It is very easy not to get lost in Toronto. Its streets are set up like a grid, where streets either run north and south of Bloor or east and west of Yonge. Even our subway system is lined up in this way and directions are often given as “west of Yonge” or “north of Bloor”.

There are however, a few streets that do not follow this pattern. The Davenport Trail is one of a series of trails that Canada’s original people travelled. Every year, a group of enthusiastic, history-loving athletes participate in Davenportage. This is a walk that traces through Toronto’s history and geography as it follows an ancient 17-kilometer route from the Humber to the Don rivers.

In this place, divisions do exist: among those who live on the north of Davenport or those who live south of it. Other divisions include that of Symington and Pelham, public school and separate school, Francophone and English, young and old, and so on.

The bible has many stories about divisions. One theme that repeats is the division between brothers. One such story is that of the twins, Esau and Jacob. Esau was hungry and begged a bowl of lentils from Jacob. Jacob, who did not want to give away something for nothing, demanded a price for this food and was able to extract his brother’s inheritance for a bowl of lentils. If they were battling even before they left their mother’s womb, their division became more extreme after this bowl of lentils. Yet these two were brothers; they were twins.

As guests, visitors, settlers, or pilgrims simply passing through to this land, we have enjoyed the hospitality of the original people of this land.

And they have offered us a story of three sisters that sends a reconciling narrative to the Biblical stories of division.

The three sisters of corn, bean and squash represent indigenous foods that have become so familiar to us.

Corn, beans, and squash are called the “three sisters.” By the time European settlers arrived in America in the early 1600s, the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois, had been growing the “three sisters” for over three centuries.

Where a hole is dug and probably a fish buried, corn is planted with squash, where the squash spreads and provides ground cover and protection for the corn. When the corn reaches a certain height, beans are planted. The beans climb on the corn and are supported by it as it grows. Under the ground, the beans’ roots have nodules that contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The nitrogen is needed by the plants to grow.

Underground, above-ground, corn, beans and squash, these three sisters, help each other, much like when they are combined in food, they make up a complete meal for nourishment.  This is knowledge that the original peoples in this land gladly shared to the settlers of what we now know as Canada.

“Tasting Davenport Routes” is a project that Davenport Perth Community Ministry is doing this summer. It hopes to help us all to tell the story of the different routes we took to get here. We hope to bring nonnas, omas, kukums, grandmothers with young people in a story-telling by way of a cooking demonstration.

This storytelling will be inter-generational and inter-cultural.

Our friends at the Toronto Film Festival would like to help our young people know more about the strength of storytelling through film.

So this is an invitation for all the nonnas, omas, kukums, grandmothers we have around here to audition for this summer film project of storytelling, telling the stories of how we all got here, what routes our tastes took to get here, to consider sharing their stories, their routes and roots and being on this film.