Adventure Canada was founded by brothers Matthew and Bill Swan, whose family immigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1959, and their close friend David Freeze, an eighth-generation Canadian of Scottish, English, and Dutch heritage.
Our office lies within the shared traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and their Anishinaabe relations, the Haudenosaunee confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat nation. Today, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples from across Canada and Indigenous peoples from around the world live in this region.
In Canada, we travel extensively through the Inuit homelands of Nunavut, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut, as well as those of Innu, Beothuk, Mi’kmaq, Huron-Wendat, Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik, and Haida nations.
We also visit Indigenous homelands around the world, including in what are today called Greenland, Costa Rica, Panama, Patagonia, Ecuador, and Tanzania. Each of these places have their own complex colonial histories and we strive to learn about them.
We are grateful to the ancestors who cared for these areas and for the land defenders, water protectors, and guardians who continue to safeguard the ecosystems, historical sites, and spiritual places that we are privileged to visit.
But simply acknowledging our presence in these territories and expressing our thanks is not enough. The founding institutions that built the modern-day country of Canada are responsible for the decimation of languages, genders, traditional practices, and whole cultures. These institutions perpetuate injustices that carry on into today, while companies like ours benefit economically and socially from their policies.
Through our regenerative practices and policies, we aim to use travel as a source for good in the world by contributing as much back to our host communities as we receive. To do this, we listen to their requests and partner with local organizations in the regions we travel to. We hope you’ll read more about these topics and projects in the Regenerative Travel section of the Mindful Explorer.
Thank you for reading. It’s an honour to share our learning with you and we hope we can continue learning together. Miigwetch. Nakurmiik. Wela’lin. Háw’aa. Tiawenhk.
Please note that we have written this territorial acknowledgement to the best of our ability given the research sources available at this time. We will update this page as we learn more. If you have additional information that you would like to share, please contact us.