Fenians fancied a Manitoba foothold

Sometimes it’s the local angle that turns a book into a bit of a revelation.

Feds to return parliamentary find to Algonquins

The Conservative Party of Canada must embrace rapid change to its methods of platform development, leadership and candidate selection, while pushing back on efforts to radicalize the party.

St. Boniface Museum home to 30,000 artifacts, many connected to founder of Manitoba

St. Boniface Museum is home to 30,000 artifacts, many connected to the founder of Manitoba.

A novel to weave Filipino roots into her sons’ future

In Primrose Madayag Knazan’s first novel, food is the gateway to a fuller understanding of self. It’s a narrative arc that’s played out many times in real life for the Winnipeg playwright.

Lessons in Fusion follows 16-year-old food blogger Sarah as she embarks on a virtual cooking competition that pushes her to explore her Filipino heritage. It’s an eye-opening journey for the main character, who was raised emphatically Jewish.

Like Sarah, Madayag Knazan is Jewish and also re-connected with her Filipino roots later in life.

“I grew up at a time when my parents were basically told, ‘You can’t speak Filipino to your daughter anymore because she’s not going to be smart, she’s not going to succeed’,” says Madayag Knazan, whose family immigrated to Winnipeg from the Philippines in 1974. “I lost that tie to my culture and I’ve been fighting to get that back since then.”

Listening after decades of hearing

It seemed that all of Canada glowed orange, in act or in mind. On the streets of Winnipeg, a sea of people marched in orange shirts, carrying orange signs. On social media, people shared text posts on orange backgrounds, urging more attention to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action.

Even city buses — though not orange — marked the day on their digital signs.

If you'd come to me 10 years ago and told me this week would happen, I wouldn't have believed you. If you'd told me that on the last day of September 2021, everything from a cocktail bar to a Botox clinic would close to remember the children and survivors of residential schools, I would have said you were telling me about a dream.

Not the kind we seek to create, but the kind that disintegrates upon waking.

Heavy hearts, happy hearts

The marchers arrive at St. John's Park at almost exactly the minute predicted. They arrive in a great orange wave, all wearing shirts the same colour. They arrive led by the drum, and the riders on horseback, and the tendrils of smudge that curl over Main Street, cleansing the path to the park where the powwow is underway.

"Are we all going to fit into the park, guys?" one young woman gasps, laughing as she surveys the scene.

In a way they do, in a way they don't. For hours, the people flow into the park from all directions. They flow by the hundreds, and then the thousands. They flow until the fields show less green than orange, until lines for the porta-potties stretch into the dozens, until the whole park is alive with laughter and conversation.

The crowd looks like Manitoba. It contains faces of all ages, all races. Most of the people here are Indigenous, but on this day they are joined in solidarity by people of all nations; a movement, generations in the making, to call for a way forward, to call for action on reconciliation, to call for justice for Indigenous people.

Manitobans take to streets in name of truth, reconciliation

A sea of orange flooded downtown Winnipeg, as thousands of Manitobans came together to honour residential school survivors, mourn those lost to the system, and mark the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

On Thursday morning, outside the towering Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a historic sight: crowds of people in orange shirts honouring a group of Sixties Scoop, residential school and day school survivors gathered on the steps.

"We went there as beautiful children; we wake up every day with these memories,” Gerry Shingoose — herself a residential school survivor — called into a megaphone, looking out at the growing crowd.

"Today is such a beautiful day to honour each one of us."

Portraits of survivors, tales of strength

Since 2013, Sept. 30 has been known as Orange Shirt Day — to honour the children who survived Indian residential schools and to remember those who did not return home.

It is also now the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which asks all Canadians to reflect upon relationships with Indigenous people, remember the harms of the past, and focus on ways to commit to healthy and positive growth throughout all communities today.

Here are six inspiring stories of Manitoba survivors of the residential school, day school, and child welfare systems:

Bright orange safety shirts now beacon of hope, thanks to young designer

Isaiah Binns, who graduated last spring from Elmwood High School, arrives at the downtown headquarters of Richlu Industries, the manufacturer of Tough Duck workwear, to see the logo he helped create for a line of the company’s reflective safety clothing ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Winnipeg School Division to review all its schools named after people

Manitoba’s largest school board is reviewing all of its K-12 building titles to determine whether the namesakes and their respective legacies are in line with modern-day morals.

Last week, Jamie Dumont, vice-chairwoman of the board of trustees in the Winnipeg School Division, introduced a motion to undertake an evaluation of all schools named after people and research each historical figure’s resumé.

“We operate, as a school division, under a number of values and, in many cases, we are very much a leader in diversity, equity, inclusion and Indigenous education — so I think it’s important that, as a board, we ensure that our schools and our buildings don’t contradict these values,” Dumont said during a virtual board meeting Sept. 13.

The review will identify whether any buildings are named after individuals with a history of actions that are discriminatory or not in accordance with WSD values, namely: inclusiveness, diversity, reconciliation, and respect for the rights and human dignity of others, or both.

Flags of Treaty One, the Dakota and Métis fly at city hall

Drumbeats reverberated as four Indigenous leaders rode horseback past the brick-walled restaurants on King Street: it was the beginning of a ceremony to recognize the place of Indigenous people in Winnipeg.

On Wednesday morning, the flags of Treaty One First Nations, the Dakota and the Métis were hoisted at city hall. They'll be there permanently, alongside the flags of Canada, Manitoba and Winnipeg.

"It'll make our people proud that their flag will be flying at city hall," said Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson. "That is so significant."

Chiefs, representatives of various Indigenous groups and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman spoke at the flag-raising event. Ribbon skirts, headdresses and face masks were abundant among the crowd.

Set of The Porter a testament to the special connection production has with Winnipeg's Black history

On a rainy Friday evening in Winnipeg’s landmark Nutty Club building, camera crews, grips, food services, hair and makeup teams, stand-ins and actors are spinning about in dance-like organized chaos.

The five-storey candy warehouse — first erected in 1905 and still standing in the shadow of active CP and CN rail lines — has been transformed, pulled back to its turn-of-the-20th-century roots as a set for CBC’s upcoming TV drama The Porter. At each stop along the building’s steep wooden staircase, the team behind Canada’s largest Black-led production is hard at work bringing the roaring ‘20s — and an oft-forgotten story of Black liberation and empowerment — to life.

On one floor, cast and crew block their scene movements, listening raptly to directors, speaking in huddles, donning crisp white shirts and suspenders or gowns, preparing for the crack of the clapperboard.

A floor above, the members of the “video village” tuck on their headphones, lean over screens and warn each other not to move, lest the ceilings shake below.

Group engages community on renaming Wolseley neighbourhood

In 1870, Col. Garnet Wolseley led a military expedition into Manitoba to violently overthrow Louis Riel’s provisional government at the Red River Colony. On Sunday afternoon, a group gathered at Vimy Ridge Park to discuss how to push for the renaming of the neighbourhood that bears his name.

Red River Echoes, a Métis collective that first came together with the purpose of “bringing an alternative voice to what Métis people think in Manitoba” after Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand put out an ad with the Winnipeg Free Press in March in support of the Winnipeg Police Service, put together the rendezvous to take questions and comments community members might have around the growing conversation to rename Wolseley.

"With a lot of names being changed right now, we thought it was a good opportunity,” Red River Echoes member Claire Johnston said. “And Wolseley in particular has a really violent and negative association for Métis people, and also all other people of colour in who live in Winnipeg.”

In the months since the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves near a residential school in Kamloops, B.C., calls have been sparked across the country to rename landmarks named after people who had a hand in the colonization of Canada. In Winnipeg, Wolseley isn’t the first instance — calls to rename Bishop Grandin Boulevard due to its namesake’s hand in the residential school system have resulted in consultations and a possible recommendation for its renaming coming to city council this fall.

Craig Block link to city’s Black history

Above a fruit seller in a small brick building on Main Street, a group of Black railway porters made history.

The Order of Sleeping Car Porters, formed in Winnipeg in 1917, was North America’s first Black labour union. Five years later, they established offices and a meeting hall on the second storey of the building, the Craig Block, at 795 Main St.

Now, the building has hit the market, without any historical status protections or a bronze plaque to commemorate its history.

History writer Christian Cassidy said he’s seen the building, which recently housed retail store Ma’s Fishing, go up for sale once or twice in the past. Each time, he worries someone will buy it and knock it down. It’s one of last buildings that links Winnipeg to the history of its Black communities.

Black History Manitoba's block party opportunity for chefs to share their passion

As a little girl growing up in Jamaica, Patrice Gilman dreamed that one day, she would cook just like Gladys, her grandmother. Everyone around downtown Kingston knew Gladys, and the little restaurant she owned in the area called Southside. Her dish of tripe and beans was famous, and fed famous athletes and hungry kids alike.

Gilman was fascinated by watching her grandmother manage the little kitchen, cooking all on her own, darting between pots of goat or chicken or fish bubbling on any of a dozen wood-fired stoves. Every morning, Gladys rose before the sun to start making lunch, and every day she was sold out of food not long after noon.

Still, she always had a little something for the kids who hung around, the ones who didn’t have enough.

“She was a one-woman show,” Gilman says. “She would feed the whole community. She had nine children, and raised many more children that weren’t her own. She passed away about 13 years ago, but her spirit lives on so strongly in our family’s heart.”

Indigenous issues no longer stuck on back burner

Manitoba follows a standard formula for federal elections: other than the affluent suburbs, Winnipeg votes mostly Liberal while everywhere else — besides the north — goes Conservative.

With support for provincial Conservatives waning, anger at Justin Trudeau for calling an election during a pandemic, and the rise of the provincial NDP, there are strong indications that predictable Manitoba seats are up for grabs.

The appearance of Trudeau and O’Toole in the city Friday is evidence.

Why would both visit on the same day NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh toured unmarked graves at a former residential school in Saskatchewan?

Winnipeg Railway Museum can punch your ticket to the past, but it also needs your help

The Winnipeg Railway Museum, run by the Midwestern Rail Association and the Winnipeg Model Railway Club, is "the coolest indoor museum in Canada in the winter and the hottest ticket in town in summer."

Preserving stories of Muslim history in Manitoba

It was in the early 1900s when one of the first Muslims to live in Manitoba arrived in the province.

His name was Ahmed Awid, and he came from what is now Lebanon — one of perhaps fewer than 1,000 Muslims in Canada at the time.

Awid settled in Brandon, where he married a local woman and established two successful businesses before moving to Edmonton in 1928.

Awid’s story is one of many told in a new book: Muslims in Manitoba: a History of Resilience and Growth.

Documentary tells story of Ukrainian immigrants who put lives on the line for adopted homeland

A new war documentary follows a journey of acceptance for Ukrainian-Canadians that came at a heavy cost.

A Canadian War Story, directed by John Paskievich, a Winnipeg filmmaker and photographer, follows the plight of Ukrainian immigrants, who first came to Canada in the 1880s and for decades settled on homesteads across Western Canada, including Manitoba.

Those settlers, and their children, would join the Canadian effort during the Second World War, and the film offers their stories of sacrifice, tragedy and eventually victory.

“The film isn’t just a series of veterans’ testimonials, like how it was to be in Hong Kong or D-Day. It was a coming-of-age story,” says Paskievich, who spent three years making the hour-long movie.

Claims of Indigenous ancestry by non-Indigenous Canadians on the rise

Writing about identity politics is fraught with political landmines. People tend to be highly sensitive to any challenge to how they identify themselves. It’s personal.

It is therefore intriguing that author Darryl Leroux has walked purposely right into the minefield. It’s political.

In Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, Leroux describes the obsessive search by some heretofore non-Indigenous Canadians for long-ago Indigenous ancestors who can justify them identifying as Métis. According to Leroux, an associate professor of social justice and community studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, the popularity of genealogical websites and online forums has created communities where race-shifters can organize. The motive, he warns, is not benign.

Leroux makes it clear that he is not talking about people who are seeking to reunite with their kin after being forcibly disconnected from their Indigenous identity through Indian residential schools, the Sixties Scoop or Indian Act policies.

Time to make McClung a pioneer — again

A famous Winnipegger enthusiastically promoted selective breeding among humans for the refinement of the species. She championed the forced sterilization of people who were considered “unfit,” meaning people judged as “feeble-minded.”

She left Winnipeg and moved to Edmonton, where she was elected as an MLA and was a main promoter of the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, legislation that allowed the sterilization of almost 3,000 people. The victims were disproportionately immigrants and Indigenous people.

By today’s standards, she would be considered a racist.

What do we do about Nellie McClung?

Canadian veterans' stories detail selfless sacrifice, struggle

The lives of the men and women who served and are serving in the Canadian Armed Forces are a mystery to many Canadians.

Remembrance Day may be a time when family memories of what a grandparent or great-grandparent did in the First World War or Second World War are vaguely recalled. Winnipeggers over 30 likely remember the flood of 1997, when the army was deployed to protect the city from the raging Red River, but what else have our Armed Forces done? Jody Mitic offers readers an answer.

In his 2015 autobiography Unflinching: The Making of a Canadian Sniper, Mitic told the story of his life in the Canadian Armed Forces: the physical and mental challenges he had to overcome, the years of training he endured, his deployment to Bosnia, becoming a sniper-team leader in Afghanistan, losing his legs to a landmine and overcoming this life-changing injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Everyday Heroes is Mitic’s collection of 21 first-person accounts of life in the Canadian Armed Forces. He turns from his story to one “encouraging Canadians to get to know the men and women who wear the Canadian flag on their shoulders… to see beyond the uniform to the person.”