In becoming allies or accomplices, we must take an anti-racist approach, which involves reflection, conversation, building relationships and deconstructing our colonial mindsets and institutions over time. As Southam(2021) and Klutzz et al.(2020) remind us, this is an “unsettling” and uncomfortable process. As Pearkes(2022) and James(2021) show us, this process involves taking action under the guidance of Indigenous leadership, being willing to make mistakes, try new things, and be vulnerable.  Through this process of “unlearning and learning”(Klutzz et al, 2020) we become transformed, creating new understandings about ourselves and our relationships to all things.

     The book Geography of Memory (2022) exemplifies what is means for a settler to develop a good relationship with Sinixt people through patience over time. It is a chronicle of the growing relationship over the past 25 years that the author, Pearkes, has worked with the Sn̓ ʕaýckstx community, coming to better understand herself, Sn̓ ʕaýckstx People and also the land and all the beings that inter-relate here.  The book is a story of transformation and of self-reflection in community, grounded in a particular place. It chronicles the traumatic dislocation of the Sn̓ ʕaýckstx from their territory, their resilience and resistance, and their recent homecomings. The book is a devotion of remembering, with no greater accolade than the introduction by Sinixt leader Shelley Boyd, who expresses “This book is a paradox in how it uses science, history, archaeology and geography to invoke the spiritual truth of our ancestors….This book is a medicine for the resulting generational trauma, and a true validation of our experience” (Pearkes, 2022, p.xi).

     As non-Indigenous settler educators and leaders, we need to let Indigenous people take the lead in Indigenization/decolonization; we must follow their guidance in efforts towards Reconciliation.  All of the literature explored emphasizes the fundamental tenant that Indigenous sovereignty, autonomy and self-determination is essence of Reconciliation. As Chrona discusses in Wayi Wah! Indigenous Pedagogies (2022), as educators, we need to move from “learning about to learning from”(p115).  The role of ally or accomplice is therefore also the role of student or even mentee/apprentice.