Search Results for: Unsettled and Striving

With my final Unsettled and Striving column I want to lay out a few ground rules I’ve learned about being a European settler striving toward allyship. 

 1. Indigenous voices are to be heard first Although you may feel passionately about an Indigenous-led project and be in complete disagreement with the opposing colonial side of […]

I’ve learned a lot about treaties lately. Too often when I’m advocating for Indigenous rights I get an uninformed settler telling me, “Well, they signed the treaties. They agreed to the way things are.” I know now that this rebuttal is completely irrelevant. During the time of early European settlement here on Turtle Island, the […]

In September, when the editor of Nexus and I hashed out the details of this column, I realized that Unsettled and Striving would benefit me most of all. At that point I hadn’t written anything in 2020, and, like so many others, I was feeling lost and depleted with the strict social-distancing and isolation regulations. […]

In the course I’m taking this semester, IST142: Land, Water, & Stewardship, our textbook is a collection of essays from various authors called Lighting the Eighth Fire. The very first chapter raised an “a-ha!” feeling within me, another puzzle piece offering insight to western society’s disrespect of the land. Writer Susan M. Hill provides a […]

It really grinds my gears that people are still looking to land and water protectors with the same condescending, outraged expressions as those plastered across the faces of white supremacists in the ’70s, when “Save the Trees” signs were deemed insignificant, “hippy” slogans, conjured from a hazy cloud in la-la land. Today, more than ever, […]

A new semester is upon us. This term I’ve eased my course load knowing full well that in the wintertime, I hibernate. Like so many plants and animals, each year during this season my energy wanes while my desire to recharge and reflect waxes. Flipping the calendar always elicits in me a desire to look […]

There is an enormous empty chasm in communication within this country right now. All across so-called “Canada” there is a rift developing that is setting Indigenous nations and their allies against the Canadian government and big corporations (specifically in the oil and gas industry). I am watching Indigenous communities stand in solidarity against fully militarized […]

In September, I received the curriculum for the Indigenous Studies courses I was taking at Camosun College. Some deep part of me exhaled a bated breath. Here was proof that we do not have to consider the Earth just a “resource”: stories, videos, articles all explaining how Indigenous people of Turtle Island have interacted with […]

When entering Camosun College this year, I chose the courses I did because I wanted to hear in-depth details about this country’s truths that are generally kept hushed. Once I understood that what had been taught in my middle- and high-school “social studies” classes was a censored, white-washed illusion regarding the establishment of so-called “Canada,” […]

Today I am learning the complexities of navigating vast differences of values while still maintaining relationships. I used to be what folks might call a “doormat.” I had no backbone, no self confidence, no ability to stand up for myself, and I agreed with everyone. This way of being crumbled within me when I decided […]