For the first time ever, the town began its regular council meeting on Monday with a land acknowledgement.
“We’ve talked about it for quite a while, every conference we go to there’s always an acknowledgement about being on our traditional territory of the Anishinaabe people in this area,” Mayor Caul noted in an interview following council’s meeting.
“Last week we got the wording figured out and I decided tonight I wanted to start out with that,” she added.
“It was very important in our relationships with our First Nations communities nearby that we acknowledge that land recognition.”
Council also recently changed the prayer at the start of each regular council meeting to a moment of meditation or personal silence.
“We had letters and comments from the public because it doesn’t really include everybody as most places do nowadays,” Mayor Caul noted.
“I decided that it would be just a moment of meditation and that way whatever religion or whatever beliefs or whatever you want to think about during that moment–you can.”
