I found this ahnianawen iakoiotensera (work glove) in the ditch beside the King’s Highway #2, the road running right along the St. Lawrence River. I was walking along the highway’s edge, feeling conspicuous and out of place as a pedestrian, but quite drawn by the glorious summer view of the river. I was walking the front edge of the Nutfield Tract Indian Reservation from Lot 11 to Lot 16, most of which Robert had “acquired” by the time of his death. He would have walked this land annually collecting rent from the settler tenants in the form of cash and crops.

I know the Akwesasne called the Nutfield Tract Tsienatsiarorokta (where the wild rice/wheat is gathered/collected). I wonder if Robert learned to speak Mohawk.

When I leaned down to pick up the work glove I wondered how it had ended up here. Did it fly out of the back of a pick-up truck doing work at the new subdivision just up the road on Yacht Blvd? It made me think about how land constantly seems to go “under construction” to become more valuable as property. The monster homes being built on this waterfront property were making money for someone, somewhere. It makes me think about how private property has infiltrated almost every interaction we have with the land. The Eurocentric view of land is about ownership and extraction.