Land Acknowledgement

Nooksack River — confluence of the north and south fork of the Nooksack river — August 8, 2022.

A friend brought fish from Alaska. The fillet, flash frozen from Bristol Bay, brought to me. Into my hands.

I am still learning how something so vast can fit into my language. That this place where I live and play and eat fish from the sea, this play where I create meaning and memories — where I swim in the green pools and wander upstream, where the flesh of the fish breaks apart in my hands in the river, where I found mouse bones in owl pellets in the dirt — is the traditional lands of the Lummi and Nooksack peoples. That my play is a result of privilege. Of colonization. Of exploitation. And of genocide.

We drove to the river to prepare, cook, and eat the salmon.

Over the fire wrapped in tin foil, we heard the salmons flesh sizzle submerged in layers of butter, garlic, and parsley. We had to check twice to make sure it was it was cooked. Unsure of the process, of how fast the fish would cook.

Once prepared we took the tail to the river to give it back. Back to the river, to the microbes, to the ocean, to us, and our mother. As settlers, we returned the cooked body of the fish, not our own, and not our practice. In my heart I felt the weight of that action, in my hands the swift water washed away the salmon. Weightless.

Consumed, with gratitude from our fingertips to our mouths. an Acknowledgment of a world, of a landscape, not ours that nourishes us.

So this is our land acknowledgment. I wanted it to be personal, to be honest, even if it might be clumsy. I have feared saying it wrong, feared patronizing or posturing. I wanted to begin with vulnerability and reflection, with acknowledgment of what I do not know. Of what pieces might not be my place to know. and to show up and be as open as I can be to listening to, learning from, and respecting the land and traditional peoples of the land that I live and create on.