September 30 is coming.

September 30 is coming.

And when I think about Truth and Reconciliation, I think about the children, the families, the residential schools and everything that was taken from Indigenous peoples.

But I also think about food.

Because food is life.

The buffalo.

The salmon.

The eulachon.

The clam beds.

The camas.

The berries, roots, medicines and everything that came from the land and water.

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples knew how to live with these foods, how to care for them, preserve them, trade them and pass that knowledge from one generation to the next.

The Grease Trails are one extraordinary example. Eulachon grease travelled enormous distances between coastal and interior nations. Those little fish were food, medicine, fuel and a valuable part of a vast Indigenous trading network.

And then so much of that was disrupted.

Buffalo were slaughtered.

Traditional food sources were restricted or destroyed.

People were removed from their lands and waters.

Children were taken away from the people who would have taught them.

When you interfere with a people's food system, you are interfering with much more than what is on the dinner table.

You are interfering with knowledge, independence, culture and the relationship between generations.

That is why I think food needs to be part of the conversation about Truth and Reconciliation.

And this is where I find hope.

Because the knowledge did not disappear.

People remembered.

Elders remembered.

Families remembered.

And today, people are bringing that knowledge forward again.

Clam gardens are being restored. Traditional foods are being taught. Indigenous food sovereignty movements are rebuilding connections with land and water.

This isn't about going backward.

It is about remembering what was already known.

It is about respecting the people who carried that knowledge through generations of attempts to erase it.

And perhaps there is something for all of us to learn.

We have become so disconnected from our food that many of us barely know where it comes from.

Maybe we need to learn again.

Not by taking Indigenous knowledge, but by listening to Indigenous knowledge holders.

By supporting Indigenous communities restoring their own food systems.

By understanding that land is not simply property and food is not simply a commodity.

Food can be memory.

Food can be culture.

Food can be relationship.

Food can be survival.

And food can be part of healing.

This September 30, I will be thinking about the children who were taken.

But I will also be thinking about what sustained their families before those children were taken away.

The buffalo.

The salmon.

The eulachon.

The clam gardens.

The camas.

The land and water.

And the knowledge of how to care for it.

Remembering what was lost matters.

But so does remembering what survived.

And perhaps healing begins with listening to that knowledge again.

10 reflective questions for teachers

1. Are we teaching Indigenous history as something that happened in the past — or helping students understand how its consequences continue today?

2. When we teach residential schools, do we also teach what existed before them — the knowledge, food systems, languages, economies and relationships that colonialism disrupted?

3. Do our students know what the buffalo, salmon, eulachon, camas and clam gardens meant to the peoples who depended upon them?

4. What happens when a people are separated from their food, their land and the people who hold the knowledge of how to care for both?

5. Are we teaching Indigenous peoples as victims of history, or are we teaching about their survival, knowledge, leadership and resurgence?

6. Whose knowledge is considered “expert” in our classrooms — and who decided that?

7. Can we teach reconciliation without teaching students about the land and resources that were taken, restricted or controlled?

8. What Indigenous knowledge have we never learned ourselves — and are we honest with our students about those gaps?

9. Are we teaching children to simply remember what was lost, or are we helping them understand how knowledge can survive and be carried forward?

10. If education once played a role in separating Indigenous children from their families, languages and knowledge, what responsibility does education have today in supporting truth, respect and the rebuilding of relationships?

Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous food sovereignty, Indigenous knowledge, residential schools, food systems, eulachon, buffalo, clam gardens, camas, land and culture

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