Land Acknowledgement

Researching precolonial Indigenous history, mostly from a Nishnaabeg perspective, my main source of information is from Leanne Betasomasoke Simpson’s account from her books As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (2017) and Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgance and a New Emergence (2011). She is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg from Alderville nation, an exceptional and prolific author, artist, educator and activist. Alderville is a reservation located just North-East of where my home and practice is located. The Williams Treaties First Nations are the Chippewas of Beausoleil, Georgina Island and Rama, and the Mississaugas of Alderville, Curve Lake, Hiawatha, Scugog Island.

Michi Saagiig, which is part of the Nishnaabeg nation, runs along the north shore of Lake Ontario, or Chi-Niibish (which translates into “Big Water”). Michi Saagiig means “at the mouth of the rivers,” it comes from the Nishnaabeg history of their people spending time in and around the waterways. The lake is shared between the Nishnaabeg and the (Rotinonhseshá:ka), or Haudensaunee, People of the Long House. The Nishnaabeg nation has diplomacy with the Haundesonaunee Confederacy, and there are at least four wampum belts including the Dish With One Spoon treaty. The Nisnaabeg also honour a Wait-In-The-Woods Ceremony with the Kanienkehá (Mohawk). Diplomatically, there have always been close ties to the Wendat. The Wendat have asked to live in Nishnaabeg territory at different points in history and both nations made agreements to do so. There are wampum belts and oral histories that suggest they lived well. The Wendat lived in longhouses and farmed while the Nishnaabeg were hunting, fishing, ricing and sugaring and travelling by the waterways. The Nishnaabeg historically are travellers and move through their lands rather than settling in one place.

The knowledge, education, economic and political systems of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg were designed to promote more life, not just to generate more human life but to generate for all living beings. Stable governing structures emerged when necessary and dissolved when no longer needed, same went for leaders (who were not self-appointed). They lived in an emergent system reflective of the relationality of the local landscape. Leanne Simpson writes of this system of governance as breathing — a rhythm of contraction and release. Self-ceremony was important to their governing process. Gender fluidity, sexualities and relationship orientations outside of colonial conceptualizations also centred freedom and self-actualization.

Before colonization, old growth forests of white pine stretched from Curve Lake down to the shores of Lake Ontario, there were tall-grass prairies and black oak savannahs, which are now endangered ecosystems. The lakes were full of minomiin, or wild rice. The land held sugar bushes, and waters were full of fish; especially eels and salmon. Over the past two hundred years, without permission and consent, these nations have been systematically removed and disposed from their territories. Their homeland has been clear-cut, stolen, subdivided and sold to settlers from Europe and later cottagers from Toronto.

In 1763, the British Crown no longer needed Indigenous nations as allies; soon loyalists came to the territory and began occupying Michi Saagiig lands. Over the next fifty years, Indigenous peoples survived pandemics, violence and assault, unjust treaty negotiations, occupations and forced relocations, one of which resulted in the very small and insufficient reserve at Alderville which was a Methodist mission. By 1822, while many Nishnaabeg in the north and west were still living as they had — the Michi Saagiig were facing a political, cultural and social collapse of everything they had known. Treaties were signed as agreements for the crown to protect the land and ensure Indigenous sovereignty, nationhood and way of life.

However, the Williams Treaty of 1923 resulted in eighty-nine years without hunting and fishing rights. In the fall of 2012, as a result of a civil suit, the province of Ontario sent a letter indicating that it will recognize and acknowledge off-reserve treaty harvesting rights. In 2018, the Williams Treaties First Nations together with the governments of Ontario and Canada came to a final agreement, setting the litigation. The terms include financial compensation ($666 million by Canada and $444 million by Ontario), recognition of treaty harvesting rights, and the ability for each of the First Nations to add 4,452 hetares to their reserves. Additionally, the Governments of Ontario and Canada formerly apologized to the Williams Treaties First Nations.

Since colonization, salmon and eel populations have drastically reduced, rice beds were nearly destroyed from raised water levels from the Trent-Severn Waterway, boat traffic and cottage sewage, all but one tiny piece of prairie in Alderville has been destroyed, most sugar bushes are under private, non-Native ownership and there are no longer old growth forests in Michi Saagiig territory. Burial grounds have cottages built on top of them, sacred places have been converted into provincial parks for tourists, and concrete buildings cover teaching rocks. The rivers have lift locks blocking them and the shores of every one of their lakes and rivers have cottages or homes on them, making it nearly impossible to launch a canoe.

The Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg nationhood is based on the idea that the earth gives and sustains all life, that everything given is a gift from Aki, or the land and that they should give up what they can to support the integrity of their homelands for their ancestors and coming generations — their nationhood is based on a series of radiating responsibilities, one being that they should give more than they take. It’s important moving forward with my practice that there is a deep understanding and respect for the ways of life of the nations of whose land I am on, in order for me not to inflict more damage or appropriation. I continue reading, learning and understanding how to be in relation with these lands and waters in a way that honours and promotes Indigenous sovereignty, freedom and protection. I feel a deep love for this land and have a commitment to reject and shift the continued and perpetual violence of capitalism, hetero-patriarchy, white supremacy and anti-Blackness (and racism, in general) all that which maintains settler colonialism.