Fort York

The watercolour image I am holding up was painted in 1796 by Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of the city's founder. Her watercolour images fascinate me due to the fact they are some of the very first and only images we have that give us an idea of what Toronto looked like in a purely natural state. 

When Elizabeth and her husband John Graves Simcoe sailed into Tkaranto's stunning harbour, it was all natural and home of the the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. 

What was once their healing sands, is now the site of an airport. 

In order for settlers to honour our agreements and promises, we need to reconcile our relationship with the landscape and cease structuring our society in ways that continue to exploit the environment and the Indigenous people still working hard to protect it.