Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge with gratitude and respect that we live and work on the lands of many nations, including the Anishnabek, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaane and the Wendat Peoples. This land, covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississauga’s of the Credit, is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples. The ancestral knowledge and contemporary cultural contributions of Elders and Knowledge Keepers, both young and old, continues to be shared across the generations.

Just as we honour the Nations of this land, we also honour the earth, the plants, and the animals. As community builders, organizers, neighbours, gardeners, artists, and creatives, we are reminded that we must be guided by a sense of reciprocity—to listen and look with great care and attention as we engage with the animals and plants with whom we share this land.  

As Potawatomi scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer so eloquently writes about in her book Gathering Moss, this kind of reciprocity begins with participation. It requires learning the history of the land we live on, understanding its ecology, its gifts, and what it has to offer. And asking ourselves what we can offer in return as we look ahead to the generations yet to come. 

Through our work as a community, we aim to honour the diversity around us, the memories the land holds, and the myriad of life that grows here now. We also look ahead to how we can honour this land and its waters—its human and more-than-human kin—through a spirit of reciprocal care.