What is Lenapehoking ~ Watershed?

We are a wide-ranging, multifaceted art project that wants to introduce you to your watershed!

A program of the Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River (AWE), the initiative winds its way through the landscapes and waterways of the Delaware River Watershed in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Taking place from spring of 2021 through fall 2022, Lenapehoking~Watershed offers multiple opportunities for inspiration, refreshment, and learning. You're invited to discover new things, meet new people at outdoor cultural gatherings, and enjoy solitary meditations on art and nature.

Your watershed is a huge area, channeling rainfall and snowmelt from the Catskill Mountains along creeks, streams, and rivers, eventually joining the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

The Delaware River Watershed is within Lenapehoking, a place-name that existed before the watershed and the river were named "Delaware" by British colonizers who imposed their ownership of the lands over the rightful stewardship of the Indigenous Lenape people.

Much of this land is now heavily urbanized and suburbanized—but not all of it! L~W is designed to help all those of us living in this region enjoy the wellbeing benefits of time in green and watery spaces.

The story of our name

Our name, “Lenapehoking~Watershed, a place for water, art and culture” was chosen after consulting with citizens of our local Lenni Lenape Nations. “Lenapehoking” is a place name that means “the land of the Lenape people.”

Part of the mission of the project is to activate the watershed in the public’s imagination, and in choosing this name, we at AWE as well as the art initiative team felt that it could resonate on multiple levels and bring depth to the conversation about what it means to be part of a watershed. Foremost, as this is an initiative about the land and the water, we acknowledge Indigenous cultures' environmental stewardship as critical.

Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that the lands on which the AWE centers are located are the ancestral lands of the Lenni-Lenape people, whose presence and resilience continues to this day in the tri-state area of New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania as well as in forced diaspora throughout Turtle Island. We take this opportunity to honor the original caretakers of this land and recognize the histories of land theft, violence, erasure, and oppression that has brought our institution and ourselves here. The L~W art project team and the AWE network of environmental education centers acknowledge the Lenni-Lenape people's environmental stewardship, since time immemorial, as critical.

About the Alliance for Watershed Education (AWE)

The Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River is a regional initiative of twenty-three partnering environmental education centers that is funded and supported by the William Penn Foundation. Each of these centers is located along the Circuit Trail or a major connecting trail, and on waterways throughout the Delaware River Watershed in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Through joint programming like the annual River Days events, and shared best practices, the centers aim to increase their collective impact within the watershed and its communities.