Our Spaces
Our Stories
Hear, Here Arboretum is a project which gives a voice to familiar spaces we move through daily. Any location, from a specific stand of trees to an unremarkable park bench, can be transformed by the stories we tell about them. Once these stories are heard, they can change the way we think about and experience spaces and the community they encompass.
We know some history of The Arboretum, but there are still hidden stories of the relationship between the area and everyday people who make up our community. Hear, Here allows us to access this social history and to think about where our community has been and where it is going.
Path Level Signs
Path-level signs in The Arboretum with the Hear, Here logo show you where stories are located.
With your mobile phone, scan the QR code on the sign to access a first-person account of things that happened in the exact location where you stand. Listen to stories by community members and more by using your phone’s camera app and following the link to several unique stories.
Land Acknowledgement
The Arboretum resides on Treaty 3 Territory: Between the Lands Purchase, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. This is the land in which the Hear, Here Arboretum team gathers, learns, and builds this project. We recognize and uphold the significance of the Dish with One Spoon treaty through the sharing of this land with all living beings. We all have treaty rights and responsibilities to follow through as Indigenous Peoples or settlers living in and using this place. As a team creating an oral history project, we have the responsibility of recognizing the historical and ongoing implications of conducting a history research project on a land that is built with the history of and on-going colonial violence. This land acknowledgement is a reminder of our collective responsibility to this place and its peoples’ histories, rights, and presence. We hope that it brings about a reflection on the use of this land. We are here as a product of centuries of colonialism and the disposition of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral lands, this is said with an emphasis on the fact that colonialism is ongoing and remains a very active part of the lived experiences of Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.
This Land Acknowledgement is a living document that was last updated on October 27, 2022.
The Arboretum
This project was made in collaboration with The Arboretum of the University of Guelph. To access research, collections, programming, events, and other information about the Arboretum, see the link below:
https://arboretum.uoguelph.ca/
To find continuous updates, check out the UofG Arboretum on social media!
