? əy swey əl ?a s əyem ?i? tə ne siyey ə ?i ?ə tə na t əm əxw ?ə ƛ̓ xwm

  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm məstey əx w *

As a school community, we met on Indigenous Celebration Day on June 21^st outside, on our school grounds. On the lands of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language groups. Over the year, we learned about what it means to learn as a community on lands that have been here since time immemorial. To make the concept of what time immemorial means in a concrete way, our students created a timeline that represents time immemorial or 14 000 years: timeline that starts at the end of the ice age and goes to today. We created the timeline using beads, each bead represents 10 years, each colour one hundred years. Almost every student in our school was able to string a bead on the time during Collaboration time. A small group of grade 7 students took over and finished the timeline and added events they felt belonged on the timeline. The events that were added were chosen by the students and more events could be added as time goes on. The finished time has shared the timeline with our entire school community at our Indigenous Celebration Day gathering circles. The timeline was passed around our three-gathering circle and again our students were able to touch each bead and feel time run through their fingers. Our actions and those of our community are leading to a deeper understanding of the land and the people who lived and gathered here 14 000 years ago. When hearing our land acknowledgements that talk about time immemorial our community will have a greater understanding of what time immemorial feels like and looks like.

• Good Day, respected one, friends, this is the land of the Musqueam people (humbly we tried to find the letter representations of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language.