such a diverse area with thousands of years of history, I wanted to capture one of the most prominent images of the Edmonton region: the North Saskatchewan River. The river flows through the heart of the city and creates the stunning river valley that is home to all sorts of life. Since time immemorial, the river has played an integral role in establishing amiskwaciywâskahikan as a gathering place for Indigenous peoples. Like how the river runs through the city, the river runs through the centre of the piece, highlighting its prominence.

Surrounding the river in the circle are sections of brightly coloured beads, which call to the different ways that this land has been divided and sectioned throughout time. Most strongly, I was inspired by the river lots system that was prominent in the region in the late 1800s, following the decline of the fur trade. River lots were long, thin sections of land that each connected to the river. This style of land division was primarily used by Métis farmers, as it allowed for all families to have access to the ever-important river.

In developing my relationship with the land, I have come to appreciate how land changes and stays the land throughout time. The city that sits on this land has grown and shifted in many ways for the last two hundred years. Industries have extracted resources, and ecosystems have been polluted. Yet, we still are on the same land that Indigenous people have lived on for generations and will continue to live on for many, many more generations. It remains a gathering place for diverse people to come together to live lives full of love and care. As community members on this land, I believe that we have a responsibility to understand the significance of the space that we are in and the stories that it holds.

ANNIE GIBSON

I live in Toronto (Tsí Tkaròn:to) which is the ancestral home of the Anishinaabe Nations (Ojibwe / Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi, Algonquin, Saulteaux, Nipissing, and Mississauga), the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora). This territory is represented by Treaty 13, or the Toronto Purchase.

The work I do with Playwrights Canada Press spans the country known as Canada. Over the past year or so we’ve published authors working in territories, some unceded, that were and are home to the Inuit, Metis, Tsawwassen, and Penelakut, the Lekwungen People (Songhees and  Esquimalt Nations), the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, the Kwikwetlem, Katzie, Tŝilhqot’in, Dene, Cree, Blackfoot, Nakota Sioux, and Iroquois, the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations), the Northwest Métis, the Attawandaron (Neutral Confederacy) and Erie, the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, Peskotomuhkati, and the Beothuk people.

My family is originally from England. My mother’s family came to North American in the 1700s, first settling in New York and Massachusetts before moving to the Kingston area in Eastern Ontario. I don’t know why they left England and I don’t really know why they moved to Ontario but given the dates it looks like they may have been fleeing the American Revolutionary War. This branch of the family (the Knapps) lived in that area until the early twentieth century, eventually moving to Cobourg, Ontario, where my grandparents met and lived most of their lives. My father’s family is from Ashington, a small town in northern England. His parents moved to Canada in the 1940s after World War II, looking for more opportunity than would have been afforded them in Ashington. They originally settled in Niagara Falls before moving to Fredericton, New Brunswick, then back to England for a time before returning to Oakville and eventually Burlington. My parents met in Toronto in the 1970s and lived in the Cobourg area for a while but moved back to Toronto in the early 1990s when I was young. I’ve been here ever since.

mark turner

This acknowledgment is excerpted from a forthcoming book I edited called Inuit TakugatsaliuKatiget |On Inuit Cinema (Memorial University Press), a collection of interviews with Inuit filmmakers. This is from an introductory section titled “Nakummesuak,” which translates into something along the lines of “very big thanks” in Labrador Inuttitut. There are other expressions of gratitude before and after this excerpt.

I am grateful to the lands which have sustained me during this work and to stewards of those lands. Most of my work was completed in Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. These lands are covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. Some work I completed in Montreal, the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka and a place that has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg. Other work was conducted in my home, the island of Newfoundland, which is the ancestral homeland of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq as well as Labrador, the ancestral homeland of the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut and the Innu of Nitassinan. Earlier, both Newfoundland and Labrador were the traditional territory of the Maritime Archaic and Dorset cultures.

I am grateful to the Inuit, the stewards of vast amounts of land, water and ice in the northern hemisphere of our planet. While we call their ancestral homes by different names, as we are learning, their stewardship has kept our planet safe. For those of outside these lands, we must do better and follow their example.

This acknowledgment was given at the beginning of a Zoom lecture I delivered on June 22nd, 2021, called “Uncommon Bonds and the Digital Return of Labrador Inuit Documentary Heritage”. For more about the project, see HERE.

I begin today by acknowledging that Toronto, the community from which I am addressing you, is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis. These lands are covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. I am grateful to reside upon these lands. I also acknowledge that my home, the island of Newfoundland, is the ancestral homeland of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq. Labrador, historically unacknowledged within our polity, is the ancestral homeland of the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut and the Innu of Nitassinan.

AMY BOWRING

My name is Amy Bowring and I am the daughter of Scots, Scots-Irish and English settlers who came to the unceded ancestral homelands of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq in the 18th and 19th centuries. That colonial presence ultimately led to the extinction of the Beothuk. I was raised in the traditional territory of the Anishnabek, Haudenosaunee and Ojibway/Chippewa, a territory covered by the Upper Canada Treaties. Though I was raised a mere 50km from the Mohawk Institute, the legacy of Canada's residential schools was never a part of my colonial education. I now live in the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, the Mississauga Peoples and the treaty territory of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation – a territory covered by the Williams Treaties. I am grateful to the many Indigenous peoples who have cared for the land and water, and have danced, where my family and my ancestors have made a home.

Aside from a wee bit of German ancestry, my ancestors were from the British Isles. Some of my Scots and Scots-Irish ancestry can be traced back to the 10th century and some of my English ancestry to the early 14th century, the descendants of Anglo-Saxons. I come from a long line of people who wrote down our history (though from an almost entirely male perspective). The earliest immigration across the Atlantic is from my maternal Rowe ancestors who came from the West Country of England around 1745 settling in Trinity (Trinity Bay) though the family had been a part of the annual migratory fishery to Newfoundland for some years before settlement. They were followed in the 1780s by my paternal Ash ancestors from Poole who also settled in Trinity and were successive generations of master mariners. Benjamin Bowring arrived in St. John's in 1811 and set up a jewellery and clock making business; he brought his young family to join him in 1815 at which point his wife, Charlotte, opened a dry goods store. With the next generation, their shop gradually grew into a department store and did major overseas trade in the cod fishery, as well as shipping and a passenger line. My Scots and Scots-Irish ancestors, Monroes (from Moira, County Down) and Bairds (from Saltcoats, Scotland), started arriving in the 1850s and 1860s. They were involved in trade of various kinds and also helped to set up the Presbyterian St. Andrew's Kirk. The St. John's retail wing of Bowring Brothers expanded into Canada after Confederation in 1949. In 1969, my father was sent to Toronto to open the Bowring gift stores in the malls that were in development from Windsor to Ottawa. He fell in love with the farmland as he drove around southern Ontario and decided to quit the family business in 1975 and go farming. My parents settled in Innerkip, Oxford County where I was raised on a pig farm.

DANCE COLLECTION DANSE

Dance Collection Danse acknowledges that the land on which we work is the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Métis, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. It has been a site of human activity, including dance, for at least 15,000 years and we are grateful to all the caretakers, both recorded and unrecorded, of this land and of Turtle Island. Today, the meeting place of Toronto/Tkaronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and dance in the community, on this territory.

KELSEY JACOBSON

I live and work on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee. I have been the grateful beneficiary of much learning and support from my Indigenous colleagues, students, and fellow community members, who have shaped my teaching and research in this place. Each time I direct a show here at Queen’s University, I work with students to co-create a land acknowledgement. This video reflects our work in a theatre space right beside the shores of Lake Ontario, as it transitions through the seasons and reminds us of the necessary legacy of caretaking.

Voiced by Bethany Schaufler-Biback, Charlotte Dorey, and Meg McLeod; video by Kelsey Jacobson.