We acknowledge that the majority of the continent now known as North America came into the possession of the current sovereign claimants by various means disrespectful to the prior claims of earlier inhabitants. 

 

The site of our church building is on land anciently inhabited by the culture now called the Laurentians, who called their villages “Kanata.”    The nearest Kanata settlement was on Dry Hill, which can be seen from our windows. 

 

Following initial contact with Europeans, the Laurentians vanished and the Onondaga nation of the Haudenosaunee confederation claimed this area.  Later the state of New York disregarded the Onondaga claim in favor of its own, and established a system of private land ownership that persists to this day.