Learning Hub

Indigenous peoples are not one single group. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples have distinct histories, cultures, languages, governance systems, rights, and relationships to land.

For Centre Wellington, this learning has a local starting point. The Township is located on the treaty lands and traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and the Haudenosaunee. The County of Wellington also recognizes that the wider region is situated on multiple Treaties within the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, with historic agreements also involving the Haudenosaunee. It further acknowledges that other Nations, including the Attawandaron, Métis, and Inuit, have inhabited these lands throughout time. 

This is why Indigenous Relations work needs to be specific and careful. It is not enough to speak about “Indigenous culture” in general terms. Respectful learning asks: Which Nations? Which territories? Which treaties? Which histories? Which ongoing rights and responsibilities?

Learn more about Indigenous Peoples and Communities

Indigenous Relations are connected to land. Municipalities exist within lands that carry Indigenous histories, treaty relationships, responsibilities, and ongoing Indigenous presence.

Learning about land and treaty is more than reciting a land acknowledgement. A land acknowledgement can open the door, but the deeper work is learning what that acknowledgement points toward: whose lands we are on, what treaty relationships exist, what responsibilities flow from those relationships, and how those responsibilities should shape public life today.

In Centre Wellington, this means recognizing the treaty lands and traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and the Haudenosaunee, while continuing to learn from Indigenous communities about local histories, treaty rights, and responsibilities. 

Learn more about Treaties and Agreements

Truth and reconciliation require both learning and action. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released 94 Calls to Action to help governments, institutions, and communities address the legacy of residential schools and advance reconciliation. The official Government of Canada publication record identifies the Calls to Action as a 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission document. 

For municipalities, reconciliation can include staff education, public learning, respectful commemoration, policy review, consultation with Indigenous communities, and changes to how Indigenous histories and cultures are represented in public spaces.

Centre Wellington’s Indigenous Relations work connects especially to Calls to Action 43, 47, 57, and 79, which relate to UNDRIP, rejecting colonial doctrines of possession, public servant education, and commemoration.

Read the TRC Calls to Action

Representation shapes how people understand history, identity, and belonging. Public symbols, names, images, displays, monuments, programs, and events all communicate messages about whose stories are visible and how they are told.

Respectful Indigenous representation requires context, accuracy, permission, relationship, and accountability. It asks whether Indigenous peoples are being represented as living communities with rights and histories, or whether culture is being reduced to a symbol, image, decoration, or theme.

Learn more about Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

Appropriation involves taking, using, or displaying cultural elements without proper context, permission, relationship, or understanding. This can happen even when the intention is positive.

Appreciation involves learning, acknowledgement, respect, relationship, and responsibility. It means asking where something comes from, who it belongs to, whether permission has been given, and whether the use supports understanding rather than reducing culture to a symbol, image, or theme.

This distinction is especially important in public settings because municipal spaces are shared spaces. What appears in those spaces should reflect care, accuracy, and accountability.

Questions to consider:

Who is being represented?

Who has authority to share or approve this representation?

Has meaningful consultation happened?

Does this use educate or oversimplify?

Does it honour a living culture, or turn culture into a visual theme?

Seven generations thinking asks communities to consider the long-term impact of today’s decisions. It encourages responsibility beyond the immediate moment and invites people to think about what future generations will inherit.

In municipal work, this can apply to policy, land use, public education, climate, recreation, commemoration, and community spaces. It asks not only what feels familiar now, but what will create a more respectful and responsible future.

Learn more about Indigenous history and reconciliation 

The phrase Two Rows Together draws from the significance of the Two Row Wampum, one of the most important frameworks for understanding relationship, coexistence, and mutual respect between Indigenous peoples and settlers.

The Two Row Wampum is often understood through the image of two vessels travelling side by side along the same river. Each travels its own path. Each respects the laws, traditions, and responsibilities of the other. Neither tries to steer the other’s vessel.

In the context of this project, Two Rows Together represents the Township’s commitment to learning, accountability, and respectful relationship-building. It reminds us that reconciliation is not about absorbing Indigenous symbols into non-Indigenous institutions. It is about recognizing difference, respecting relationship, and moving forward with care.

The Tree of Peace is a sacred symbol connected to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Great Law of Peace. In the display, the Tree of Peace represents unity, responsibility, peace, and collective well-being.

Its inclusion in the artwork is not decorative. It helps communicate the deeper purpose of the display: to create space for reflection, understanding, and a different path forward.

In the artist statement, Kory Parkin connects the Tree of Peace to the idea of a “good mind,” including peace, harmony, compassion, empathy, generosity, connection to the earth, and responsibility to community and future generations.