Ry Moran on how The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada allows for a united future
Maps can be beautiful works of art and scholarship, but they can also be political tools of control and colonization.
The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada has maps that do not include modern boundaries, provinces or capitals. It shows traditional lands and includes information about treaties, land claims and sites of residential schools.
It's the work of more than 100 Indigenous storytellers and writers, and it was produced in partnership with the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.
Ry Moran is a contributor to the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, the director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and a proud member of the Métis Nation.
How maps define identity
"There has been a very long standing effort in this country to present a singular image of who we are as a nation and what our territory represents, but I think the opportunity that we've been realizing here as a country is the opportunity to really understand who we are and reclaim a new sense of identity that has in fact been on this land for for millennia.
"There's always two sides to the story of reconciliation in this country. There's the experience of Indigenous peoples, and then there's experience of non-Indigenous peoples that are being welcomed into this old history. For Indigenous peoples, it's been typically a very powerful affirmation of the existence of these long histories in those countries and affirmation that, 'Yes, we are here, yes, our places exist, yes, they have primacy, yes, they have legitimacy.' For non-Indigenous Peoples, it's an entirely new presentation of Canada. When you can walk on this land with new eyes, the inevitable result is that you see it in different ways."
Education as a pathway to truth
"Education has to be built on a very simple premise of telling the truth. What we've done in this country for a really long period of time is not tell the truth about what this land is. We've actually been very consciously erasing Indigenous identities from this land, renaming and colonizing this land. So this Atlas is going to be of incredible importance not only for for educating people, but for telling the truth and continuing to say that the nation that we know has a much different origin point than where we typically start the story."
Histories for the forgotten
"As a Métis person, it's always a very positive experience to see your histories and identities reflected back. The Métis experience in this country has been very complicated. We were largely forgotten for a very long period of time and we've found ourselves slipping between the cracks. We've had our own unique connections with the land severed and displaced in many ways. I think the general presentation of this history is about starting to see ourselves reflected back and saying that we see our past in a good way, we see our present accurately reflected — and what that collectively allows us to do is start to see our futures together in this country, as opposed to being sort of omitted from the futures of this country."