Our Land
Acknowledgement
HERE AT LOSHEN & CREM, WE ARE GROUNDED
BY INTEGRITY, EMPATHY & RESPECT
For our skin and for one another. Our commitment to these values begins with acknowledging the privileges we have and steps we can take to educate ourselves on the institutional and structural ways equity-deserving communities have been/continue to be oppressed, discriminated against, harmed (and our roles within these systems). We acknowledge that we are uninvited settlers living, learning and profiting on the ancestral, traditional and unceded territory of ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ amiskwacî, the homeland of the Métis Nation, and Papaschase (pâhpâstêw) land. The land we call home was stolen from the Papaschase Nation, established as part of Treaty 6 in 1877, and annulled by Canada 11 years later in 1888. As a result, the Papaschase Nation were forced off the land and were made to move further south in Edmonton.
The land we walk every day borders the kisiskâciwanisîsipy (North Saskatchewan River), a traditional gathering place and source of life for the many diverse groups of Indigenous peoples whose lands have been stolen, identities have been dismissed, and histories have been erased. We recognize the perseverance and strength of communities that continue to fight for sovereignty and treaty promises. The national ignorance towards settler, land and Indigenous relationships has been deliberate in maintaining the dominant narrative and structures of this country.
Until Indigenous peoples living on and across Turtle Island, and Indigenous peoples living globally, attain and regain their sovereignty and self-government; until restitution is paid and truth is unambiguously communicated; we all participate in and benefit from ongoing and ever-present colonial violence. At Loshen & Crem, we have just begun our process of reconciliation and co-conspiratorship with global Indigenous and equity-deserving peoples. We commit to creating an action plan by September 2024 that will work alongside IBPOC, 2SLGBTQIA++, and other equity-deserving communities to uphold our responsibilities as treaty people, settlers, and privileged folx within the realm of skincare.