Good Land Acknowledgements are Good Activism

Our Indigenous partners have called on us to take the time to learn the real history of the territory that we are meeting on. They urge us to remember the original intent of the treaties and to gain a deeper understanding starting with learning how to pronounce Indigenous names.

For more information, watch this video. Here’s how to see the closed captions. A transcript with translations and a glossary are below.

Good Land Acknowledgements are Good Activism

Video transcripts

Land Acknowledgements glossary and resources

Good Land Acknowledgements glossary

Learn more about Indigenous Peoples

Image of resources list for learning more about Indigenous people

Video sources

Lee, B., & Carranza, M.E. (2022). Glossary of Social Justice Perspectives for Contemporary Practitioners. Toronto: CommonAct Press.

McIvor, B. (2025). Indigenous rights in one minute: what you need to know to talk reconciliation. Nightwood Editions.

Native Land Digital for maps of Indigenous territories.

Sample Land Acknowledgement

This is a land acknowledgement that the Research Team worked on – in consultation with Indigenous partners. It has guided us through our meetings, our focus groups and presentations.

We take this moment to acknowledge the land we are on as the sacred territory of the Wendat, Mississaugas, Anishinaabe,
Haudenosaunee and many other nations who have been removed, displaced or erased from history.

This territory is part of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and
Anishinabek Confederacies and Allied Nations to live peacefully, and to share and steward the lands around the Great Lakes.
Toronto stands on unceded lands and on Treaty 13 territory which is protected by the Dish with One Spoon Covenant. This city was
built on stolen Indigenous land and the stolen labour of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized people.

As settlers, newcomers, refugees, and dis-planted Africans forcefully brought here through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, we are
invited into relations with Indigenous Peoples in the spirit of peace, friendship, and respect.

As settlers or the dis-planted, we acknowledge that we benefit from the colonization and genocide Indigenous peoples of this land
have endured, resisted, and survived.

And as we gather here today , we acknowledge that Indigenous Peoples of this land continue to experience ongoing colonization and
displacement and that a land acknowledgement does not replace stolen land. This acknowledgement provides us an opportunity to
reflect on how to be in solidarity and good relations.

By being on this land, we are all responsible for upholding its treaties. As treaty people, we resolve to do better, in our actions and
our thoughts, in order to defend treaty agreements that were made to last as long as “the sun shines, the grass grows, and rivers
flow.”
Land Acknowledgement
We are all Treaty People

Chalk drawing with the words "Woburn, Our Home, Our Community"