To coincide with the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, them. is publishing a series of stories that explores how queer and trans folks are working to protect our planet through organizing, creative expression, and insurgent pedagogy. Read the rest of the pieces, and our ongoing climate coverage, here.
It began with a single teepee, fronted by a post bearing a hawk’s feather, oriented toward the rising sun. The structure rose from the earth of Victoria Park, in what is known as Kitchener-Waterloo (K-W), twin towns in so-called Ontario, Canada, on June 21 — Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
This was no accident. Those behind the teepee included the Two-Spirit IndigiQueer activists Bangishimo (Anishinaabe) and Amy Smoke (Mohawk, Turtle Clan). Along with Terre Chartrand, the trio sought to create a gathering place for local Black and Indigenous folks to process the tumult of Covid healthcare disparities and the recent state-sanctioned murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, along with nearly a dozen Indigenous people.
“Organizers in the community had had enough,” Smoke tells them. “We needed somewhere to discuss bringing to light what COVID had done and what the police were doing.”
They expected the teepee and the gathering it occasioned to last no more than a couple of days — “a symbolic thing,” Bangishimo explains. Then the kids came. “I guess the world is ‘flock,’” the organizers says of the sudden influx of young people to the park. “Within a week, we ended up with about 20 people. What started as a single teepee and a couple of tents grew into a full camp of a dozen tents, organized in the shape of a circle.”
O:se Kenhionhata:tie, also known as Land Back Camp, had officially been born. Soon, it became more than a place to process and heal, but also one from which to make demands — to demand the reallocation of police funds; to demand the return of stolen lands; and to demand the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in all levels of local government. These demands took the form of a four-point petition, sent to the mayors of both Kitchener and Waterloo in July, 2020. As Bangishimo tells them., “We knew that when we started to gain a nationwide following we could get our demands met and make some change happen.”
So they set up a GoFundMe, expecting to receive something like a few hundred dollars, mostly from generous folks in the community, to help purchase food and other supplies for the camp. They ended up raising over $56,000, with donations flowing in from across North America.
“That was when we were like, this is much bigger than three days in a park,” Bangishimo says. “It evolved into an actual local movement.”
The local movement embodied by Land Back Camp is organized around a theory, a principle — or, perhaps most accurate of all — a drum beat that has galvanized Indigenous peoples across the world: Land Back. From land defenders in Ontario fighting the construction of a housing development on unceded Haudenosaunee territory, to the successful return of Ojibwe lands in Minnesota via the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act (2020), to the recent repatriation of more than 395,000 acres of forest to Australia’s Eastern Kuku Yalanji people, the rallying cry can be heard — and felt — everywhere colonialism has reared its ugly head. And with each return, and as our ecosystems remain in mortal danger, the global call grows only louder.
To learn more about the Land Back movement and what it means for the overlapping struggles of climate justice and queer liberation, them. asked the activist and host of the On The Land podcast Deenaalee Hodgdon (Deg Xit’an, Athabaskan / Supiaq) to moderate a conversation with Land Back Camp cofounders Bangishimo and Amy Smoke. Together, they discuss the many forms of Land Back, the evolution of the camp over its 122 days at Victoria Park (plus another two months in Waterloo), and the importance of having LGBTQ+-affirming spaces for IndigiQueer youth. — Wren Sanders
What does Land Back mean to you?
Amy Smoke: I always like the diversity of answers to this question. What does Land Back mean for me in particular? It means Land Back not just symbolically, but actually returning Indigenous lands to Indigenous hands. It is the ultimate solution. Before 1492, there was no poverty. There was no homelessness. There was no climate crisis. There was no environmental racism. So just give us back the land. We will figure it out. We walked very softly on Mother Earth prior to colonization. Look what’s happened in 500 years. We've been watching the sun and the moon and the stars since the beginning of time. Why wouldn't you incorporate that knowledge?
Bangishimo: Land Back, for me, is the work I’ve been doing for the last 10 years: creating safe spaces for the community to come together and to be unapologetically Indigenous — sitting together in ceremony, sitting with the ancestors, laughing, being on the water, being on the land. Growing up as a closeted kid, I didn’t have access to that sense of community. I was very alone, with no friends like me, in a church where I was told constatntly that everything I was as an Indigenous person and as a queer person was wrong, that I would burn in this place called Hell. Land Back, to me, is creating those opportunities not just for the community, but also the next generation. So many of the people that are a part of our space are youth because they need a place to come together, on the land, in ceremony. That’s something I didn’t have, so I want to ensure they do.
What are some of the concrete forms that Land Back can take in addition to the return of lands?
AS: Land Back can look like paying your property taxes to the local First Nations. It can look like donating your employee pay bonus to a Land Back organization like ours. It can also look like supporting protests such as 1492 Land Back Lane [an ongoing movement in which Six Nations Land Defenders have mobilized to stop the construction of a housing development in so-called Ontario]. That’s a very different form of Land Back. They're being tased. There are rubber bullets flying over there. They're being dragged to court. Injunctions are being served. Land Back is not just a hashtag.
At the heart of any conversation about Land Back is, of course, the land. As we turn to speaking about the camp you all organize, I was wondering if we could begin by discussing the significance of the land you’re on now, that which is known as Kitchener-Waterloo.
AS: We are in so-called K-W, on the Haldimand tract [land granted on October 25, 1784 to the Mohawk people who had served on the British side during the American Revolution]. These are my lands. Historically, Victoria Park in so-called K-W was a feasting ground and a ceremonial space. It was along the economic trade routes. So these lands have been a hub of activity for many nations in the past. I've heard stories of different nations bringing their adult children to these feasts and ceremonies so that they could marry into others. Land Back Camp, in particular, situated itself in Victoria Park, once a ceremonial gathering place, to talk about the need for these spaces in current K-W and to challenge laws requiring us to pay fees to gather on our own land.
What did you learn about the camp and the space it provided once you were able to be in community?
B: One evening we were sitting around, and we came to this realization that everybody who was a part of the camp identified as queer, transgender, non-binary, Two-Spirit, IndigiQueer, or somewhere in there. Some of the campers started transitioning during the camp. A number of youth came out for the first time sitting around the sacred fire.
Can you elaborate on the significance of the space being so queer?
AS: There are wonderful local Indigenous organizations, but many lack queer elders or ceremony and song and workshops for queer and trans folks. So these youth that came to our camp were not finding affirming services in those spaces. They found that at Land Back camp...I like to think of creating a space where queer and trans Indigenous youth are validated as medicine, as part of ceremony, as offering that respect that we don't find even in our own homes sometimes. At Land Back Camp, we support the exploration of identity. Did you want to change your name today? That's great, we will reply. Do you want different pronouns today? That's wonderful. Would you like to try and learn how to use eyeliner? Of course. We’re going to do all of those things in our space. What’s more, we don’t know that historically we didn’t sit around and do each other’s makeup. That’s been erased. So reclaiming that is medicine and ceremony for us.
B: Not to sound egotistical or anything, but we are the ones who are at the front lines, who are leading the marches, who are starting the camps, who are demanding change. It’s the queers, it’s the femmes, it’s us at the front. And now, with our space, it’s not even about Amy or myself; it’s about getting the youth to the front, giving them the mic, having their voices be heard. When we went in front of the K-W city councils last year to demand change, we took the youth with us. We let them speak, because it was about them and their futures, about their lack of access to spaces and services.
What does Land Back look like in K-W?
AS: We're just at the beginning phases of talking about centralizing Indigenous services for the community, but the region should be giving up some land. They can give up a building. Then we want funding and resources and support. That's what Land Back can look like for Waterloo.
B: Right now, all the Indigenous organizations are spread out. Some of them are barely accessible by bus route, unfortunately. It would be great if we can all be together in one building. We envisioned a green space on the roof, sacred fire in the back, a gymnasium where we can have community gatherings. Food banks, a soup kitchen.
AS: It’d be all of the things we really want: Daycare, dental and eye care because they take our status cards. A place where you can get your ID, as that's difficult for First Nations and Métis and Inuit folks to do. A safe consumption site, a domestic violence office, an outdoor powwow space, art making areas, too.
And Land Back Camp — do you have an idea of what it may look like in the future?
AS: This is the third time we've had camp in a different location, which speaks to the forced relocation of Indigenous people. We're just constantly having to move. So a permanent space? Oh my.
B: We have a vision of it. We want a place along the Grand River, near the water, away from the settler gaze, away from spectators and neighborhoods. You know, somewhere we could just be unapologetically Indigenous, where we could be with just the campers and not have to worry about our safety.
AS: Yeah. Through a circle without —
B: White people.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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