NATIVE LAND

All across Turtle Island / Canada, Settlers are standing up and contributing their skills, talent and many hours of hard work towards the redefinition of how we co-exist together. Today, we feature the amazing work of Victor Gerard Temprano, who has been developing a new Map, a new way of understanding. This work has NEVER been seen or done before. Please read Victor’s words below and check out his incredible new map of Native Land.

Hi, I’m Victor.

I’m a settler, born in traditional Katzie territory and raised in the Okanagan. One day, when driving to Squamish from Vancouver, I noticed how many road signs had accompanying names in the local Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim language. I wanted to learn more about place names and languages (like, how do I pronounce those names?), and so I thought it might be useful to develop a resource for tourists, interested Canadians, and others to learn about First Nations near them, and to engage with language resources as well.

This project is aimed particularly at settlers, hence its quite neutral and friendly language – I am hoping that it can plant a seed of awareness in people’s minds, and encourage them to go further along the path of a ‘positive’ settler consciousness (whatever that is). It may develop or morph into a localized place name resource sometime in the future — we’ll see!

I’m still very unsure and uncomfortable with many of the issues involved in mapping Indigenous territories, and I would like to have as many people involved as possible so as to make something that is truly useful, consensual, and respectful. So if you would like to contribute your comments or opinions, I would appreciate it very much.

Also, I’m always looking for new ideas, so get in touch with me anytime about web development stuff!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victor.temprano

Victor

Please check out Victor Gerard Temprano’s incredible new map of Native Land.
This work has NEVER been seen or done before.