One Dish Project
This project has been made possible through donations, grants, and Indigenous business support, and principle recognition by the Tyendinaga Mohawk Elected Council.
The Dish With One Spoon
The Dish with One Spoon Wampum between the Anishinaabe Three Fires Confederacy (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations) and Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) is the most well-known inter-nation ‘one-dish alliances.’ It represents a formal peace agreement assuring mutual benefit to all parties and extends to all other Indigenous Nations and settlers who arrived in the area around the Great Lakes region and along the St. Lawrence River, up to the border with the current province of Quebec. This wampum covenant and other ‘one-dish treaties’ reflect the principles that were given to the Haudenosaunee by the Peacemaker in the Kayanere’kowa (Great Law of Peace).
The “Dish” or sometimes it is called the “Bowl” represents what is now Southern Ontario. Nations are only to eat from the dish with one spoon, meaning that resources should be shared, each territory should be respected, and nations will not war with each other for the domination of the resources. In this sense, the concept is about respect for the people and animals upon the lands we live upon.The Dish With One Spoon Treaty carries three basic tenets: Only take what you need; always leave something in the dish for everybody else, including the dish; and third, you keep the dish clean.
Although people call Toronto the Dish territory, it actually only sits on one part of the massive Treaty area.
Food Sovereignty and Land-Based Learning
Grounded in the teachings of the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, One Dish Project focuses on restoring relationships between people, land, food systems, governance, and community. Land-based learning within the project is not limited to outdoor spaces or agricultural activity. It is approached as a way of understanding responsibility, sustainability, interconnectedness, and relationship-building across all learning environments, including schools, workshops, post-secondary settings, community spaces, and public programming.
Through The River as Teacher framework and Two-Eyed Seeing approaches, the project connects Indigenous and Western understandings of ecology, sustainability, governance, agriculture, and environmental relationships while centring Indigenous knowledge systems and community responsibility.
Workshops, educational programming, and community initiatives explore how colonization disrupted Indigenous food systems and relationships to land across Turtle Island while emphasizing the importance of rebuilding cultural food sovereignty through direct engagement, experiential learning, and community-led approaches to education.
Food and medicines grown through the project are distributed to community members free of charge without requiring personal disclosure or application processes. Non-Indigenous community members are also able to access resources through donation or pay-what-you-can approaches. Community workshops remain open to participants from all backgrounds.
One Dish Project continues to expand through donations, partnerships, sponsorships, grants, workshops, educational programming, theatre, media, and community support that strengthen Indigenous-led approaches to education, sustainability, food sovereignty, governance, and community-based learning.
Expanding the Project
The Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund has played a major role in the continued growth of One Dish Project through a $90,000 grant supporting the expansion of our land-based learning and food sovereignty infrastructure.
This funding has allowed us to establish a dedicated indoor learning space that now serves as the central hub for planning, workshops, classes, seed preparation, harvesting, and community programming. The project also includes the installation of a water irrigation system and a separate storage space for tools and equipment, allowing the indoor learning space to remain focused on education, workshops, food preparation, and hands-on learning activities connected to the land.
In Spring 2026, the One Dish Project Learning Space welcomed students from Albert College for an Indigenous land-based learning workshop. Through The River as Teacher framework and Two-Eyed Seeing approaches, students explored the impacts of colonization on agricultural practices while gaining hands-on experience with Indigenous food systems, ecological relationships, and sustainable growing practices connected to the Three Sisters teachings and Haudenosaunee knowledge systems.
Indigenous Communities Fund
With support from our friends at TELUS, the One Dish Project
will be able to install an outdoor learning space in the One Dish Project garden area through a $10,000 grant from the Indigenous Communities Fund.
#GiveWhereWeLive
Relationship Building Through Land-Based Education
We have created a vibrant hub for workshops, school visits, and community groups designed to connect us to land and cultural practices. An outdoor learning space is being completed to expand the indoor gathering hub, creating an entire ecosystem of learning, growing, and building relationships with each other, and the land. Through the TELUS Indigenous Communities Fund, we will also be able to grow the last remaining Flint Corn Seeds we have to braid and preserve more for the next season while enabling us to still distribute some. Through their generosity we have been able to revitalize the soil in many parts of the garden area, helping us to stay on track with our goal at One Dish Project, which is founded in stewardship of the land and creation.
Creation Story, Three Sisters, and Planting
Building Relationships with Albert College, Belleville, ON.
Local and international students gathered in the new One Dish Project Learning Space, made possible by the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund, to take part in teachings about the Haudenosaunee Creation Story and the origins of The Three Sisters. Through The River framework, they learned the impacts of colonization on cultural agricultural practices and the effects it had on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
They moved on to learn about the differences between Indigenous and Western agricultural practices, and how the Three Sisters acts as its own ecosystem with built in protections. After learning the general idea of our seeds ceremony, they took part in planting Flint Corn (white corn) which will be grown and braided to be preserved for ourselves and anyone else who needs it.
The Story of the Peacemaker and Eco-Art
One Dish and the Prince Edward County 4H Clovers
One Dish Project offers land-based, culturally relevant programming to community groups of all ages. The 4H Clovers learned the story of the Peacemaker, who was born just across the Bay of Quinte from where they gather, and the foundations of the Kayanere'ko:wa (Great Law of Peace): Skennen (Peace), Kasha'stenhsera (Inner Strength), and Ka'nikonhri:yo (Good Mind). The experience went onto the MaCaulay Trail where they participated in an eco-art activity, using pieces of nature to depict different parts of the story.
Haudenosaunee Creation Story and Tile Mural Creation
Indigenous Peoples Days at Tyendinaga Public School
Students over the years have taken part in workshops with a focus on different Kanyen'keha:ka stories, learning the culture, language, and history of the Nation they live together with on their treaty area. One such activity was a telling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story. Students then painted a 4'x4' tile depicting a part of the story that stood out to them the most. They then put them together at the end of the session to retell the story through their new mural of tiles.
Language, Culture, Planting, and the Story of the Three Sisters
Bringing the Land to Students Across School Boards
Embedding language and culture from an Ontario Certified Teacher with lived experience and over a decade and a half of instructional delivery experience has proven to enhance programming. Programming includes sessions dedicated to the knowledge systems connected to planting, growth, and harvesting. One example of a workshop focused on the Three Sisters implemented Kanyen'keha (Mohawk Language) as the foundation for plant names, and the story behind how and why they grow together. Students were given a Flint Corn Seedlings and an Kahnawake seed. They planted the seed alongside the corn seedling, and were given an Algonquin Pumpkin Squash seed with instructions on when to put the seedlings in the ground and when to plant the squash seed alongside them.
Connected to the land, and curriculum
Implementing Indigenous Ways of Knowing as the Foundation Within Classrooms
Indigenous ways of knowing go beyond the mandated social studies or First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Studies courses. Cultural knowledge can be integrated in STEM and other streams from K-12 using The River as a guiding foundational path. An example of some courses that have been redeveloped with cultural resurgence are all STEM courses, BDI3C; Entrepreneurship: The Venture, HSP3U; Introduction to Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology, ADA1O; Drama, ELS2O; Literacy Skills: Reading and Writing, PPL1O; Healthy Active Living, CGC1O; Exploring Canadian Geography, and CLU3M; Understanding Canadian Law.
Community and Capacity Building
Original Treaties in Action
Helping hands have made One Dish Project grow over the years. From Sha'tekayenton clearing the land in the early days to people from everywhere between Kingston and Hamilton have shown up to help. The land has been transformed into a place of reciprocity and learning; when we take care of the land it provides what we need to survive and live sustainably.
Workshops, learning opportunities, and gatherings will all be posted on our social media.
Governance, Culture, Language and Resurgence
The River as Teacher Presented at the Aboriginal Education Research Forum, Winnipeg, MN
The River as Teacher is an Indigenous-led educational framework developed through One Dish Project that connects governance, land-based learning, food systems, community responsibility, and experiential education through Haudenosaunee knowledge systems and Two-Eyed Seeing approaches.
The framework explores how relationships to land, water, governance, and sustainability have been impacted by colonization while encouraging participants to examine pathways toward restoration, responsibility, and community-led change. In May 2026, The River as Teacher was presented at the 21st Annual Aboriginal/Indigenous Education Research Forum & Giganawenaamaanig (MMIWG2S Implementation Committee) & the Indigenous Women’s Research Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Indigenous Control of Food and Education
Presenting One Dish Project on a National Platform
The One Dish Project has been invited to present at the 4th Assembly of First Nations National Climate Gathering, Strengthening First Nations Climate Leadership: Braiding Relationships, Knowledge Systems, and Inherent Responsibilities, taking place October 5–8, 2026 in Hamilton, Ontario.
Following an overwhelming number of submissions from across the country, the Assembly of First Nations combined several aligned proposals into a featured two-hour session focused on First Nations food sustainability, sovereignty, and climate responsibility. The One Dish Project will join presenters from across Ontario in a collaborative session exploring Indigenous food systems, land-based responsibility, and climate action grounded in Indigenous law and practice.
The session will include the One Dish Project’s work in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, including food sovereignty, land-based education, infrastructure development, and Sewatokwà:tshera’ Theatre as part of an interconnected system grounded in Kayanere’kowa, Kahswentha, and Sewatokwà:tahera’.
Registration for the gathering remains open through the Assembly of First Nations website: AFN 4th National Climate Gathering Registration
More information on the finalized session title and speakers will be shared as details are released by the Assembly of First Nations.
National Representation
Establishing One Dish Project on a National Platform
The ideas and frameworks presented in Vancouver, BC during the Assembly of First Nations Education Forum both confirmed methodologies, and helped to improve current practices. This forum in particular helped shape the delivery of English Literacy intervention through a localized cultural knowledge approach. Combining cultural knowledge with literacy intervention has effectively transformed the colonial language from a form of oppression and assimilation to a tool used to ensure our inherent rights are preserved.
Provincial Accomplices in Food Security
One Dish Project Invited to the Ecological Farmers Association 2025 Conference
In December 2025 One Dish Project was invited to the EFAO Conference among other Indigenous Peoples working in food sovereignty, cultural food system resurgence, and repatriating Indigenous seeds to their home communities. Through this experience we have been able to broaden our network of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous ecological farming experts, enhancing our own structures and procedures for both the growing and off-seasons.
Post-Secondary Framework Implementation
The River as Teacher Successfully Implemented at York University
We were invited to York University to give a presentation on One Dish Project and how we operate, and to run a workshop directed specifically at confronting colonial systems of power and control. With the presentation ending with my victory over the gatekeeping of credentials by the Ontario College of Teachers, I successfully implemented The River framework with this group of Honors Students. The outcomes, reflections, comments, and questions that came from this session was the moment theory moved to implementation as an ongoing and scalable framework.
A Five String Education Philosophy
A Philosophy Grounded in Indigenous Cultural Knowledge as the Foundation for Educational Frameworks
I use a five-string wampum as a physical representation of my teaching philosophy and commitment to Indigenous education. The centre string represents self and balance, grounding me in my identity, responsibilities, and role as a mentor and guide rather than a teacher-as-host. It also represents students past, present, and future, and establishes the classroom as a safe place to ask questions, make mistakes, and grow.
The solid purple string represents the unknown and the ongoing process of learning and self-reflection. It reinforces a facilitative teaching approach rooted in Kanyen’keha:ka ways of knowing, where knowledge is shared carefully and responsibly with Skennen, Ka’shatstenhsera, and Ka’nikonhri:yo. Land-based learning and student-led exploration re-centre Indigenous knowledge systems within the classroom and challenge colonial approaches to education.
The two inner strings represent balance, critical thinking, and the movement from unawareness toward understanding. They reflect the responsibility of walking in both Indigenous and colonial worlds while maintaining Treaty relationships, ceremony, language revitalization, and Indigenous identity. Assessment practices are adapted to student strengths and community-centred learning, recognizing that grading itself is a colonial construct that must be reconciled through Indigenous ways of knowing.
The final white string represents ancestral knowledge, community, and lifelong growth. It reflects the voices of Elders, knowledge keepers, women, children, and leaders who continue to shape my worldview. Together, the wampum strings represent a commitment to language, culture, responsibility, and preparing students with knowledge that will continue across generations.