We are in Mi’kma’ki, on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People, who have lived in harmony with the land for centuries. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. These treaties did not implicate or affirm the surrender or transfer of lands and resources to the British, but in fact recognized Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title, establishing the rules for what was to be a long-standing relationship of mutual respect between nations.
The Flaxmobile Project recognizes that land dispossession in this country is rooted in and maintained by settler colonialism and began with colonial systems of enclosure for agriculture. This dispossession contributed to the loss of traditional bast fibre knowledge and the erasure of Indigenous material culture. Flax was a crop introduced by early settlers and it is our aim that knowledge of flax cultivation developed through this project will also support the re-establishment of Indigenous bast fibres in Mi’kma’ki: Nova Scotia.
We are treaty people and respect the rights and responsibilities of the treaties.