Ardoch Algonguin First Nation is an Anishnabek community that is located in the Madawaska, Mississippi and Rideau watersheds. Historically the communities’ roots are in the families who wintered where these rivers come close together. Our use and habitation of this location originates in time immemorial. Over thousands of years Algonquin people developed intimate relationships with all parts of the Natural world within our homeland and historically our ancestors shared in the cyclical life of the Ottawa River and its tributaries. Our people have continued to maintain our relationships and responsibilities in the Kichi Sìbì.
Ardoch Algonquin First Nation is committed to a vision that creates opportunities for members to access and engage with traditional knowledge, language and culture. We recognize that having a sense of community and belonging is important for building and maintaining a strong sense of self as an Algonquin person.
Algonquin relationships with our homeland go back for thousands of years and have been presevered in traditional stories such as Wisakedjak. There are many sacred places within our homeland that guide us and helps us to understand who we are as people, such as Kchi-Mshìkenh, the great turtle whose head sticks out of the cliff at Mazinawgamìg (Bon Echo Park). We continue to see them as vital to our survival as people.
Traditional knowledge about how to live within the Kiji Sìbì was passed down and shared among generations of people. Knowledge about manòmin, for instance, was passed down in the Perry family and the plaque above cormemorates the struggle back in the early 1980's to preserve manòmin from commercial harvesters. Manòmin has always been a strong component of Ardoch's identity as a community.
Children and youth are the key to the survival of the community into the future. Members get together seasonally for cultural programming in many of the same places their ancestors did for thousands of years. They share knowledge, stories, and practical ways of living and being on the land that promote the survival and longevity of the community and our relations with the Natural World around us.