A Reflection On Land
This is a post from Miki Stricker-Talbot, who is a member of the RECOVER project team.
This past December, within a span of 12 hours, on the Winter Solstice, I had two experiences that challenged my perception of the land that I call home.
But first, a grounding in my social-location.
I am a white settler on Treaty 6 Lands, which is also part of Métis Nation Regional Zone 4. I acknowledge and appreciate the many elders — past, present, and emerging — who have stewarded this land for centuries.
My father and his parents first came to Turtle Island in the aftermath of the Holocaust. They fled their land in Eastern Europe in trauma, with deep wounds, with hopes of creating a better and safer life for the generations that would follow them. My mother’s family is from England. She met my father while they were both travelling abroad. My mum came to these lands for love. And so within me, I carry these polarities of trauma and love in my relationship to this land. I do not yet fully understand what this means to me as a settler. But in my aspiration to become Two-eyed seeing, I am in an active search to more deeply understand.
And so perhaps that is why, on the eve that preceded the longest night of the year and the morning that followed it, these two experiences reverberated deeply.
On the longest night of the year, I saw this tweet.
I am a public servant. The contours of the City of Edmonton as I have come to understand it is based on road names and designs; on neighbourhoods and wards. I have made sense of this place through westernized eyes.
But the picture accompanying the tweet made me consider this land anew.
I started to consider what it might mean to see and experience this land just as it is. With texture and water, rises and valleys. The thought filled me with awe.
The following morning, I was on a virtual meeting with people from various parts of the world. We were asked to introduce ourselves, including a land acknowledgement from the places we were joining from. In virtual meetings of this type that span large portions of the blue planet, it is not uncommon for me to be in a virtual space with people from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseil-Waututh Nations (also known as Vancouver); from Treaty 7 territory (also known as Calgary); and from the unceded territories of the Algonquin nation (also known as Ottawa). During this call, I heard someone acknowledge that they were joining — as I was — from Treaty 6 territory. However, their feet were touching the earth in the place more commonly known as Saskatoon — in Saskatchewan — while my feet were touching the earth in the place more commonly known as Edmonton — in Alberta.
On an intellectual level, I have known for many years that borders are works of fiction. They are made up lines on a piece of paper that artificially create division between peoples and places. However, in the moment of that land acknowledgement, that knowledge became known to me at a much deeper level. The best way I can explain it is that this knowledge moved from a place of understanding within intellectual intelligence (IQ), to a place of understanding within love intelligence (LQ).
Naheyawin are consultants in Edmonton, who have been working with us at RECOVER as we work to more deeply understand Indigenous concepts of wellbeing, and enact the strategic recommendations that will help us return to the circle. Through this journey, Naheyawin is teaching us that in order to advance this work, it is imperative that we deepen our understanding and renew our connections to layers of place. As Naheyawin’s Jacquelyn Cardinal teaches, “We live among layers of history and human connections that make up our sense of ‘place.’ We are on Treaty 6 territory as well as Métis Nation of Alberta Region 4, but we are also within many places that are still here, connecting us to the land and the past as well as the future.”
To help our team better connect with our sense of the layers of place, Naheyawin has provided us with the following reflection prompts:
How are we regularly deepening our understandings of these layers?
How might we include more meaningful engagement with these layers in the work we do?
How are we taking care of the layers of place that surround us?
I’ve been reflecting on these questions in light of the moving experiences in a new… well… new for me anyway... understanding of the layers of place which is colloquially known as Edmonton. While I do not yet have compelling answers to these questions, I do have a resonant feeling. And so it is from this place that I will continue my journey.