Toward the 8th fire: The view from Oshkimaadziig Unity Camp

Land is the basis of all life and is an integral object and objective of settler colonialism. As the Canadian state works tirelessly to ‘fill in the gaps’ – both historical and geographical – of its sovereign territorial rule, Indigenous land-based knowledges and existences are pushed further to the margins. And so, Indigenous land reclamations arguably pose an especially potent threat to the logics of settler colonialism by taking back land and providing the space to re-build and protect Indigenous life-ways. This conversational piece engages with experiences of the authors and the Oshkimaadziig Unity Camp – an active land reclamation in what is now called Awenda Provincial Park in Ontario – in order to illustrate how land reclamations both effectively challenge settler Canadian sovereignty and produce a new space within which alternative knowledges, cross-cutting solidarities, and decolonization efforts all co-emerge. Oshkimaadziig Unity Camp has carved out a space in which meaningful strides are being made to go beyond decolonization as a metaphor and encourage the embodiment of new anti-colonial relations between people (both Indigenous and settler) and the land.