UMISC Land Acknowledgement

Our conference content and audience is focused on the Upper Midwestern U.S. and Canada. These lands were once home to a wide variety of indigenous peoples who were forced from their lands through colonization. We encourage UMISC attendees to visit the Native Lands online map tool to begin learning about the indigenous peoples who once lived in their places of work.

Indigenous peoples of the Upper Midwest harvest ancestral foods, such as Manoomin (wild rice).

We acknowledge that the Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference (UMISC) is taking place on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of Indigenous people, on land that was cared for and called home by the Ojibwe people, before them the Dakota and Northern Cheyenne people, and other Native peoples from time immemorial. Ceded by the Ojibwe in an 1854 treaty, this land holds great historical, spiritual, and personal significance for its original stewards, the Native nations and peoples of this region. We recognize and continually support and advocate for the sovereignty of the Native nations in this territory and beyond. By offering this land acknowledgment, the organizers of UMISC affirm tribal sovereignty and will work to hold our organizations accountable to American Indian peoples and nations.