One Dish Project

10/09/2026

Four days at the 4th Annual AFN National Climate Gathering.

My presentation focused on the One Dish One Spoon Self Determination Framework, six years of practical application built on responsibilities that run deeper than any program: land, water, language, governance, education, and economics. I presented alongside Kerry-Ann Charles and Dr. Silvia Sarapura Escobar on Indigenous food systems, responsibilities, and relationships.

I also brought my own history into that room. Photographs I took while standing the barricades, Warrior Flag over the railway tracks. Land defence isn’t a slide in my deck; it is part of how I came to this work.

No matter what the session title said, the same things kept coming back: power, control, jurisdiction, and education. A researcher said Indigenous knowledge is not a perspective, it’s law. Six Nations researchers showed what water insecurity looks like household by household. Chiefs talked about ownership instead of consultation. Women talked about water and responsibilities that predate Canadian legislation.

A moment stayed with me when chief who survived residential school asked me to bring a message to the room we were working in. I am, and have been listening.

I’m a First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Studies teacher for kindergarten through Grade 12; a land-based educator. The land is the classroom. Everything I have built came from there: The River as Teacher, The Land as Teacher, the curriculum, the programs, and the theatre. Implemented, documented, and lived.

The Indigenous knowledge takeover is happening. We are in the classrooms, on the land, in the research, on the stages, and now in the rooms where decisions get made.

If your school, organization, conference, institution, or community wants this work in the room, I’m available for speaking, professional learning, workshops, curriculum development, research, and collaboration.

For bookings: [email protected]

Nyawen to everyone who held those rooms. 🔴⚫⚪

IndigenousEducation

10/06/2026

10/05/2026

There’s an Allen who’s been doing some trolling here. I’m not giving his full name, and I’m not posting a photo of him. I’m using it instead as an example of something much bigger: willful ignorance shaped by intergenerational trauma, and the difficulty our people can sometimes have trusting institutions, systems, and even one another.

Yes, the One Dish Project is finished. That doesn’t mean the work stopped. Something was created here. People were involved. Knowledge was shared. A physical site was built. And, apparently this still needs to be said:

No government funding was involved; on the contrary, the founder carried the financial burden for the first five years of the project and still did not take a paycheque.

Someone sacrificed hours away from their family, worked long days and late nights, and helped build this place because they believed in what it could become.

And that work didn’t begin in 2020. It began when I was a child. As I grew, I learned. As I learned, I shared. I developed more skills, gained more knowledge, built relationships, and shared more. One Dish was one expression of a much longer path. The payment was never the point. The point was seeing what self-determination could actually look like when we stopped waiting for someone else to create it for us.

Yes, I can sit across a table from colonial institutions and speak their language. I can write the reports, understand the policies, navigate their systems, challenge them when necessary, and deal with them at their level. That does not mean I am on their side. That is diplomacy. That is part of treaty relations.

Resistance does not have one appearance. We cannot always be the people marching outside the building. Sometimes we need people inside the meeting. Sometimes we need someone reading the policy. Sometimes we need someone building something independently. Sometimes we need someone documenting exactly what happened so an institution can be held accountable later. There are levels of resistance.

If we spend our energy attacking one another because somebody else’s resistance does not look exactly like ours, we are not resisting much of anything. We are playing the exact game colonization taught us to play: distrust each other, divide ourselves, and tear down our own people before anyone else has to.

And just because I have the ability to challenge institutions does not mean I am going to do it recklessly, unnecessarily, or without strategy. Strategy matters. Relationships matter. Timing matters. Our people matter.

So, to my little collection of angry hate-followers: you know better. Let’s do better together.

10/03/2026

Next week, I’m presenting One Dish Project at the Assembly of First Nations’ 4th National Climate Gathering in Hamilton.

I built this work here in Kenhtè:ke, with my family, volunteers, and relationships cultivated over years. Every part had a purpose, and every part taught me something I carried into the next.

One Dish, One Spoon Wampum: Building Systems Under First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Authority

I’ll be presenting alongside Kerry Ann Charles and Silvia Sarapura-Escobar as part of “Weaving Food Systems: Braiding Relationships, Knowledge and Responsibility.”

Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Hamilton Convention Centre, Hamilton, Ontario
AFN 4th National Climate Gathering | October 5–8, 2026

The next chapter is already taking shape at The Looking Glass.

08/30/2026

Over the past six years, it has been great connecting with so many people across Turtle Island, building a network around this work, and learning so many new things along the way that can be carried into future endeavours.

Thank you to every community member who came out to help, everyone who supported me and the vision, and the organizations that invested in making it possible: Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund, TELUS, Lush Handmade Cosmetics, Carrot Cache, Groundswell Foundation, Sprout, and Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte.

We would also like to thank the Kingston Whig-Standard, Belleville Intelligencer, Bay of Quinte Discover Magazine, Indigenous Tourism Ontario, APTN, and the other media outlets that helped raise our voice and share the work.

After reflecting on the success of the past six years, seeing how far the work has grown, and watching others take on the responsibility of carrying that work forward, I feel a deep sense of pride, happiness, and confidence in bringing One Dish Project to a successful completion. It has reached a point where I can refocus that time and energy on myself and my family, and on building what comes next together.

Thank you for being part of the past six years and helping make all of this possible. ❤️

08/20/2026

Please be advised that Quinte Energy Storage Centre Inc. (a partnership between the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and Hydrostor) is inviting community members to drop in and learn more about its proposed Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) project in Greater Napanee.
This project will be able to power 500,000 homes for 8 hours and provide reliability to the Ontario grid. The Community Open House will provide an opportunity to share information about the project, answer questions, and receive feedback from community members.
Stop by the Mohawk Community Centre any time between 2 and 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 25.

08/07/2026

Please be advised that Alto High-Speed Rail will be hosting information sessions at the Mohawk Community Centre Thursday, August 13, 2026.

08/07/2026

07/11/2026

The food sovereignty spaces at the One Dish Project are intentionally designed.

Every path, raised bed, gravel surface, and planting area serves multiple purposes. My work as an educator involves Universal Design for Learning, which recognizes that learning environments should not only be accessible, but engaging by inviting curiosity, encouraging exploration, and creating opportunities for people to connect with what they are learning. As Kanyen’kehà:ka, my understanding of land is also informed by cultural teachings about relationship, responsibility, and learning from place. Those two ways of knowing are working together here.

The land itself has guided many of these decisions. Much of the property is heavy clay with shallow bedrock, making it unsuitable for many crops without bringing in quality soil. Raised beds provide healthy growing conditions while making planting, harvesting, and learning more accessible.

Defined pathways, gravel, landscape fabric, and mulch help create welcoming learning spaces by keeping poison ivy and other hazards out of high-use areas, while reducing tick habitat where workshops and community gatherings take place. Beyond those learning spaces, the surrounding landscape is being developed to support biodiversity through orchards, berry plantings, medicine gardens, flowers, bird and bat houses, and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.

07/09/2026

For six years, I’ve been building the Sewatokwà:tshera’ One Dish Project into a place where people can learn about food sovereignty, environmental stewardship, watershed restoration, Indigenous knowledge, arts, culture, land based education, and community.

I donated the land the project stands on because I believed that creating culturally relevant learning opportunities for others was vital. Since then, we’ve taken programming into schools, libraries, youth organizations, and universities while continuing to build the site itself. This year we also welcomed students from Albert College, and this fall I’ll be presenting the project at the Assembly of First Nations National Climate Gathering.

Now I need your help. The next stage is completing the educational bunkie with a roof and off-grid solar so it can become a year-round space for developing new programming while continuing to expand the teaching gardens.

Please consider making a donation or supporting the project through our online store.

Nyà:wen