This paper is a report on the theoretical origins of a decolonizing research sensibility called Indigenous Métissage. This research praxis emerged parallel to personal and ongoing inquiries into historic and current relations connecting Aboriginal peoples and Canadians in the place now called Canada. I frame the colonial frontier origins of these relations-and the logics that tend to inform them-as conceptual problems that require rethinking on more ethically relational terms. Although a postcolonial cultural theory called métissage offers helpful insights towards this challenge, I argue that the postcolonial emphasis on hybridity fails to acknowledge Indigenous subjectivity in ethical ways. Instead, I present an indigenized form of métissage focused on rereading and reframing Aboriginal and Canadian relations and informed by Indigenous notions of place. Doing Indigenous Métissage requires hermeneutic imagination directed towards the telling of a story that belies colonial frontier logics and fosters decolonizing.

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Inspired and guided by the nêhiyaw (Cree) wisdom concept of wâhkôhtowin, this paper frames walking as a life practice that can teach kinship relationality and help reconceptualize Indigenous-Canadian relations on more ethical terms. I argue that Indigenous-Canadian relations today continue to be heavily influenced by colonial teachings that emphasize relationship denial. A significant curricular and pedagogical challenge faced by educators in Canada today is how to facilitate the emergence of a new story that can repair inherited colonial divides and give good guidance on how Indigenous peoples and Canadians can live together differently. In my experience, the emergence of a new story can be facilitated through the life practice of walking.