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She:kon, Nya:wen for allowing me to introduce Canoe Stories Festival as a call to action for place and community. We are very excited to partner in supporting the inclusion of the First Nation’s voices representing the uniqueness of this PEC region, the landscape and its waterways. This will be a valuable process for us as First Nations peoples as we self-determine and find our routes of reconciliation and cultural reclamation, which must happen in relation to our original places of gathering and community. Canoe Stories Festival highlights our relationships with our territories by placing the canoe at the centre of a cultural matrix destined to bring us back along our ways of life, and the places of our ancestors. Canoe Stories serves as a cultural platform to revisit our relationship to place (land, water, and sky), through the sharing of artistic expression and the exchange of cultural histories and knowledge, while renewing relation to place, culture, and community by way of First Nation’s oration and presentation on the land. As a process of remembering and reclamation we are deeply interested in activating gathering places of First Nations interconnected by the waterways, particularly those spanning the Dish with One Spoon territories. Canoe Stories is inspired to present the scope and elements of the project and engage in meaningful conversations and creative dialogue. We know the intersection of participating partners will prove a fascinating journey to deepen our awareness of where we are on the land and to reset relations going forward as we strive to understand and find a place of respect and peaceful coexistence represented by the guiding teachings of the Two Row, the Dish with One Spoon, and Friendship Wampum Belts. As such we are keen to use the foundations of this historical legacy as guiding principles, while drawing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. Canoe Stories will offer opportunity to strengthen our relationship to the waterways through knowledge sharing and re-ignite the principles of stewardship, and respectful coexistence our ancestors first established. This collective immersive process will allow for First Nation’s place activations and re-discovery, the emerging history and narratives will root us in the local territory as we seek out, gather, and reclaim Indigenous orator, cultural ways, and historical presence. These “findings” have become inspiration for the participating Artists and diverse community of the region. Canoe Stories Festival serves as a vessel for sharing the “places” we have come to by integrating the telling in direct physical and spiritual relation to these waterways. Canoe Stories Festival illuminates the history of protocol and peace along our waterways as we continue to traverse the North Shore of Ontario and its watersheds connecting Anishinaabeg, Algonquin, Huron, Mississauga, and Haudenosaunee territories. Nya:wen, All Our Relations JP Longboat Founder, Artistic Director Circadia Indigena Indigenous Arts Collective and the Canoe Stories Festival The water routes are our highways…
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