Kim Romain Coaching & Consulting operates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk), colonially known as the island of Montreal, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst nations, in addition to the traditional unceded homelands of the Niswimishkodewinan (Council of the Three Fires), an alliance of Anishinaabeg peoples formed by the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi) Nations. Before colonially being known as Chicago, Illinois, the area also served as an important crossroads and meeting place for a number of other Indigenous tribal nations, including the Ho-Chunk, Illinois, Inoka, Kickapoo, Miami, Menominee, Peoria, and Sac and Fox Nations. We acknowledge and honor the First Peoples who continue to live on these lands and care for them, whose relationship to these lands existed long before the founding of Canada or the United States, and support their continued work for justice, self-determination, and sovereignty.
The Importance of Land Acknowledgements
Land acknowledgements are an Indigenous protocol, originating from well before European contact when people would introduce themselves by the land they were from. For settlers today, land acknowledgements “provide an awareness of Indigenous presence and land rights, [as well as] recognize privilege,” according to Dawn Saunders Dahl, Indigenous Program Manager at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.
Indigenous writer Selena Mills shares that “Part of the point in making land acknowledgements is to recognize how systemic and institutional systems of power have oppressed Indigenous peoples, and how that oppression has historically influenced the way non-Indigenous people perceive and interact with Indigenous peoples… [it’s] about introducing non-Indigenous people to this land’s accurate confederate history and the importance of relationship to land despite the dominant worldview of owning the land”.
The Laurier Students’ Public Interest Research Group further shares that “Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.”
We believe it is important to actively participate in the reconciliation between Indigenous people and those of us who are settlers and have the privilege of benefitting from this land. We also recognize a land acknowledgement is a small step in this work. We have a lot to learn and are open to continued dialogue on how best to actively support the First Peoples work for justice, self-determination, and sovereignty.