Truth & Reconciliation Day, 2022

Lunenburg is located on the unceded Mi’kmaq traditional territory. The Mi’kmaq call what is now known as Lunenburg “E’se’katik” or “place of clams”.

The Nova Scotia Sea School is dedicated to teaching youth to honour diversity, be stewards of the land and respect its ancestry.

On this National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, the Nova Scotia Sea School endeavors to:

1. Honor and acknowledge Indigenous lands and waterways where Sea School programs take place.

2. Collaborate with Indigenous youth service providers to provide safe and welcoming outdoor programs for Indigenous youth.

3. Reduce financial and logistical barriers for Indigenous youth to participate in outdoor recreation and leadership opportunities.

4. Support our indigenous youth participants in their career and recreational pursuits.

5. Educate our staff and board members through workshops in cultural safety, implicit bias and the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action.

6. Review our marketing materials, staff policies, participant forms, organizational culture and program design with a cultural safety lens and implement changes.

7. Identify and acknowledge our support and actions in multi year strategic plans and publications and continuously evaluate our progress.

The Sea School thrives when we build diverse communities and relationships, when we have leaders who represent diverse experiences and perspectives, and when we have youth from various backgrounds who feel safe to adventure with us. It is our goal to make sure that we are setting youth up for success, regardless of what they may be navigating in their lives. Making our programs safe and accessible to as many youth as possible is a core value of the Sea School. This extends across intersecting identities and contexts of race, gender, ability, sexuality, health, and socio-economic position.

We hope that you will join us in using this day (with days, months, and years to come) to reflect on our responsibility to serve Indigenous Communities on unceded Mi’kma’ki and beyond.

We are all Treaty People.

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Below, we will provide some links for reading more into the places, treaties, and most urgently, the 94 calls to action set out by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015:

Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action: https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf

In Nova Scotia, we are subject to the “1752 Treaty of Friendship and Peace” which encompasses part of Wabanakik (of the Wabanaki Confederacy including territories of the peoples Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, & Passamaquoddy); being colonial Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, & Gaspe - find a version of the treaty here: https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100029040/1581293867988

Native-Land.ca - an interactive map of the world by which you can filter Indigenous boundaries by territory, language and/or treaty: https://native-land.ca/

Coming Home: to Indigenous Place Names in Canada - a beautiful & detailed free PDF of Indigenous place names on Turtle Island. Researched & designed by Dr. Margaret Wickens Pearce, as commissioned by Dr. Stephen J. Hornsby, Director of the Canadian-American Center of the University of Maine: https://umaine.edu/canam/publications/coming-home-map/