An Open Letter to Canadians
To those who care and all who walk these lands
I first visited Vancouver when I was nineteen.
I came as an uninvited guest.
The land welcomed me.
The ancestors, too.
The trees. The eagles. The moss. The ocean’s breath.
Even the raccoons peeking through the salmonberry thickets
it was like the whole land whispered, you’re safe here.
I had come from Turkey
a land of ancient beauty and intensity,
but also of deep compression.
Crowded cities.
Millennia of trauma, woven into every brick and bone.
I didn’t know how much I had been bracing
until I arrived here
and my body… exhaled.
Something was different.
The space.
The stillness.
The wildness.
The kindness, not the performative politeness, but something quieter.
And my body began to come back to life.
It was the peace of nature
And it was the teachings I began to encounter through Indigenous voices.
Ways of relating to the land that weren’t about domination,
but about communion.
Ways of listening my great-grandmothers had only given me glimpses of as a little kid.
These teachings, these lands, healed something in me.
They became an antidote to the oppression etched into my skin.
The internalized silencing.
The inherited fear.
The fracture I’d carried between myself and the world.
Here, in the presence of wild forests and ancient knowing,
I found space to become whole again.
Long story short: I came back.
I returned to do my MA in political science.
I’ve lived here for 15 years now.
I became a citizen.
I realized things weren’t perfect.
But I knew I could be a contribution.
Coming from a country with unstable politics,
where human rights were fragile,
where being a woman meant contorting yourself just to stay safe
Canada, with all its complexity, still held a very real possibility for healing.
Yes, its atrocities toward Indigenous peoples run deep.
But something else was also present:
Space.
Wilderness.
Land-based wisdom that hadn’t been fully silenced.
A chance to remember a different way of being.
Lately, though... I’ve watched something shift.
People growing bitter.
Clinging to righteousness.
Afraid to let go of their positions.
Starting to fear each other.
This letter is not a judgment
It’s a gentle invitation.
A remembering.
Start by acknowledging the beauty around you.
Not to make it precious
but to let it breathe.
Let nature be your teacher, your friend, your mirror.
Let the fir trees regulate your breath.
Let the hummingbirds reawaken your joy.
Let the mycelium remind you: we are all connected.
The salmon, the cedar, the morning fog
they carry wisdom.
They remember.
Stop fighting shadows.
Who or what are you really fighting?
The belonging you long for won’t come from trying to be a “better Canadian.”
It comes from remembering: you belong with the Earth.
You are already on sacred ground.
The land, the trees, the creatures—they are waiting for you to wake up.
If all you focus on is how “f*cked” Canada is,
you’re feeding the problem.
Be aware.
Notice the propaganda trying to make you forget your power.
Stop buying the story that you’re helpless.
Instead:
Go outside.
Feel the wind.
Notice the generosity of the land.
Let yourself be changed.
If you’re a white settler:
Connect with your roots.
Your songs, your food, your rituals.
Without that, you carry an anxiety that burdens the rest of us.
We see it.
We feel it.
But we also know:
You do have something to offer.
When you drop the performance and let yourself be real
you become powerful.
If you’re an immigrant:
You stand at a threshold.
You get to choose what you carry forward.
You don’t have to recreate the systems you fled.
To First Nations and Indigenous Peoples:
Thank you.
Thank you for your wisdom, your resilience, your presence.
We are here now.
How can we contribute?
To all of us:
Anger, shame, and separation won’t build the future we want.
But generosity, creativity, and connection will.
The solutions we seek
will not come from the fight.
They will come from the land.
From the stillness.
From the creatures.
From our kindness.
From our imagination.
It begins here:
With calming your nervous system.
With syncing your rhythm to that of the forest, the rain, the rivers.
Let nature co-regulate with you.
You’re not too big.
You’re not too small.
You are.
Be curious.
Let go of the doom narrative.
If we choose differently now—we will thrive.
Notice what the land offers you.
The berries.
The silence.
The rain.
The stubborn dandelions.
Let it in.
Use your rights as citizens
but don’t expect politicians to fix it all.
Their interests lie elsewhere.
Change begins in us.
In small, daily choices.
Reach out from generosity, not strategy.
Connect from curiosity, not ideology.
Ask yourself:
What kind of world would I like to live in?
Because,
it’s not too late.
It’s not impossible.
If we start choosing something different… now.
With a sense of possibility,
and deep gratitude for the land that holds us all,
Nihan Sevinc is a Turkish-Canadian writer, facilitator, and creative coach based on the west coast. She helps people come home to their bodies, creativity, and their unique connection with the Earth. She is grateful to live and create on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
