I have been hearing people offer the rationale that ‘all land is sacred’ as the excuse to desecrate land and waterscapes that are particularly sacred to the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. Intuitively most people are able to quickly realize that burial sites are particularly sacred and that the argument is poor.
 
In his book “God is Red: A Native View of Religion” the well-known and highly respected author, theologian, historian, and Indigenous activist Vine Deloria Jr. (1933-2005) offers important thoughts that can guide us in thinking through the desecration and destruction of so called development. Deloria offers us four categories of sacred places.
 
The first category involves land and waterscapes to which we attribute sanctity because it is a location where, within our known history, something of great importance took place there. One such example is the Gettysburg National Cemetery and the ground where the Twin Towers in New York City were once located. Another example is Wounded Knee, South Dakota. These places are considered sacred sites because of recent human activity.
 
Second, other lands are sacred not due to human events, but rather due to a higher power. These are land and waterscapes where people have a special experience and this experience is attributed to the sacred. Said another way, within a secular context there is an experience that is attributed to the holy. One example is the town of Buffalo Gap at the south eastern edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota which is the location where the buffalo first emerged in the spring and which marks the beginning of the Plains Indians’ ceremonial year.
 
Third, Deloria explains there are indeed locations of overwhelming holiness. At these places a higher power, on its own initiative, is revealed to human beings. Afterward this location and revelation is then preserved in story and shared for future generations to remember, revere, and direct them forward in a good way. Interestingly Deloria offers, “Indians who have never visited certain sacred sites nevertheless know of these places from the community knowledge, and they intuit this knowing to an essential part of their being” (271).
 
One such place is Akikpautik, the location where Creator placed the First Sacred Pipe, also known as the Great Sacred Pipe. The sacredness of this particular land and waterscape has been preserved and taught to Algonquin Anishinaabeg and settler allies by the late Grandfather William Commanda (Gehl 2018).
 
Lastly, Deloria offers there is a fourth category of sacred lands in that higher spiritual powers will always communicate with human beings of future. His point is we must always be open and ready to experience new revelations at new locations that will then become particularly sacred places. In this way Deloria values that Indigenous knowledge is alive, it growths, it is fluid, it is a verb, and it continues on into the future.
 
References and Additional Sources
 
Cicero, M. (2018). Condos on an Algonquin sacred site? Panels examines ongoing colonialism. Leveller. Retrieved from https://leveller.ca/2018/11/condos-on-an-algonquin-sacred-site/
 
Deloria, V. Jr. (1992). God is Red: A Native View of Religion. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
 
Dumont, A. (2014). Free the Falls. Retrieved from http://albertdumont.com/free-the-falls/
 
Gehl, L. (2018). Akikodjiwan: The Destruction of Canada’s Heart of Reconciliation. Watershed Sentinel. Retrieved from https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/akikodjiwan/
 
Gehl, L., & Lambert, L. (2018). Reconciliation Really?: A Timeline of the Desecration of Akikodjiwan and Akikpautik, An Anishinaabeg. Leveller. Retrieved from https://leveller.ca/2018/03/reconciliation-really/
 
Lambert, L. (2016). Chaudière Falls is an Indigenous Cathedral. Anishinabek News. Retrieved from http://anishinabeknews.ca/2016/10/01/chaudiere-falls-is-an-indigenous-cathedral/
 
Neigh, S. (2017). Canada 150 and the violation of an Algonquin Anishinaabe sacred site. Rabble. Retrieved from http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/talking-radical-radio/2017/01/canada-150-and-violation-algonquin-anishinaabe-sacred-s
 
Pilon, J., & Boswell, R. (2015). Below the Falls; An Ancient Cultural Landscape in the Centre of (Canada’s National Capital Region) Gatineau. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 39, 257-293.

​​​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com.

Many people contact me asking for help regarding their Indian status registration process. I cannot do this. First, there is no way I can process the number of requests I receive. Second, I am not a member of an organization that does this kind of paid work. Nor am I a lawyer. In my Charter challenge I was an overburdened client. I can however provide some insight. As many know in 2018 the Indian Act underwent changes due to both the Descheneaux/Yantha/Yantha court decision and the Gehl court decision.
 
The 2016 Descheneaux/Yantha/Yantha decision had to do with issues of cousins and siblings registered differently depending on male/female ancestral lines. For birth post 1951 this issue has now been addressed. The 2017 Gehl decision had to do with the issue of unknown/unstated paternity where it was determined that INAC can no longer assume unknown/unstated fathers are non-Indian. Rather, INAC has to be reasonable and look at credible evidence that surrounds the child’s birth. Here are the Gehl clauses:
 
Unknown or Unstated Parentage
 
(6) If a parent, grandparent or other ancestor of a person in respect of whom an application is made is unknown — or is unstated on a birth certificate that, if the parent, grandparent or other ancestor were named on it, would help to establish the person’s entitlement to be registered — the Registrar shall, without being required to establish the identity of that parent, grandparent or other ancestor, determine, after considering all of the relevant evidence, whether that parent, grandparent or other ancestor is, was or would have been entitled to be registered. In making the determination, the Registrar shall rely on any credible evidence that is presented by the applicant in support of the application or that the Registrar otherwise has knowledge of and shall draw from it every reasonable inference in favour of the person in respect of whom the application is made.
 
No Presumption
 
(7) For greater certainty, if the identity of a parent, grandparent or other ancestor of an applicant is unknown or unstated on a birth certificate, there is no presumption that this parent, grandparent or other ancestor is not, was not or would not have been entitled to be registered.
 
I interpret these clauses to mean INAC does not have the right to make the assumption that an unknown or unstated father is non-Indian.
 
Some people ask me, “what was the relevant/credible evidence associated with my application?” The relevant/credible evidence presented in my request for Indian status registration and that the Court of Appeal for Ontario cited was:

• My great grandparents lived in the Golden Lake Reserve community
• My grandmother lived in the Golden Lake Reserve community
• My father was born in the Golden Lake Reserve community as was recorded on his registration of birth
• My father was accepted by the Golden Lake Reserve community
• My father lived in the Golden Lake Reserve community
• My father’s godfather was a prominent Elder from the Golden Lake Reserve community
• There is no evidence that he was excluded from the Golden Lake Reserve community

With this explained, I think it is important for me to share more knowledge that my court case uncovered. Through the 2010 McIvor court case INAC created a 2011/12 internal policy, in the form of two small but important directives, which outlined explicitly that the 1985 Indian Act, and thus the Indian Registrar, did not gain the right to make the assumption that unknown and unstated fathers were non-Indian. The 2011 policy directive states that in fact INAC does not have the power to deem an unknown or unstated father as non-Indian; where the 2012 policy directive provides further clarity on how this would apply to pre and post 1951 births. While some would be entitled to 6(1)a, others will be entitled to 6(1)c.
 
Again, these policy directives clearly outline that the Registrar does not have the power to deem non-Indian paternity. It is stated, “the power of the Registrar to deem non-Indian paternity was not carried over in the 1985 Indian Act amendments” (INAC 2011 Memorandum). This policy is in line with the Gehl clauses.
 
Disturbingly the policy also states, “We will not be taking any action to seek out and then investigate or rectify past decisions at this time” (INAC 2011 Memorandum). What this means is INAC had no intention of re-opening closed pre 2011 files to reconsider applicants who had been denied Indian status registration through INAC’s 1985 proof of paternity policy rules that insists fathers are named, and where they are not named the assumption is the father is a non-Indian. This includes situations when an ancestor with an unknown or unstated paternity, born before 1985, is in an applicant’s history. In other words INAC had applied the assumption of non-Indian paternity to new births after 1985, as well as applied it to past births even though they did not have the power to do so.
 
Of course the presence of this policy means that I was forced to endure unnecessary litigation.
 
In summary, the only advice I can offer is that if you were previously denied Indian status registration you should ask INAC to reassess your file under the new changes, providing the necessary relevant/credible evidence and documents. One reason I cannot offer any concrete advice is that the bottom line is that you need to re-contact INAC and ask them if the new changes apply to your situation. Ultimately, only INAC has the ability to determine the exact outcome.
 
Miigwetch for understanding my position.

​​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com.

Akikpautik: Akik, means kettle or rock basin; Pautik, means cascade; tik, means branch or stick as in pipe stem; Pipe Bowl Falls; Great Sacred Pipe; Creator's First Sacred Pipe.

Indigenous place names, learning about them, and reclaiming them is a complex process for several reasons:
 
First, languages evolve and shift into different dialects as they move across the landscape and as they move across time. Another way to say this is a language consists of a series of contiguous dialects that moves across space and through time. What this means is, like Creation, the only constancy we can expect is change.
 
Second, many nations can and will have their own name for a particular land mark or waterscape that they can see or hear in the distance, and/or as they travel on a river/lake/ocean, or as they traverse around and by them within the traditional territory of a neighbouring nation.
 
Third, some people are of the thought that because their nation has a name for a particular land mark and/or waterscape feature that this alone implies Truth and ownership.
 
Fourth, many people are unable to value that different nations can in fact share a particular land and waterscape where no one nation actually owns it. Places are shared spaces.
 
Fifth, through power over strategies, such as colonization and cultural genocide, and the death of old time original language speakers, many Indigenous people are at a loss in remembering original place names and their meanings.
 
Sixth, in the contemporary context, the process of renaming land and waterscapes is mediated by power and economics where as such internalized oppression and lateral violence flourishes.
 
Seventh, some people think the renaming of a place can be settled by majority rule arguments when this process is more about power and oppression. It is well known that sometimes the most important knowledge rests with the minority. Critical theory teaches us this.
 
Eighth, many people are not critical thinkers or trained in critical theory where as such they are un-able to perceive nuance and slight differences and where similarity in words is perceived as the same meaning.
 
Ninth, many people engage in a process of linguistic essentialism as their way to discredit thinkers. To these people the argument is that language is the complete knowledge source of all things; that language holds the Truth of all things when in reality language is only one source of a nation’s knowledge.
 
Tenth, an entity can in fact have several names, and the same name can have different meanings. For example, synonyms for sweater are cardigan and pull over. And a boiler can be a metaphor for rapids, a cooking pot, or a dangerous nuclear reactor.
 
Note: While Akikpautik means Pipe Bowl Falls, Opwagun means Pipe. There is a difference in both the words and meaning; while Pipe Bowl Falls implies an un-articulated Pipe Bowl and Pipe Stem, the second implies a complete articulated Pipe.
 
Note: The Mohawk name for Akikpautik is kana:tsio and it means a boiling pot; a whirlpool in the Ottawa River, where the waterfall has eroded the rock below creating a depression into which the water spills and swirls, creating the boiling effect. (http://geolinguistics.ca/2018/02/03/save-the-falls/)
 
In the Anishinaabe storytelling tradition respect for subjectivity and introspection is crucial. In addition, historically Anishinaabeg inscribed stories and teachings into the land and waterscape as a part of their system of symbolic literacy and land memory.
 
I was fortunate to spend time with Algonquin Grandfather William Commanda during my doctoral work. As a PhD student my interests were regarding Algonquin land and resource rights and traditional knowledge. During our discussions he talked to me about the “Great Sacred Pipe” also known as Pipe Bowl Falls. Grandfather described to me how it was that the falls formed an almost perfect circle like a Pipe Bowl, how the mist rising from the Bowl represented smoke and prayers going up to Creator, and where the rainbows above the Bowl represented two sacred elements, namely Fire and Water or man and woman, coming together in the special act of procreation and Creation. He also talked about how it is that Wìsakedjàk’s, also known as Nanaboozhoo, footprints are found along the Asinabka shoreline. I was honoured to spend time with Grandfather and I hold this time dearly in my heart. Through Grandfather’s story I interpret Akikpautik as the land and waterscape where Creator placed the First Sacred Pipe.
 
In the Anishinaabeg knowledge tradition it is understood that morals such as respect and kindness came before all else. Seeking to discredit my use and understanding of what Akikpautik means, and seeking to discredit my respect for Grandfather’s Asinabka teaching and vision, solely based on linguistic essentialism really should be re-thought as I am not the enemy that keeps the Algonquin poor. Clearly my goal is situated within the Seventh Fire Prophecy in that I am picking up the pieces of knowledge that our ancestors left behind for us to articulate a better future for all things: Water, Trees, Mooz, and Humans.
 
And there is more …
 
The Algonquin Anishinaabe are entitled to live a good life off their land and resources, but Canada will not allow this to happen. Canada is afraid. Situated within the context where colonial Canada only provides small areas of employment and economic prosperity, what results is the Algonquin become at odds with one another. The issue between the Algonquin cannot be resolved through pro and con debates because the bottom line is if the Algonquin had what they were entitled to the debated issues would not exist.
 
Similarly, when settler allies step up to help a particular fraction of Algonquin they really are not the enemy as some people think they are, Canada is. It is Canada that is dividing the Algonquin, and it is Canada that is dividing the Algonquin and settler allies. We really need to think critically versus laterally, and we need to behave better than the way crabs do when placed in a bucket. Canada’s policies and laws will take us all down if we don’t get our acts together. Respect Algonquin and respect our allies, we need one another. We all need clean land, air, and water.
 
Links of interest:
 
https://soundcloud.com/mosaic-publication/dr-gehl-talks-about-construction-on-a-sacred-algonquin-island?fbclid=IwAR1Qg2IG3ejdqg2M0KYWUWH2pSbVWj3ui_BzUy0kR32tWusiJJ-uam9Eey8
 
https://cusjc.ca/mosaic/2018/11/23/indigenous-names-token-or-tribute/?fbclid=IwAR2A0c7udg3IC6MdsxVQjyswrUVCRjQ305A6szjqvWIK0iRXoqmnSF2w7WE
 
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/akikodjiwan/

When it comes to Indigenous rights, it is part of Canada’s strategy to confuse its citizenry. Don’t be duped by the way Canada co-opts and re-defines terms.
 
The truth is Canada is not signing treaties nor is Canada’s newly proposed Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework[1] at all rooted in reconciliation, nation-to-nation, or an equal sharing of lands and resources. Rather, Canada will continue to sign agreements that grossly and narrowly define Indigenous rights as Canada allows them to be. While Canada calls these agreements “modern treaties”, the reality is Canada continues to refuse to meet international standards regarding Indigenous rights, and thus continues to be a colonial and genocidal agent. Remember Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is unworkable.[2] Indeed Minister Carolyn Bennett should be embarrassed about her role in this.
 
When Justin Trudeau came to power as prime minister, it was in large part reactionary to the loathe many people felt for Stephen Harper. Regardless, for other people, Trudeau’s lofty feminist platform and promises of reconciliation and a new nation-to-nation relationship that included the implementation of the UNDRIP was immediately recognized for the lies they were. This was apparent when Trudeau promoted Deputy Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Michael Wernick to the position of Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet. With this move Trudeau promoted the highest ranking civil servant to an even higher position.[3]
 
To the wretchedness of many Indigenous people, it was in June 2016 when Trudeau divulged his thinking. He argued the federal government is the first order of government, the Provincial/Territorial governments the second, municipalities the third, whereas Indigenous government is the fourth and lowest order.[4] Clearly, Trudeau’s version of nation-to-nation was meaningless.[5]
 
In the House of Commons Trudeau stated his new Indigenous Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework would “include new legislation and policy that would make the recognition and implementation of rights the basis for all relations between Indigenous Peoples and the federal government moving forward.” He said this new legislation, now set to be tabled in the new year, will “recognize Indigenous governments, and ensure rigorous, full and meaningful implementation of treaties and other agreements.”[6]
 
In line with lead colonial agent Trudeau, Bennett said following a co-development process with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) she plans to replace policies governing comprehensive claims and self-government.[7] But keep in mind here that the AFN does not represent all Indigenous people in Canada. Rather, it is a body of First Nation chiefs and their membership.
 
Justifiably, many Indigenous leaders are not happy with this approach. Chief Judy Wilson has argued, it makes more sense to implement UNDRIP as the new framework, rather than what Bennett is pushing, adding UNDRIP is the right direction for Canada to take.[8]
 
Indigenous policy advisor and leading Indigenous thinker Russell Diabo adds, the Trudeau government is developing and domesticating a Canadian definition of UNDRIP to further colonize Indigenous Peoples.[9] He adds, the development of this framework has operated in secret, in a top-down process, and with particular organizations, chiefs, and participants. In taking this approach Canada has selected people who are willing to consent. Chiefs and people, for example, who are under the oppressors funding regimes. Diabo argues this framework is designed to terminate our existing sovereignty, self-determination, collective Aboriginal Title and Rights, and Treaty Rights as Indigenous Nations.[10]
 
Thohahente Weaver, a First Nations band member of Kenhteke, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, and outspoken critic, agrees with Diabo arguing, we offered the new comers peace and friendship. We presented them with our Wampum Belts, a traditional governance structure that collectively codify a good and honourable relationship, yet Canada continues to impose our extermination. That is what this new framework is about: The end of Indigenous jurisdiction.[11]
 
Diabo argues through the new framework, and through the fourth level of government, Indigenous rights will be domesticated and defined under federal jurisdiction. Canada will do this by financially coercing and co-opting Indian Act bands to become federally recognized as an Indigenous government. He adds it is important to know that this new framework only concerns Indian Act reserve lands, which consists of only 0.2% of our broader traditional territories. It is in this way that Diabo argues this new framework is an extension of the 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy that called for converting Indian reserves into fee simple ownership and private property.[12] No doubt Trudeau Jr is completing his daddy’s work first proposed in the White Paper.
 
Clearly Indigenous self-government means more than the administration of our own property on reserves. It must mean meeting international standards of Indigenous self-determination which means Canada must respect our rights to our own land and resources so Indigenous Nations can build our own structures of governance and law, and our own institutions such as child care agencies, schools, hospitals, laws, courts, and policing. After all the land and the gifts it provides are ours because we are the Indigenous people to these lands, not the settler people and their descendants.
 
In his book “Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy” Arthur Manual said Canada’s greatest betrayal of this century belongs to Justin Trudeau for the lies and manipulation that he campaigned on, that being that UNDRIP would be fully implemented once he was elected as prime minister. Adding Jody Wilson-Raybould is also a devastating disappointment to Indigenous people.
 
As an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley, a land and waterscape that due to processes of colonization I have never been afforded to live within, nothing speaks to me more about Trudeau’s lies and manipulation than the reality that Canada continues to stand still on their offer of 1.3% of our territory and a one-time buy-out of $300 million in the Algonquin of Ontario land claim. Trudeau’s Liberal government has not moved on this offer. It is through offers such as this and through the new Rights Recognition Framework that Canada’s genocide will continue. Nothing has changed, just more co-optation of the terms relied on.
 
Canada’s Parliament squats on Algonquin land![13]
 
[1]https://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2018/02/14/government-canada-create-recognition-and-implementation-rights-framework
[2]https://aptnnews.ca/2016/07/12/justice-minister-jody-wilson-raybould-says-adopting-undrip-into-canadian-law-unworkable/
[3]https://aptnnews.ca/2016/01/26/opinion-appointment-of-michael-wernick-as-top-federal-bureaucrat-in-ottawa-should-be-a-concern-for-aboriginal-peoples-especially-first-nations/?fbclid=IwAR17T-EscM85Qy-2WX19R1AiipoOej6kKo-LBNLEOOkFXUOCbkNdCdG19jM
[4]http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/headline-politics/episodes/47793606?fbclid=IwAR2v3R9nFRMmHi2pYlyt1AkTpK5eyw5D-vI8FFt1Sgd_m9NWGMyP5zUHSzs
[5]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5acc137850a54f99f58eb19a/t/5bd903d54ae237468519721e/1540948955470/Diabo+FPIC+Conference+Oct+25+18.pdf
[6]https://aptnnews.ca/2018/12/04/trudeau-to-address-first-nation-chiefs-amid-growing-opposition-to-indigenous-rights-framework/?fbclid=IwAR2uIVhI3_s60cG91RCclpNESBbpD4tFBQ0ymMpBlRiQ4oeioiP8mnnItF4
[7]https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/carolyn-bennett-specific-claims-overhaul-1.4930894?fbclid=IwAR1xehpJBH_afyXAEyOePMbAnDPBimeMEETp2Fykx6n3fSfXdTwe1zyqQgA
[8]https://aptnnews.ca/2018/12/04/trudeau-to-address-first-nation-chiefs-amid-growing-opposition-to-indigenous-rights-framework/?fbclid=IwAR2uIVhI3_s60cG91RCclpNESBbpD4tFBQ0ymMpBlRiQ4oeioiP8mnnItF4
[9]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5acc137850a54f99f58eb19a/t/5bd903d54ae237468519721e/1540948955470/Diabo+FPIC+Conference+Oct+25+18.pdf
[10]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5acc137850a54f99f58eb19a/t/5bd904268985831ed03ba163/1540949031200/DOL+TC+INM+Brochure+Sept+23+FINAL.pdf
[11]http://www.windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/youth-rally-on-afn-takes-framework-message-to-afn-assembly/?fbclid=IwAR26fdEGv8aZhM7_UFPpZfof9v8AriNgVGj58mTyYabvKZM_0yH-Cj5QS84
[12]https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5acc137850a54f99f58eb19a/t/5bd90455758d468d5107cff0/1540949077581/DOL+TBR+INM+Backgrounder+Sept+7+18+FINAL+%2B.pdf
[13]https://www.lynngehl.com/black-face-blogging/algonquin-anishinaabe-land-acknowledgement

​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com.

© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com.

​In the Anishinaabe world it was from Creator’s Dream that all was created. During the First Order of Creation the four sacred elements of Water, Rock, Wind, and Fire were brought into existence; during the Second Order of Creation the plant nations were brought into existence; during the Third Order of Creation the animal nations were brought into existence. Once all else was here on our Mother Earth, doing all the things they do, and once everything was beautiful and in its place, Creator began to lower humans to the Earth. At this time, during the Fourth Order, humans were gifted with free will and the intelligence of the mind.

​Within the Anishinaabe tradition it is valued that all the beings before humans are more intelligent. We value that Water, a member of the First Order, was born knowing what to do; and trees, although a little bit further from Creator and born in the Second Order, also hold a lot of Creator’s knowledge and wisdom, thus they know how to stand straight with integrity. We also value that although the Animal beings are born in the Third Order, who hold less knowledge than the tree nation yet more of Creator’s knowledge than humans do, are our teachers in the way they carefully and lovingly teach their young. And we value that humans born in the Fourth Order, despite the gift of our minds, require even more teachings than all the other beings. We value that we are only human and not as intelligent as all that came before. Within this understanding I know I am only a woman.
 
As many people know one of the main differences between Indigenous people and our knowledge philosophy and most, if not all, settler Canadians, is that Indigenous people value the Original Dream and Creator’s Laws. Another way to understand this difference is to value that Indigenous assumptions, beliefs, teachings, and rituals are intentionally and consciously designed around natural features on the Earth and the knowledge inherent. This serves to keep us rooted within Creator’s Law and the naturalistic tradition, also known as the naturalistic paradigm. The short story is that the naturalistic paradigm places natural law at its core whereas humans are placed after, but at the same time within, the broader context of all the other beings such as the four sacred elements.

​The humanistic paradigm is different from the naturalistic paradigm. The humanistic paradigm places humans above the natural world and above all the other beings versus after all else and within it. This includes all human creations such as our governance and economic traditions and this includes brick and mortar structures. These entities are all situated above the natural world. They are not designed to work with Creation and natural law; rather they are designed to control and monopolize the natural world. While humans are smart and able to create amazing things with the gift of our minds; our egos, greed, selfishness, and arrogance are the barriers to respecting the importance of the natural world and all that came before our arrival. This unexamined default way of being is what is meant by the Anishinaabe saying, “humans are pitiful”.
 
As we are all beginning to learn the humanistic paradigm and all the inventions that emerge from it, is devastating our collective land and waterscapes, so much so that our water is polluted with multiple layers of different kinds of pollution: debris such as plastic and other forms of garbage; organic and inorganic chemical compounds such as dioxins, heavy metals, and pharmaceuticals; biological and sewage waste; and radioactive particles. Again, this is the result of human beings placing their needs and desires over and above all the beings within the natural world, which is a particular kind of arrogance over Creator’s Law. Creator, I think, must be sad to have gifted humans with a mind that so quickly defaults to all that is inherent in the Wendigo: Ego, greed, selfishness, and arrogance. I know I am and so are many of my friends.
 
The problem in coming to value our own complicity in the destruction of the natural world is that most people are suffering from “cognitive paradigm paralysis”. What I mean by this is that many humans are unable to think conceptually about the paradigm they live within, and thus unable to think critically about the limitations of that very paradigm ‒ again the humanistic paradigm ‒ and value that there is a better and more intelligent option waiting for them to shift into. The culprit is human cognition. The mind is not as smart as we think it is.

A telling example of people’s inability to understand that they are stuck within the limiting and irrational humanistic paradigm is the fact that when a brick and mortar Church, Mosque, or Synagogue is vandalized, people are disgusted and outraged and they quickly refer to it as a “hate crime”; yet when a natural sacred place that has a 5,000 year old history, such as Akikpautik and Akikodjiwan, located within the natural world of the land and waterscape of the Ottawa River is further desecrated, these same people are unable to shift conceptually and thus value that this too is indeed a hate crime. This inability to shift conceptually into the naturalistic paradigm and truly value Creation and all that came before humans, continues to harm all beings not just Indigenous nations and peoples.
 
Akikpautik and Akikodjiwan are the very land and waterscapes where Creator placed the First Sacred Pipe, the ultimate ritual and ceremony of reconciliation. The Spirit of the West Wind gifted his son Nanaboozo with the Sacred Pipe for fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and citizens of all nations to assist in reconciliation. Sadly, Akikpautik and Akikodjiwan are now slated for further desecration through the construction of Windmill’s Zibi condominium and retail complex, a so-called One Planet Community (now under Theia Partners and Dream Unlimited Corporation). What is particularly bizarre is that this desecration is happening just upstream from Canada’s Parliament.
 
While I understand that I am only a woman brought to this Earth after all else and thus I am less intelligent, many know I have been on a long learning journey piecing together what Canada has done, and continues to do, to Indigenous nations and peoples. What I now know for sure is the most effective way to destroy a people is to destroy their sacred beliefs, stories, and places. It is a complete abomination that the further desecration of this sacred place of reconciliation is happening during the time of the Liberal government’s reconciliation and feminist platform.
 
Here are a few resources if you wish to learn more about the sacredness of Akikpautik and Akikodjiwan: 

• https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/akikodjiwan/
• http://anishinabeknews.ca/2015/05/26/opinion-lambert-on-free-the-chaudiere-falls-and-save-the-islands/
• http://albertdumont.com/dreamkeepers-politicians-chaudiere-falls/
• http://muskratmagazine.com/celebrating-canadas-150th-featuring-the-desecration-of-an-indigenous-sacred-place/

• http://albertdumont.com/asinabka-impossible-to-buy/
• http://asinabka.com/​ 

​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com

I decided to take the time and write this Algonquin Anishinaabe land acknowledgement.  Go ahead and print it out and use it when you are opening an event in Algonquin territory.

​Currently we are on Algonquin Anishinaabeg traditional territory. The Algonquin were one of the first Indigenous Nations that Champlain recorded as he travelled up the Kichesippi, now called the Ottawa River.

Algonquin territory consists of 48 million acres inclusive of rivers, lakes, boreal forests, rock, trees, four legged, winged, and finned. Through the creation of Upper and Lower Canada, now Ontario and Quebec, and through the French surrendering and ceding land that they did not own, the Algonquin Anishinaabeg have been divided along the very river that once united us. Through the overlay of Canada the nation state and the imposition of a provincial federal order, the Algonquin are divided by language, law, and religion. While 39 million acres is in Quebec, 9 million is in Ontario.

Through processes of genocide inherent in processes of colonization, which continues today, the Algonquin have been relegated to small plots of land. There are ten federally recognized communities made up of registered status members: one in Ontario and nine in Quebec. As suggested these communities reside on only small fractions of the larger Algonquin Anishinaabeg traditional territory. Pikwàkanagàn First Nation’s land base consists of a mere 1,561 acres; Barriere Lake only 59; while Wolf Lake has been denied a land base altogether. There are also many communities in Ontario, made up of mostly non-status members, that have been more formally organized to accommodate the federal government’s need to define Indigenous rights in narrow terms and they all lack their own collective land bases known as reserve lands.
 
The Kichesippi has been subject to the logging, hydroelectric, nuclear power, and the fishing and sport hunting industries. These industries have clogged the Great River, flooded important landscapes, and are currently dumping radio-active particles in the river. What is more, the nuclear industry is also warming the river using the water to cool down nuclear reactors.
 
Although the Algonquin Anishinaabeg were emissaries during the 1764 Treaty at Niagara, and many of the men fought on the side of the British during the 1776 American revolution, and during WW1 and WW2, Algonquin were and are continually denied the jurisdiction to their land and resources.
 
Indigenous knowledge philosophy is a life way that situates humans within a broader context of the natural world versus a religion selectively practiced. Within this philosophy, the Four Sacred Elements ‒ Water, Rock, Wind, and Fire ‒ are valued as more intelligent. As such, places where they intersect are sacred. In addition, while many people think Indigenous people of Turtle Island lack a tradition of symbolic literacy, in actuality the Anishinaabeg inscribed stories, knowledge, and important messages within the land and waterscapes of their territory. Akikpautik is where Creator placed the First Sacred Pipe, the ultimate expression of Reconciliation between Nations, Humans, and the Natural World.
 
Today there are more non-status than status Algonquin and many of us reside outside of our traditional territory.

​​​​​​​​Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com

​Check out this speakers' panel in Ottawa on Oct 27 on the need to respect an Indigenous sacred place located just walking distance from Canada's parliament.

​Only 100 tickets will be sold on a first come first serve basis. 

Facebook event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/2098947666814368/
​
Eventbrite page:
​
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reconciliation-re-membering-creators-first-sacred-pipe-tickets-49213541026

​​​​​​​Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com

Many of the descendants of settlers – aka Canadians – are perturbed or in an uproar about the process whereby statues of the prominent early colonial and genocidal men are being taken down and relegated to storage rooms. We all know the names of the men because they have become icons of what is Canada. Icons, though, when you add power are more about propaganda than knowledge and truth.

In the work I do I have been exposed to far too many settler thoughts that these statues need to remain erected in public settings if only as a measure so Canadians do not forget what happened and further as a way to ensure the genocide does not happen again.

To this I have a few things to say:

First, the descendants of settler people do not get to have a say here. Rather, it is Indigenous people who have the most important knowledge on this topic. This is a good time for the descendants of settler people to listen versus talk. After all, this is the reasonable and moral thing to do: to value that as the people who have benefited more from colonization, your thoughts and opinions are not important and should not be made audible.

Second, descendants of settler people need to value that while the statues are coming down, Canada does indeed continue today with its colonial genocidal laws, policies, and practices such as the land claims process. The long-time presence of the statues has not changed Canada’s genocidal policies, not at all. As an example, the Algonquin in Ontario continue to be denied access to their land and resource rights. As a matter of fact we are only offered 1.3% of our territory and a $300 million one-time buy-out in our current land claim, yet we all know a nation is not a nation without the land and resources needed to govern its citizenry.

Third, while Indigenous people may be relieved to see the icons taken down, the Liberal government will be the real winner because they will receive accolades, and votes, for removing them. In this way the practice by the Prime Minister and his cabinet is about nothing more than about manipulating the masses through optics and circumventing what is really needed: the end of the genocide in Canada.

If you do not like what I say here, this is due to the cognitive dissonance inherent in iconoclasm. Keep in mind through that the best and most important knowledge is emotional. Hang on to your heart and listen to the voices that matter most: Indigenous people. And then be in an uproar about the reality that Canada’s genocide continues despite the presence or removal of the deceptive icons that Canada calls its leaders.

The human spirit moves through the heart. Morals take the same pathway. Cognitive dissonance is more about ego versus morality.

​​​​​​Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com

​I wanted to make sure I took some time and said “Miigwetch” to you for organizing the Snap Up Kinder Morgan protest last week in Peterborough Ontario and just outside of MP Maryam Monsef’s office. I was happy to see both younger and older settler people from Peterborough standing up against the pipeline that will lead to more climate change and devastation of the Land and our Water systems.
 
Of course there is the issue of Canada’s ongoing assault of Indigenous rights. Indigenous consent was not given to build the pipeline. Regardless, the Liberal government continues to spew rhetoric and lie when it comes to the matter of “reconciliation” and respecting the “nation to nation relationship”. It does not take much reasoning to know that reconciliation will not occur without Canada’s respect for Indigenous jurisdiction of Land and resources. I say this despite the very recent media non-sense that covered LEAP Peterborough’s so called reconciliation party where reconciliation was reduced to “building something new” versus the reality of it being rooted in respecting Indigenous jurisdiction. More Indigenist inclined thinkers know that ultimately reconciliation is about Land. The media really needs to stop with the practice of “elderism” where it is assumed, or manipulatively thought and practiced, that older Indigenous people are the holders of all the important knowledge. Indigenous communities also had and continue to have intellectuals and philophers. What I mean by this is Indigenous knowledge is collectively held versus essentialized within Elders and language carriers.
 
That said, I do want to say something else important about the Snap Up protest. While it warmed my heart that Peterborough settler people were doing something, I found the method of singing of different renditions of O’ Canada to be most unfortunate. The practice of singing different renditions of O’ Canada emerges from the practice of old white feminism which has been refuted a long time ago. While some people may think I am negatively criticizing, in fact my thoughts on this emerge from a valid critical theory framework. What I am getting at is what humans really need is an entire paradigm shift that displaces humans from the centre where the natural world should be. The ritual and performance of singing of O’ Canada emerges from the very same destructive humanistic paradigm that places humans and their institutions, such as state nationalism, at the core. Again, what humans really need is to shift to the naturalistic paradigm that places the natural world at the core; the quality of our collective land and water is at stake.
 
We are all Indigenous to the Earth and we all exist within natural law.
 
The issues humans and the Earth face are so much more than about the divisions between settlers (refugees included) and Indigenous people. We need to think deeply about this because when we sing these different renditions of O’ Canada we in fact remain within the trap of state nationalism built by humans where we merely celebrate our oppression.
 
What we all need to do is become the Indigenist people all of our ancestors taught us to be, and care better for the Earth and the gift of water. We need to be singing the water song.

​​​​​Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit.  You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com