In a forest on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, Cheryl Maloney and other Mi’kmaw matriarchs inspect a mushroom growing out of a birch tree. Standing beside them, Travis Parsons — whose family has held the land since the 18th century — notes that he has a stretch elsewhere in the forest made up entirely of birch.

“Can we get any bark from it?”Maloney asks. “Because we haven’t been able to find any mature birch to harvest bark.”Parsons responds that it’s possible and offers to take her to see the site later. With that, the group climbs back into Parsons’s truck to tour another part of the woods.

It’s an interaction that reflects what Maloney and other matriarchs are on the land with Parsons to build: the Peace and Friendship Medicine Trail, a Mi’kmaq-led project to map and create access to Mi’kmaw medicinal plants — and foster a neighbour-to-neighbour approach to reconciliation.

“It's not a government program. It is not anything that requires the government's money,” said Maloney, who started the trail last year. “We work together with … the landowners, and reconcile land stewardship together.”Maloney, an artist and knowledge holder from Sipekne’katik First Nation, got the idea when harvesting medicines near her home off-reserve, on the Shubenacadie River. Soon, she realized that medicinal plants with Mi’kmaw names and stories were everywhere, and began documenting them.

“What we're finding is not just plants and medicines,” said Maloney. “We're finding [out] how we used them again too.”This includes plants like goldthread, water pepper and willow. Goldthread is a wildflower long used by Indigenous people to treat mouth sores, ulcers and other ailments, water pepper was historically used to treat menstrual and digestive issues, and willow serves as a painkiller.

But in a province where the vast majority of land is in private hands Maloney said she found herself struggling to access sites for harvesting — and after a conversation with a landowner offering access to their land in Five Islands, the idea of working with individual landowners was born.

“We're reconciling land with living people without having to give it away.”Maloney and other matriarchs are now partnering with landowners to secure more sites for the trail, offering opportunities for individuals to participate in reconciliation by hosting events and harvesting on their land.

One of those landowners is Parsons, whose 2,800-hectare woodlot near Mahone Bay dates back to a 1756 land grant given to his ancestors.

That land was granted in the same period as the 18th-century Peace and Friendship Treaties which set out terms for peaceful co-existence between the Crown and Mi’kmaq but did not involve land secession.

In the same period, the 1763 royal proclamation by King George III stated all land was Indigenous land unless ceded by treaty and forbade settlers from claiming land from Indigenous people until it had been first bought by the Crown.

Parsons said growing up he had respect for Indigenous people, and for the treaties, instilled in him by his grandfather, and as an adult learned about the treaties from a Mi’kmaw friend. “[The treaties] were not honoured at all,” he said.

Wabanaki reclaim land from United Church Audio The significance of the 300th anniversary of the Peace and Friendship Treaty When he heard Maloney and others were looking for places from which to harvest medicines, he said it was a no-brainer to offer his land.

“I was on that land since I was a kid, so I understand that everybody using it for hunting, fishing, anything like that is fine because it's not mine. I'm just the custodian,” he said.

“I'm only a steward for this land. I don't really own it. When I die, it's going to go to somebody else. So why not allow people to use it?”Touring Parsons’s land in late August, Francine Pierro, from Sipekne’katik First Nation, said the experience of being on the land was bittersweet, as it served as a reminder of what had been taken from Mi’kmaw people — though it also connected her to places and ways in which her ancestors once lived.

“We don't want to take anybody's land, but we want access to land,” she said. “So I'm really excited about this.”Susan Hirshberg is participating in the trail by offering her property near Ship Harbour as a place for people to harvest medicines and hold meetings and ceremonies.

Hirshberg said the initiative prompted her to consider how landowners and Mi’kmaw people share goals for protecting the land, and that recognition of Indigenous sovereignty is an opportunity, rather than a threat.

“[It’s] just trying to be very open and not so oriented towards fear-based actions or stress-based actions, but just to have it be easy and fun and friendly and you know, peace and friendship, but really taking it into yourself.”The trail is now partnering with nine landowners, and Maloney said they’re continuing to think about how to reconcile landownership with Mi’kmaw rights and title, and with generations of stewardship.

She said they’ll continue work to map the location of medicines, and she hopes more landowners will take part.

More stories from the South Shore“What's growing is a community of people that are sharing our values, our stewardship, the love of our communities,” she said.

“We're taking that out of the hands of governments and putting it in the hands of real people, where we decide together and we do things together and we steward lands together, and that's real reconciliation. It's actually quite beautiful.”MORE TOP STORIES What's happening for Truth and Reconciliation Day in HRM and beyond for 2026 Halifax says N.S. property tax cap system is unfair, asks province to look for solutions Port Hawkesbury residents say they want more answers after historic flooding Heating assistance rebate excludes too many Nova Scotians, advocates say She responded to the Halifax Walmart tragedy. Now her crisis work is recognized as ‘N.S. Strong’