Guidelines for land acknowledgment:

For assistance or guidance in providing a land acknowledgment for your event or class, please contact the Indigenous Education and Education (IE&E) department at indigenous@humber.ca.

If you want a representative from IE&E  to provide the land acknowledgment, contact indigenous@humber.ca. If there is no representative from IE&E available, another person in attendance is encouraged to deliver the land acknowledgment.

Rationale:

Beneath the contemporary surface of any territory, histories of belonging have been erased, overlooked, contested and forgotten. Land acknowledgments provide a simple, yet powerful way of recognizing histories that reach beyond colonization and the establishment of the Canadian state. Additionally, they increases awareness about the unique and enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and traditional territories, including practices and spiritualties that continue to develop in relationship with place today.

Basic Acknowledgment Statement:

Humber is located within the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. Known as Adoobiigok [A-doe-bee-goke],  the “Place of the Alders” in Michi Saagiig [Mi-Chee  Saw-Geeg] language, the region is uniquely situated along the Humber River Watershed, which historically provided an integral connection for Anishinaabe [Ah-nish-nah-bay], Haudenosaunee [Hoeden-no-shownee], and Wendat [Wine-Dot] peoples between the Ontario Lakeshore and the Lake Simcoe/Georgian Bay regions. Now home to people of numerous nations, Adoobiigok continues to provide a vital source of interconnection for all.

Best Practices:

Acknowledgment - and the relationship development required to do it with integrity - should be an invitation to deeper analysis, relationship, and action. Indeed, due to their nature, land acknowledgments should be grounded in authentic reflection, presence, and awareness of the territories, peoples, and histories being named. They should build relationships centred in action, so that we ask ourselves: How can I move from acknowledgment into relationship? What can I do to ensure that my work represents a commitment to Indigenous voices, stories, and perspectives, now and in the future?