He/him
Jeffrey Kiyoshk Ross is of the marten clan, and a registered member of Walpole Island Unceded First Nation. He is an Ontario Certified Teacher with over 20 years of communications, journalism, and marketing experience working with First Nation communities and organizations in Ontario. He has been fortunate to teach in Pikangikum, Pickle Lake, and Thunder Bay, and develops and delivers curriculum that is informed by Canada’s First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples’ diverse histories and cultures. He is also an Indigenous consultant who has taught at the Art Gallery of Ontario facilitating discussion on the TRC and Anishnaabek knowledge, and works with organizations to help them inform their hiring practices, help improve Indigenous community involvement, and facilitate cultural competencies. He has a long history of Indigenous program development, intentional community building, and evaluation of learners (both young people and adults).
“I moved to Kingston during COVID to be able to work with the land and grow food. I stayed and have been learning as much as I can with Loving Spoonful and La Via Campesina. I still go back to Toronto and the area for ceremony and family. I want to help everyone enjoy food and build that good relationship with Shkakimikwe.”
I want my land acknowledgment to be informed by my relationship to Shkakimikwe (The Earth) and my own learning journey that has been disrupted by colonization and seeks to make whole my relationship with my ancestors, the land, and all my relatives: the manidogs (unknown and unseen), the insects, the animals, the water, the air, and all the things that this planet and Gizhemanidoo (The Creator) has provided us (Anishnaabeg) to live a good life. I want to recognize the many ways of knowing that my coworkers and people that I meet bring – all Creation stories are true, and I want to honor those ways of knowing by listening and learning.
Miigwech giiye Shkakimi-kwe gii-miizhiyaang,
Thank you mother earth for giving us
Bi-maadizowin, gii-miizhiyaang miijim, gii-miizhiyaang niibish
Life, for giving us food, for giving us water,
Gii-miizhiyaang wesiinyig miinwaa,
For giving us the animals and,
Gii-miizhiyaang nesewin.
For giving us the air we breath
Here is a list of words – I am learning the language that my mother lost in residential school – that inform my understanding to land and all living and non living beings. I found many translations because English does not convey the context of the greater meaning of the words or the many dialects of Anishinaabemowin:
Ne-iikaanigaana – all my relations
Niikaniganaw – all my relations
Indinawemaaganidog – All me relatives
Kaandossiwin – how we come to know
Anishinaabeyendamowin – Anishinaabe thought
I am doing my best.
I also want to understand our (Indigenous) ways of knowing each other. I have left this video here for you. I am in the place where the Dish With No Sharp Objects Wampum (commonly referred to as the Dish with One Spoon, but I was told in Tyendinega that is not how it is remembered there) and the Great Law/ Gayanashagowa (of the Haudenosaunee) were used to guide those Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and other First Nations, who called this territory home and relied on this place to thrive, find peace with each other and the world. I call Toronto home.
First Nations Ojibway Language instructor and Anishnaabe history specialist Alan Corbiere explains the importance of wampum in Anishnaabek relations to other nations.