This Land

This house, I know is ours. We’ve paid for every piece that’s gone into it. We’ve built so much of it ourselves. But this land we set our house on, i have a complicated relationship to our land. How can we own this —This expanse of prairie. This strip of clear air with a window to the stars. This wedge of moonlight. This meadow of snow drifts. This stand of trees, and that one. This wood pecker destroying this old wooden hydro pole. How can a human own nature ? Isn’t that God’s thing ?

The incongruity of my name on the title of land taken away from other people doesn’t escape me. There’s a real irony about me as a Mennonite woman owning this land in this country. This land has been fought over at great cost to the original inhabitants. My people had their lifestyle upended and were chased out of  Europe right around the time the First Nations people were having similar but more horrific experiences in Canada. Did my ancestors understand that their displacement displaced others ? Did they realize the irony in them being chased from their homes in Europe straight into the homes others had been recently chased from in Canada ? I do know that their stance against war, fighting and government involvement will have kept them from being an active part in chasing the First Nations people from their lands. I do not know how much they knew of what was going on in Canada before they arrived. This was several generations ago; there’s no one left to ask.  I only see from the benefit of over hundred years of hindsight and Canada’s true history finally coming to light that my ancestors inadvertently benefited from others’ misfortunes. Generational Guilt.

Land ownership, especially in this country is full of ambiguity. Until we owned land ourselves I didn’t think much about this. Now I can’t unthink it. I often wonder about the people who lived here a couple hundred years ago. Did they have a fire ring near the place where mine is today ? Did they hunt deer, moose grazing in same meadow they graze in today ? Did their babies grow up under this same patch of stars ? What did their life look like before roads and cars and ugly Europeans? Did they feel as secure and happy as I do ? What things did the women of that day worry about? Did a tiny human learning to stagger from one parent to another bring them the same delight it brings me ? How did it get to be me raising my child on this peaceful beautiful bit of land ?