Honouring Indigenous lands and stories

The lands where we live, learn and work hold the ancestral connections and stories of Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. However, colonization has orchestrated the displacement of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples from their ancestral lands and continues to hinder their ability to be good relations with the land.  Indigenous peoples are actively maintaining and strengthening their relationships with the land, water, and beings, which are grounded in respect, reciprocity, and resiliency. 

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The People’s Archive of Rural Ontario is committed to honouring and strengthening our relationships, through respect and responsibility, with the Indigenous nations across Turtle Island and across Ontario in particular. As a story archive, we are committed to seeking out and highlighting Indigenous voices and guidance in our stories and governance, to strengthening our relationships with Indigenous people and communities in rural and remote areas of Ontario, and in promoting an open, flexible, and relational understanding of what rural means to different people and the ways in which Indigenous people may or may not relate to or embody rural identities.

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At the University of Guelph, we reside and work on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Métis peoples. Today, this place is home to many First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and it is an important act of reconciliation to speak to these ongoing connections to land, water, and beings as well as our shared responsibility to the spaces where we live, learn, and work.

 

To this end, PARO supports and adds our collective voice to the “94 calls to action” from the Truth and Reconciliation Committee on Indian Residential Schools to never forget and to seek redress and healing for ongoing injustice.