Pondering the Value of Land Acknowledgments

 This meme has been circulating social media and demonstrates some of the criticisms about land acknowledgments. (Black and Indigenous Alliance/Facebook, @gudim_public/Instagram)

Respectfully, we begin by acknowledging that we are in the ancestral and unceded Traditional Territory of the Algonquin People. We recognize the Algonquins as the stewards of these lands and resources – in the past, in the present and in the future.

I can recall the first time I heard a Land Acknowledgement, a recognition of the traditional territory of the Indigenous people who called the land home before the arrival of settlers, and in many cases call it home and feel that it is their rightful property. This took place at a meeting of what was then the Bay of Quinte Conference of the United Church, perhaps a dozen years ago or more, and I'll admit that I was a bit perplexed and bemused. Was this the latest earnest effort on the part of our denomination? 

Over the years these acknowlegements have become quite common in just about every setting, including Zoom meetings where curiously we're disembodied participants from hither and yon. There is an irony that today starting public meetings with even the most innocuous of prayers (once a common practice) would be regarded with dismay yet not having an acknowledgement would be truly bad form. 

I have come to realize that these acknowledgement are important, and I'm grateful that once again the United Church was out in front in doing so. You may recall that I wrote about searching out the correct one to use before leading a worship service in Algonquin Park a couple of years ago as part of our United Church summer ministry. I contacted those who were finalizing negotiations for a land claim with the provincial government to make sure I got the correct wording (above.) 

There is growing concern and even cynicism amongst Indigenous peoples that these acknowledgements are a form of woke colonizer prayer of absolution which doesn't result in reconciliatory action. Why bother talking the earnest talk if we won't walk the walk of reconciliation and reciprocity? 

You may have heard back in October that the New Brunswick government forbade government employees from making territorial or title acknowledgements in reference to Indigenous lands. That term "unceded" is one which governments don't like because it has implications for contentious land claims. In British Columbia some of the protests against logging and pipelines are by Indigenous peoples who repeatedly point out that they continue to own the land with the treaties to prove it. The trespassers are the extraction companies and the police who arrive to evict those who have claims to the land. 

Let's continue to say the words of acknowledgement, as long as we're willing to change our minds, our hearts, and our systems.

Here is a link to a CBC piece on the subject: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/land-acknowledgments-what-s-wrong-with-them-1.6217931