An Acknowledgement
We work, gather and play on Treaty One territory, where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet: the ancestral homelands stolen from the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, and Dakota peoples, along the traditional trade route of the Dene, and homeland of the Red River Metis Nation.
We acknowledge that mushroom and plant medicines have been used in healing, practice & ceremony since time immemorial by Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous groups from Central America to Siberia, and, as settlers, we gratefully acknowledge the traditional stewards of this land, and all plant medicines.
Winnipeg is named for the Cree terms win and nipi – ᐑᓂᐯᐠ (murky waters): it is home to the largest urban population of Indigenous Peoples in Canada. The impact of colonialism and harms committed by our ancestors are not in the past. Indigenous Peoples of this land continue to be subjected to disproportionate amounts of discrimination, racism, personal, police and institutional violence, as well as disparate rates of incarceration and child-and-family separation.
We are committed to reconciliation in our daily lives and professional practices by pushing back against harmful government and institutional policy, advocating for safe(r) supply, understanding and untangling the impact of generational trauma and by involving ourselves with the community, volunteering with local Indigenous-led initiatives, and contributing financially to organizations and mutual aid initiatives by and for Black and Indigenous Peoples, to preserve ancestral medicines, and to put an end to the War on Drugs – once and for all.
LAND BACK.
