LMMI Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that the L.M. Montgomery Institute operates on Epekwitk, the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Mi’kmaw people.
The land on which our institution operates was never conquered, surrendered, given up, or ceded by the Mi’kmaq, who have lived here for over 12,000 years.
Starting in 1725, a series of Peace and Friendship treaties were signed between the British and Mi’kmaq, intended to formalize military alliances between the groups. These treaties guaranteed Mi’kmaq the right to hunt, fish, gather, and earn a reasonable living without British interference. The British did not always honour these Peace and Friendship treaties and caused the death, displacement, and dispossession of many Mi’kmaw people.
Because the Mi’kmaq were never conquered, and never surrendered Epekwitk, all settler occupations including the University of Prince Edward Island and the L.M. Montgomery Institute, remain on unceded territory.
It is our responsibility to honour the treaties which called for an ongoing relationship between nations and to advocate for Indigenous Sovereignty. By offering this land acknowledgement, we are committing to honoring the treaties.
The Mi’kmaw people were very much present on Prince Edward Island in Montgomery’s lifetime, though they are largely absent from her fiction. The LMMI is committed to acknowledging this absence and identifying why and how this erasure has shaped, and continues to shape, the real and imagined Island.
