I am proud to have spent many years learning and forming on the traditional lands of the Wet’suwet’en Yintikh, the Stellat’en, and the Dënéndeh Nations where they intersect at Burns Lake. I am also proud to currently exist as learner, teacher, and ally, and visitor in Prince George, B.C. on the traditional unceded territories of the Lheidli T’Enneh Nation, a city I have marked as home for the past eleven years. Without considerable stretch of the imagination, the locals of each of these places, to me, represent one larger space which I have always considered to be home; From the city limits of Quesnel driving towards Williams Lake, to the peak of Hudson Bay Mountain near Smithers, to the rugged country of South-Bank, stretching to include Ootsa, Binta, and Takysie Lakes. These are the lands I feel familiarity with when exploring, tending too, and finding peace in.
A great deal of my soul lives outdoors, in the untailored wilderness which surrounds those living in Northern B.C., for those who care to look. I have always had an affinity for the wild; I find myself feeling the most peace in spaces which remain intact from the artificiality of colonial influences. Three decades of observation has served as ample data to support my passion’s for the reversal and prevention of human created climate change, the greater social movement towards Reconciliation, as well as other issues concerning equity and equality in our multicultural nation. My educational pursuits are embedded in place, and my challenge to myself is to engage all possible learners with passions for the previously mentioned issues not by training students to think like me; Rather, I want to focus on igniting the same fires that I hold dear, within my students so that they too will find pride in the preservation of the place(s) they call home, and in the protection and maintenance of the ethical fabric composing our society.
I believe, hope, and wish that I will call this part of B.C. home for the remainder of my life. As an educator, I vow to maintain the desire to encourage and instill these integral qualities in the students I share my classroom with.