Walk Gently

Summer has a way of pulling us outward. Road trips. Beach days. That itch to find somewhere new, somewhere quiet, somewhere that feels far from everything.

George has been watching this play out on his Nation's lands — bikes rolling past homes, cameras out on the beach, people calling it a hidden gem. It's a familiar season. And it's exactly why this teaching matters right now.

Because the places we're drawn to this summer aren't empty, and they were never really hidden. They're homelands. They still are.

George shares what it means to walk gently on land that isn't ours, and what it costs when we forget that.

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People often find themselves travelling through my Nation’s lands. Recently I witnessed a group of motorcycles driving their bikes through our roads, past our homes. They walk our beaches. They take photos of our sunsets. They speak about how peaceful and untouched it feels here.

They use words like pristine.

Quiet.

Hidden gem.

What many do not realize is that these are not just beautiful places. These are living homelands. These are places where our ancestors prayed, harvested, raised families, and were laid to rest. Every shoreline carries memory. Every forest holds story. The wind that moves across the water today has moved across our people for thousands of years.

This land is not empty.

It is not untouched.

It is deeply touched.

By ceremony.

By grief.

By laughter.

By survival.

Sometimes our Nation has to ask people to leave.

We close certain areas.

We put up signs.

We set boundaries.

From the outside, that can feel unwelcoming. Some may misunderstand it. Some may feel entitled to access because they see land as public, recreational, or free for the taking.

But for us, it is protection.

We are protecting sacred spaces.

We are protecting burial grounds.

We are protecting our privacy.

We are protecting what little we have left after generations of displacement and loss.

Boundaries are not hostility.

They are acts of love.

They are acts of responsibility.

They are how we continue our role as stewards in a world that has not always respected that role.

And this brings me back to the land.

When you walk our beaches, remember you are walking on living homelands. Remember that you are a visitor in a place that has never stopped being Indigenous.

And not only here.

Every place you call home on Turtle Island was once, and still is, Indigenous land. Before cities were built. Before borders were drawn. Before roads were paved and property lines were marked, our Nations lived in deep relationship with these lands.

We did not own the land.

We belonged to it.

The land shaped our languages, our laws, our governance, our food systems, our ceremonies.

It taught us when to harvest, when to rest, when to move, when to gather.

It was and is our first teacher.

So when you walk along the shore, hike a trail, build a house, or raise your children, understand that you are standing on land that carries Indigenous history, Indigenous memory, and Indigenous spirit.

These lands once fully sustained our Nations.

Many were taken through force.

Some were signed away under pressure and broken promises.

Others were simply occupied without consent.

But our connection to them has never been severed.

Colonization disrupted us, but it did not erase us.

We are still here.

We are still speaking our languages.

We are still practicing ceremony.

We are still teaching our children who they are.

We are still defending the water and the forests.

If you benefit from this land, then you also carry responsibility to it.

I ask you to treat the land with love and respect.

Honour it the way my ancestors honoured it.

Take only what you need.

Give thanks.

Protect the water.

Protect the trees.

Protect the sacred places you may not even recognize as sacred.

Learn whose land you are on. Speak the Nation’s name. Teach your children the truth about how this country was built and who paid the price for it.

This is not about guilt.

It is about accountability.

It is about relationship.

It is about understanding that reconciliation is not a word.

It is a daily practice rooted in respect for land and for the people who have cared for it since time immemorial.

My people are still doing our best to honour these lands.

We are still in relationship with them.

We are still fighting to protect them, not just for ourselves, but for everyone who now calls this place home.

We are asking you to walk this land in a better way than before.

With humility.

With awareness.

With gratitude.

Walk gently.

We are still here. And we are not going anywhere.

With love and respect,

Huy ch q’u | Thank you

Wholwolet’za | George Harris Jr

Every place we're headed this summer — every beach, every trail, every backyard — carries a name we may not know yet, and a people who are still there.

George's teaching isn't asking us to stay home. It's asking us to arrive differently. To learn whose land we're standing on before we plant a flag or a beach towel. To treat boundaries as care, not inconvenience. To walk like guests instead of owners.

🧡 Kim + the CC Team