Land Acknowledgements

A few years ago I was part of a small, ongoing training cohort focused on deepening our understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice work. We were challenged to reckon with how disingenuous land acknowledgements can sometimes be—coming across as mere virtue-signalling rather than intentional or devoted recognition of our ability as settlers to work on colonized Indigenous land. We were encouraged to reflect on our experiences, devote some time to research, and create a personal land acknowledgement that felt genuine and like real engagement with decolonization practice. 

This reflection piece is what came from my experience of that exercise. It was a deeply moving process for me. My hope in sharing it here is that maybe it moves you too, specifically into a space of recognition, compassion, reverence, and devotion for our Indigenous neighbours and the land that is their home and living relative. 

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Every Tuesday and Friday I leave for work at the probation office on foot from my home near Locke Street. I don’t think that’s an Indigenous name.

My feet leave the last wood step of the porch, and they remain on concrete the whole way—except for the grass field at HAAA park. I don’t think the grass grew there naturally. 

I notice my feet start to hurt near the end because I don’t wear proper shoes for concrete. My feet protest: “Is this what we’re supposed to be walking on?”

On the mornings I’m paying attention, I look up and notice the city-scape—greys and glass, steel and the stillness of rigidity. Where did the colour go? Where are the birds, the swaying trees, and the deep, cool sounds of the woods and water? I sense no softness. 

I get to the probation building, bidding a silent hello to the Indigenous man who is sometimes sleeping, and other times bent double, escaped to his opioid refuge to forget his lonely concrete bed, perhaps to remember the land inside his heart. I hope he remembers to report today so he doesn’t get charged and fined again for surviving. 

I step into the elevator and leave the earth for the work day. Even with a window view I can’t really see the land. When it’s clear I can see the lake—the day’s refreshment. What I can see is the Court House—a place where rules foreign to this land are enforced in the guise of “correction” and “rehabilitation.” I smile wickedly at the irony—”those who need correcting” are living, breathing, heralding, human symptoms—evidence of an incorrect system that creates what it seeks to correct. 

“What would you say are the main things keeping you from feeling at your best right now,” I ask a new client, smelling of scrap metal and stale cannabis. “Employment and housing,” they reply. I feel disheartened. Those things come from the land, not from my therapy office in the sky. They add, “Do you have any granola bars?”

I exit the building doors at 4pm as the wind whips up King Street like an unhelpful neuropathway. The man from this morning is street-centre, tweaking loudly at what seems to be the entire city. I wish I was brave enough to join him. The concrete has buried his home alive. He can no longer get to it, though it beckons him each night through the sidewalk—the White lie of stability which is now my commute. 

No roots to trip on, no mud to dirty my shoes, no accompanying stream; just a giant, unmarked gravestone with lines and curbs to direct me. A bird shits on it right in front of me. I smile, and cry. 

It’s a slow, thankful, guilty privilege to walk home.

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Glen Watkinson