🌿 Met dankbaarheid
Erkenning van het land
Thank You Gate is written and made on Treaty 6 territory, in Parkland County, Alberta.
These are the traditional and ancestral lands of the nêhiyawak (Cree), the Nakota Sioux, the Dene, the Saulteaux (Anishinaabe), and the Inuit — and the homeland of the Métis Nation. We live and work here as grateful neighbours to the Alexander Cree Nation, Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, Enoch Cree Nation, Paul First Nation, within the homeland of the Métis Nation of Alberta (Otipemisiwak Métis Government).
AJ Ellis is Métis, and this story grows from that heritage. Gratitude is the heart of this book — so it feels right to begin with thanks: to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples who have cared for these lands since time immemorial, and to all Native, Aboriginal, and Indigenous peoples around the world, the first caretakers of the places we are each grateful to call home.
We hold this acknowledgment not as a single sentence said once, but as a vine we keep tending — a small, ongoing thank you. Every Thank You is a little bit of magic.
Language & translation
Honouring language is part of honouring people. That is why Michif — a language of the Métis — sits at the very top of our language menu, and why First Nations languages are listed there too.
We will not machine-translate these languages. Michif is critically endangered and carried by a small number of Elders, and many First Nations languages carry cultural protocols about who may translate them. Translations into Michif and First Nations languages will be prepared by community language-keepers, at the community's pace. Until then, those entries are shown with honour and an honest “in progress” note. The world-language translations are a machine-assisted first pass under human review.
If you are a Métis or First Nations language-keeper and would like to help bring Thank You Gate into your language, we would be honoured to hear from you: [email protected].
The languages we hold space for
Each language has its own letterbox. If you speak one of these and want to help translate — or just want to say hello in your language — write to its address. It always reaches us.