What is a Land Acknowledgment Statement?
A land acknowledgment is a formal statement from a city, province, state, institution of higher education, or other cultural institution that affirms and recognizes the Indigenous peoples of a particular place and their historic, ongoing, and future relationships with those lands and waters.
St. Olaf’s Land Acknowledgment
St. Olaf finalized its land acknowledgment statement in November 2020 through participation in a joint task force with the City of Northfield and Carleton College. Special recognition goes to St. Olaf Associate Professor of English Joan Hepburn, who wrote the land acknowledgment that the task force adopted and these institutions are now using.
Why do we provide this Statement?
“To acknowledge the traditional territory is to recognize its longer history, reaching beyond colonization and the establishment of European colonies, as well as its significance for the Indigenous peoples who lived and continue to live upon this territory, and whose practices and spiritualities were tied to the land and continue to develop in relationship to the land and its other inhabitants today.”
– UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA