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Tatamagouche Centre Land Walk (1 hour)
Tatamagouche Centre sits on a sacred Mi'kmaq gathering site and burial grounds in Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia), Turtle Island. Unceded unsurrendered Mi'kmaq homeland. It has been a place of gathering and ceremony for thousands of years and continues to be a place where many L'nu connect, gather on the land around ceremony and food.
This land walk is an audio tour with our people, past and places- a walk of love, pain, repair and vision. Listen in and walk our grounds for this hour together. We tell the truth and remember our past so that healing of the land and the harmed can truly occur.
We hear about what it was like when these areas were hunting and gathering grounds, part of Wabanaki homelands. We hear about the genocide of settler contact and dispossession of these lands first of the Mi'kmaq. Later of Acadiens. We visit the homes, hear about past shipping and logging settlements by the British.
We hear about the origins of Tatamagouche Centre in the mid-Fifties, a place for United church of Canada training of lay ministers and community members and our long history of love, peace and friendship, harm, repair, solidarity with Indigenous friends and communities, Guatemalan activists and communities, water and land defenders. The United church of Canada owned 15 Residential schools. The United Church delivered an apology to the Native Congregations in 1986 and the Moderator of the United Church offered an apology in 1998. Since 2003, the United Church has worked with other denominations and Survivor groups to promote a national truth-telling and healing process. Part of that process was the Peace and Friendship Neighbours Project founded around 2005 to lay the ground for righting relations, peace and friendship and raise awareness about Residential schools, Treaty rights and responsibilities, land, water and livelihood defense. These processes led to the Truth and Reconciliation process for Residential School Survivors in Eastern Canada. Accompaniment during the Esgenoôpetitj fishing disputes were also an early part of this work.
We hear from the many inspiring leaders who make the learning and retreat centre what it is today- a place of gathering, rest, retreat, personal and collective care and liberation for people of diverse faiths, backgrounds and experiences. We are a courage lab for the world we want in the sacred journey of Rematriating the land, and Righting relations with ourselves, the land and one another.
Wela'lin, thank you to those who shared their stories: Catherine Martin, gkisedtanamoogk, Helene Hannah, late Kenley MacNeil, late Wilf Bean, Kathryn Anderson, Mohammed Yaffa, Rena Kulczycki, Eliza Schurman, Catherine Bussiere (Producer, Interviewer, Editor). Nanci Lee (Writer/Storyboard, Production Support). Jon Hutt (Production & interview support). Lee Fleming (Interview support).
Thank you also to the United Church of Canada Foundation, Seeds of Hope for funding to support this initiative. In place of a video storytelling program that was cancelled due to COVID in 2020, these resources were channelled to this initiative.
www.tatamagouchecentre.ca
- Genre
- Podcast