Dr. Lynn Gehl

Due to Canada’s national narrative promulgated through state power gained through pilfering Indigenous land and resources  no less, many settler people and their descendants have been socialized into believing and worshipping a fiction. That being, that Canada rests on two founding nations: the British and French. This is a bold faced lie.  The reality is, that at the heart of Canada, rests the Algonquin Anishinaabeg and our traditional territory. Canada’s parliament buildings, supreme court, governor general’s residence, prime minister’s home, and most of its national galleries illegally squat on unceded Algonquin territory. This being the case while the Algonquin continue to be divided through the federal-provincial order, continue to live in squalor, and continue to be denied their land and resources in such a way that mino-pimadiziwin is not obtainable.

Using maps and drawing from personal experience this presentation will open a window into understanding: The land and waterscapes that the Algonquin occupied at the time of European contact; Who the Algonquin were at the time of contact; The history of the French and British denial of Algonquin rights; The peace treaty relationships the Algonquin entered into with the British and how the British violated these relationships; An introduction to the Algonquin land claims process in Ontario; The continued desecration of Algonquin sacred places; And finally add commentary about the latest forked-tongue rhetoric of “nation to nation” and “reconciliation”.

Dr. Lynn Gehl discusses Debwewin Journey and the ancient Anishinaabe way of coming to truth and knowledge that involves the “circle of heart” knowledge and the “circle of mind” knowledge working together. Rooted in the Anishinaabeg language, traditional teachings, and ancient Midewiwin scroll knowledge, this way of coming to truth and knowledge predates European arrival on Turtle Island. It draws heavily on her own learning journey of coming to this ancient way.

It is often said there is the need to return to Indigenous knowledge. All people have Indigenous knowledge yet some people are unable to grasp what it is because it sits outside the prevailing paradigm. A good way for people to begin learning and thinking about Indigenous knowledge is through comparing it to the scientific methodology. Drawing from an ancient icon/symbol as her organizing system, Dr. Lynn Gehl offers a model of unharnessed knowledge to help nudge people into the paradigm of Indigenous knowledge. It draws heavily on her own learning journey of moving more deeply into Indigenous knowledge.

This talk reviews the long history of discrimination in the Indian Act and the history of Indigenous women challenging it. Dr. Lynn Gehl discusses the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada’s process of amending the Indian Act in 1985 to bring it in line with section 15, yet instead of eliminating the discrimination Canada created new forms of sex discrimination.

In Gehl v Canada, Dr. Lynn Gehl challenged the specific matter of unknown and unstated paternity where after 23 years of being tangled and trapped in Canada’s court system it was ruled by the Ontario Court of Appeal that she was entitled to a lesser form of Indian status. Within this discussion she fleshes out two constructs she created to challenge the nation state’s hegemonic power: The Indigenous Famous Five which evolved into the Indigenous Famous Six and “6(1)a All the Way!”. In this talk Dr. Lynn Gehl reveals her deepest insights about power and Canada’s legal system as a way of coming to truth.

Many people have difficulty understanding the treaty process in Canada and how it shifted (read slithered) into the land claims process. With this, many people wonder if the current land claims process really is a modern treaty process that respects Indigenous rights as laid out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people.

While the Algonquin Anishinaabeg of what is now called the Ottawa River Valley are the host of Canada the nation state, the Algonquin were denied a treaty during the historic treaty process yet our ancestors were present at the 1764 Treaty at Niagara and submitted their first land petition in 1776. In this talk Dr. Lynn Gehl draw on her first-person experience as an Algonquin and our history to illustrate that colonial genocide continues today.

Drawing on her personal experience once situated in a decades long Charter challenge regarding sex discrimination in the Indian Act, situated within the Ontario Algonquin land claims process, as well as living with a vision disability this talk draws on materials created intended to critically inform and guide settler people and their descendants in their role and practices of reconciliation.

Dr. Lynn Gehl will draw on “The Ally Bill of Responsibilities”, and “A Colonized Ally Meets a Decolonized Ally: This is What They Learned” where the goal is moving people to critically think about structures of power beyond ‘meaningless actions’ and into the direction of ‘critically aware genuine actions’. All Beings and all people require clean land, water, and air where as such we all must reconcile our relationship between the Earth and greater cosmos through standing behind Indigenous people and their knowledge paradigm.

Black feminist thought created the concept “intersectionality” as a measure to help people understand the difficulties of living under more than one layer of structural oppression such as both sexism and racism. This talk begins with a discussion of what the concept means cognitively, and also what it means at the level of practice in terms of encountering people who are intersectionally oppressed and in terms of direction at the level of social justice.

From this place of understanding the discussion will then shift to the matter of Indigenous women and girls with disabilities (IWagWid) who are disturbingly bigger targets of sexual assault. Drawing on the Gehl Report (2021) the issues discussed will include: a discussion of the cause of disability; the limitations of the national inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; a statistical snapshot of both their higher rates of disabilities and higher rates of sexual assault; a summary of all previous recommendations; and the call for a political model of disability which demands Canada do better in serving IWagWid.

This discussion will be inclusive of Dr. Lynn Gehl’s recent United Nations written and oral submission during the “79th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Seeking Input on the Rights of Indigenous Women”.

Most humans think sacred places consist of brick-and-mortar buildings, where inside the walls of such places human made symbols and icons are hung, placed, and strategically situated. This, though, is a narrow and anthropomorphic understanding of the sacred.

Indigenous people here on Turtle Island have a much vaster understanding of the sacred. We know that before the first human was lowered to the Earth all else pre-existed them: The Rock Nations, the Water Nations, the Tree and Plant Nations, and the Four Legged, the Finned, and the Winged Nations …

‘Akikpautik’ is a Sacred Land and Waterscape for the Anishinaabeg and beyond. It is the place where Creator carved ‘Creator’s First Sacred Pipe’ where the Anishinaabeg ascribed the readings and meaning of the Pipe so that future generations could learn from it and respect the larger forces of Creator’s Law.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, before the advent of the camera and before the destruction by hydro dams, artists such as Davies, Hunter, Young, Cockburn, Woolford, and Krieghoff preserved the beauty of this sacred place in their works.

This talk, or better said viewing, offers a curated collection of this art narrated through an Indigenous paradigm, offering observers and listeners a different lens of what is sacred; thus opening the Doorway that western man-made religions, industrialization, patriarchy, and capitalism closed.