The Nutfield Tract, a tiny slice of land measuring 2 miles wide by 25 miles deep, was begrudgingly set aside for the St. Regis Mohawks after the Brits surrendered the Mohawk Valley to the Americans.  Settlement and farming east and west of the tract meant there was no big game to be found and so the Akwesasne Chiefs began leasing the land to settlers as soon as it was surveyed.

The Gray’s Creek Conservation Area encompasses Lots 15 & 16 of the Nutfield Tract where Robert and his family lived.  This is exactly the kind of landscape I had envisioned when I first dreamed up this project.  I had concocted this romantic vision of retracing the first steps of my ancestors, scavenging the landscape for materials to make my Acknowledgment Shoes.