CONNECTION TO NATURE
Impakt Foundation operates on the traditional and treaty territories of many Indigenous peoples including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Huron Wendat.
We are grateful to live, work, and walk on this land. We recognize that the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the natural world is ancient, ongoing, and inseparable and that our own work to build belonging through nature is made possible by those who have cared for this land since time immemorial.
We are all treaty people
The Metaphor
The pathway
Nature is where rerooting begins. A walk through a park, a trail in the conservation area, time beside water these are not just activities. They are moments when the ground beneath someone’s feet becomes real again.
Our Story
Our nature based work began through our partnership with Human Nature Counselling Society, which helped shape the foundation of Family Trails. In collaboration with Trails Youth Initiatives, Boundless School, TRCA, and GTA parks, we created opportunities for newcomers and refugees to experience Canada’s outdoor culture and to begin rerooting in this land.
The Tree Of Life
For newcomers and refugees, being outdoors creates a sense of peace and safety that formal service settings rarely offer. A walk. A park. A conservation area. These become the new soil.
Branches of the work
Accessible hikes through local parks and conservation areas. First steps on new ground.
People gather outside. Conversations happen. A sense of community grows from shared land.
TRCA partnerships open protected natural spaces to newcomers and refugees.
Overnight trips connect newcomers to a core Canadian tradition and deepen roots in the land.
INDIGENOUS LAND & STEWARDSHIP
Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island have held deep, reciprocal relationships with the natural world for thousands of years rooted in respect, responsibility, and belonging to the land rather than ownership of it.
At Impakt, helping newcomers connect to this land means honouring who has always belonged to it. Environmental stewardship, outdoor culture, and a sense of place in Canada cannot be fully understood without recognizing Indigenous knowledge and presence.
The land does not belong to us. We belong to the land.
INTEGRATED CARE
By connecting newcomers and refugees to parks, trails, conservation areas, and the broader culture of outdoor life in Canada, we support a move from survival toward stability, belonging, and a deeper relationship with the land and communities around them.
It is the pathway.
