We are with. With sky, sunlight, clouds, wind. With ground, grass, trees, songbirds.

In the spring of 2023, Tanya Lukin Linklater and five dancers visited and worked together in High Park in a series of open rehearsals. Lukin Linklater originates from Alaska, where the interaction between the land and the atmosphere (eg. clouds, rain and thunderstorms) are a constant reminder of the knowledge and living systems she grew up with.

Lukin Linklater wanted to respond to the special flora and atmosphere of High Park through attunement and embodied observations. She and the dancers (Ceinwen Gobert, Emily Law, Ivanie Aubin-Malo, lisa nevada, Victoria May), as well as her daughter, Mina, researched High Park’s flora and their interactions with the connected weather systems, particularly that of thunderstorms and their relationship to the fragile and centuries-old Black Oak Savannah ecosystem.

In the midst of an air quality warning due to forest fire smoke blowing in from Quebec, Lukin Linklater and the dancers learned that the grasslands and oaks of the 4000 year old Black Oak Savannah used to cover two million hectares of what is now Ontario with the care and attention of Indigenous stewards who oversaw controlled burns each spring. These burns were managed through Indigenous practices for thousands of years encouraging and nourishing new growth in the savannah which provides medicines and life to many flora and fauna; but in the context of colonization and mismanaged destruction, less than 0.5% of that original landscape remains intact. Today and only since the recent year of 2020, the Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle works in consultation with the City of Toronto to oversee what is now known as the Cultural Burns of High Park’s Black Oak Savannah.

Lukin Linklater gave the dancers a series of prompts and they responded with their own embodied movements and told stories through dance. The guidebook you hold in your hands is a culmination of Lukin Linklater’s and the dancers’ research and time in High Park, starting with the 2023 open rehearsals and continuing by speaking with the knowledge holders who steward High Park: Donna Powless (Snipe Clan, Six Nations, Director of Taiaiako’n Historical Preservation Society, Elder at the High Park Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle), Henry Pitawanakwat (Anishinaabe from Wikwemikong Unceded Territory, Elder at High Park Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle and Consulting Elder for the Cultural Burns), and Boshk Agounia (Anishnaabe from Sheguiandah First Nation).

Lukin Linklater also worked in close collaboration with OCAD students, Claire Grenier (Mixed Métis and settler ancestry) and Hannah Scott (Anishnaabe, Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory), who visited High Park on numerous occasions with the guidance of their their graduate advisor Dr. Suzanne Morrissette (Métis raised in Winnipeg and from Manitoba Métis Federation) to learn more about the Indigenous and non-Indigenous stewardship practices of the park. Below are two observation exercises developed by these students in collaboration with Lukin Linklater. As you use this “field guide” and respond to Lukin Linklater’s poetic prompts in High Park, consider slowing down and noticing your own embodied responses to what you see, feel, hear, smell and touch as you walk through the park.