quietly creating

June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada.

Over a decade ago, I became interested in the plants a local native plant nursery was selling at a local country market. Three Fragaria virginiana and a small plug of Androsace chamaejasme came home with me and have respectively, both flourished and slowly grown over the years along with other plants I’ve collected including: Achillea millefolium, Antennaria rosea, Linnaea borealis, Cornus canadensis, Penstemon nitidus, Monarda fistulosa… My vantage point on what I was doing has also slowly grown.

I have had a privileged perspective on what I have been creating. I thought I was connecting to Indigenous ways of knowing by bringing back the plants that historically would have stood on what is now our house, backyard, within a sprawling suburban neighbourhood on Treaty 7 Territory. Yes, I have increased biodiversity and important habitat for pollinators, but this physical and romanticized land acknowledgement meets my responsibilities towards reconciliation at a minimum surface level. As someone who works with people in my day job, my garden space has been noticeably absent of any kind of human kinds of people.

So, in the month of June where we celebrate Indigenous culture and achievement, I remember that I am a (very lazy) visitor to this land which was first inhabited by the Blackfoot Confederacy, Tsuut’ina Nation, Stoney Nakoda Nations and Métis Nation, Districts 5 and 6 and I am aware that I still have work to do to live in a better way with all beings. Hopefully, I have more time to do that than the bees.