Category / Eurocentric Views of Land
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“Walking the Land”
When I dreamed up the idea for this project I had this really romantic and quite frankly ridiculous vision of myself “walking the land”. In these visions I was wearing hiking boots. Maybe I would need a compass to set a bearing back from the highway where I’d park my car with the clicker on. I…
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Just Because I Can’t Find You Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t There
I am having a hard time finding an Indigenous presence anywhere in Prince Edward County. The closest present day community is the Mohawk of Tyendinaga. There is very scant mention of the Mississauga people who were in this region when Europeans first started to arrive. Apparently the first white Settler to come to Wellington, Daniel…
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I want to be a Treaty Person, but I suck.
PART 1: A Preamble to the Crawford Purchase What’s wrong with me? I want to be a Treaty Person, but I suck. Last April I felt like weeping when I realized it had been a year and a half and I still couldn’t explain the Crawford Purchase. This whole project began because I realized that…
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Some lace hats, some red cloth, but definitely no islands.
PART 2: The Crawford Purchase Explained (to the best of my knowledge) The Crawford Purchase happened because the Crown needed land to relocate all the Loyalists who had fought and lost the American Revolution. People lost lives, but they also lost land. Wheather owners or squatters they were no longer welcome. What isn’t mentioned in…
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Sweater Vests & Saying Sorry
So I’m supposed to be talking about Land Acknowledgements: Are they a cop out, or are they a starting place, a way to begin learning about the land? But somehow I’ve gone and purchased a blue sweater vest at Value Village and I’m hoping I remind you of Stephan Harper … hearkening back to that…
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It’s Not Green Electricity
I realized I can’t understand and acknowledge ONLY the land where my ancestors were settled, like just the Nutfield Tract. Land doesn’t stand in isolation. The Akswesasne Territory is as much made up of water as it is land, and the St. Lawrence river plays a key role. That’s why the Akwesasne Nation never…
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Land Acknowledgement for the Nutfield Tract
An Acknowledgment in Four Parts – PREAMBLE: I was told that a traditional Land Acknowledgement could, would … possibly even should take 2 or 3 days because you need to thank every blade of grass, every tree, every dandelion, every seed … all the places those seeds may go to grow. As a visitor to…