Native Land

Readers interested in the Indigenous histories of North America and beyond may enjoy exploring Native Land, an ongoing interactive mapping project that attempts to outline ancestral Indigenous territories. Here, visitors will find a colorful map multilayered with depictions of where different Indigenous peoples historically lived. Users can browse the map itself or search for a particular postal code to see whose territories that location falls within, and clicking on a given territory shows the names of the native people(s) and cession treaties associated with that place with links to sources included. Launched in 2015, Native Land is the brainchild and passion project of Victor Temprano, a web developer based in Vancouver and self-described "settler." Temprano, who freely acknowledges his map's shortcomings, created Native Land in the hopes of "helping people get interested and engaged" with this topic, and states that he is "concerned about many of the issues raised by using maps and colonial ways of thinking when it comes to maps." The project's blog provides insight into the methodologies behind Native Land and its future directions, and the teacher's guide page offers advice for thinking critically about this map along with links to further reading. [--SAMPLE RECORD--]