“Land acknowledgment is respectfully honouring our relationship with Indigenous people. It is acknowledging our shared history; it is acknowledging our present relationship, and it is acknowledging our commitment to continue to walk together in a good way."
— Patricia Victor, University Siya:m
From time immemorial, the land on which Trinity Western University resides – within Langley, B.C., Richmond, B.C. and Ottawa, O.N. – is home to the Indigenous peoples.
Trinity Western’s main campus in Langley is located on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Stó:lō people.
Patricia Victor is TWU's first University Siya:m, and she is providing the TWU community opportunities to grow in its awareness and understanding of Indigenous history and culture since 2012.
"Our shared history reveals a broken relationship, but as all Canadians commit to hear the truth, to acknowledge that injustice has prevailed, and learn to walk together to find ways to reconcile, then all of our lives will be enriched."
Committed to walking together in a good way
Victor explains the significance of land acknowledgements. "Land acknowledgment is respectfully honouring our relationship with Indigenous people. It is acknowledging our shared history; it is acknowledging our present relationship, and it is acknowledging our commitment to continue to walk together in a good way."
She also highlighted the meaning of unceded, by adding, "It is understood in our teachings that the land is a gifted inheritance from our ancestors with a responsibility to gift to future generations. Unceded means that the Sto:lo people have never ceded or surrendered title to our lands, our rights to resources or our authority to make decisions within our territory."
It is the legacy of Indigenous peoples that gives Victor hope going forward.
"I am so thankful for the courage and resiliency of our ancestors that have lived on this land since time immemorial. It is through this courage and resiliency that today we have the strength to overcome the trauma of our shared history, and to walk a good path for the next generations," she said.
"Our shared history reveals a broken relationship, but as all Canadians commit to hear the truth, to acknowledge that injustice has prevailed, and learn to walk together to find ways to reconcile, then all of our lives will be enriched."
Traditional ancestral unceded territory
Trinity Western’s land acknowledgement states that the Langley main campus is located on the “traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Stó:lō people.”
TWU’s Richmond campus is located on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Musqueam people, and TWU’s Laurentian Leadership Centre in Ottawa is located within the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Algonquin people.
“I am so thankful for the courage and resiliency of our ancestors that have lived on this land since time immemorial. It is through this courage and resiliency that today we have the strength to overcome the trauma of our shared history, and to walk a good path for the next generations.”
Environmental stewardship and responsibility
Victor emphasized that Indigenous peoples honour the land as a resource to steward well for the benefit of others, rather than taking the land as something to be owned.
"It is understood in our teachings that the land is a gifted inheritance from our ancestors with a responsibility to gift to future generations," she said.
Preserving resources for future generations means stewarding those resources well, and caring for not only the waters of the river, but all the life and ecosystem surrounding it.
As Victor explains, “That means we need to steward the salmon stock. We need to ensure that tributaries are being brought back to life.”
“What we do today, affects the next generation. That is the worldview of Indigenous people,” Victor said. “We’re not about taking all that we can get today. Because it’s not just for us, but for the next generations.”
In this way, stewardship and land acknowledgements share a common basis. Victor says that land acknowledgements are not self-serving, performed simply for the sake of formality, but rather, “It’s for the relationship.”
Land acknowledgements help communities to begin to walk together in a good way, towards reconciliation and restoration of relationships.
In June 2021, Trinity Western's Board of Governors approved several landmark decisions, including the formal recognition that the land in the Township of Langley on which Trinity Western University resides is the unceded traditional territory of the Sto:lo, Kwantlen, and Katzie First Nations.
The recent progress in TWU’s Indigenous relations would not be possible without the decade-long, faithful work of University Siya:m Patricia Victor, along with countless colleagues who have demonstrated support and positive leadership.
(Updated from the article posted September 2, 2021.)
About Trinity Western University
Founded in 1962, Trinity Western University is Canada’s premier Christian liberal arts university dedicated to equipping students to establish meaningful connections between career, life, and the needs of the world. It is a fully accredited research institution offering liberal arts and sciences, as well as professional schools in business, nursing, education, human kinetics, graduate studies, and arts, media, and culture. It has four campuses and locations: Langley, Richmond-Lansdowne, Richmond-Minoru, and Ottawa. TWU emphasizes academic excellence, research, and student engagement in a vital faith community committed to forming leaders to have a transformational impact on culture. Learn more at www.twu.ca or follow us on Twitter @TrinityWestern, on Facebook and LinkedIn.
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