Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 28, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE B3 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM B 3NEWS On September 19th, the 13th Annual Truck Convoy for Special Olympics Manitoba presented by the Manitoba Trucking Association took place at the Trans Canada Centre in Île-des-Chênes and followed the traditional Convoy route around the Perimeter Highway. Fifteen trucks took part in the ceremonial Convoy as the event went virtual this year. Special Olympics Manitoba wants to give a great big thank you to all the sponsors, Manitoba LETR and the Torch Run Committee, participating law enforcement agencies, truck drivers who fundraised, and the trucking community for making the event such a big success and raising over $37,000 for our organization. Our athletes are lucky to be surrounded by such a wonderful community and the funds raised from this event will help them “Return to Play” this year. All photos courtesy of Dennis Swayze. Thank you to the following Sponsors of the event: Manitoba Trucking Association Arnold Bros Transport Ltd. Birkett Freight Solutions Dr. Hook Towing Fairstone FedEx Freight First Class Training Centre Ocean Trailer Transolutions Truck Centres Trans X WE’RE THERE FOR YOU COMMUNITY PROFILE Arnold Bros Transport Ltd. - Sponsor Brenda & Peter from Birkett Freight Solutions Convoy on the Perimeter Highway Danielle from the Presenting Sponsor, Manitoba Trucking Association Fairstone - Sponsor FedEx - Sponsor First Class Training Centre - Sponsor Law Enforcement Officers who supported the Convoy Lead Truck - Desaulniers Family Lead Truck starting off the Convoy in Ile Des Chênes I T all started with a conversation surrounding medicines. Eighteen months ago, artist and activist Jeannie Red Eagle was visiting a Grade 12 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Studies class at Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School. They were talking about the history of Indigenous Peoples and Canada, violence, and Selkirk. Nowhere is this kind of conversation more important. Out of all Canadian cities, few have the history of Selkirk — my hometown. Selkirk was created out of an 1817 agreement between five ogimaag (chiefs) led by Chief Peguis and Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk — often called the “Selkirk Treaty.” It recognized and allowed settlers to live along the Red River as far south as what’s now Grand Forks, N.D., and along the Assiniboine River as far west to what is now Portage la Prairie. This was the first land-sharing agreement on the Prairies, including over 116,000 square miles of land and settlement alongside two miles on each side of the rivers. Without this treaty, settlers would have no land rights, no place to hunt or fish, and certainly would not have survived (as Peguis knew — he had been saving them for years). An oft-forgotten part, too, is that this document recognized Indigenous and treaty rights too. The “Selkirk Treaty” set the stage for what became known as the “Red River Settlement” — the first Euro- pean agricultural colony in Western Canada — founded the next year. This built Manitoba’s economy and is the foundation for everything we see today. No Selkirk Treaty, no Manitoba. It’s that simple. When Peguis forged the agreement, he secured a plot of land north of Sugar Point, along a border now (ironically) called “Selkirk Avenue” in the city. For tourists, this is where the statue of “Chuck the Channel Cat” is. There, Peguis and his Anishinaabe and Cree community established what is often called “The Original Indian Settlement of Western Canada” — known as St. Peter’s Dynevor (after the church established there). The remaining story involves land theft, ethnic cleansing and land remov- al as the Canadian government and citizens from the Red River Settlement ignored the Selkirk Treaty, squatted on and stole St. Peter’s land, and finally instituted ethnic cleansing: forcing Peguis’ community to move to what is now Peguis First Nation in 1907. Some, like my family, refused to move — suffering imprisonment, harassment, and violence as a result. Still, my family still lives on St. Peter’s lands today. There is no monument to these events in Selkirk, though. No sign. No plaque. Just Chuck the Channel Cat. So, growing up in Selkirk, my rela- tionship with my hometown has always been complicated. It’s full of silence of what happened, why, and what we — as Indigenous and non-Indigenous inheri- tors of genocide — do next. Which brings me back to Jeannie and the students. Red Eagle is Anishinaabe but not from Selkirk. She is a ’60s Scoop adop- tee (from Rolling River First Nation) who grew up in the United States and discovered Selkirk virtually by acci- dent. She has lived here ever since. “I found the people here, especially the Indigenous community in Selkirk, helped heal me. They retaught me my culture, my language, and about the medicines we use to grow our lives.” Red Eagle now lives in Selkirk permanently, raising her children. Her daughter, in fact, was part of the class she was speaking to. “We got to a conversation about reconciliation and our city,” Red Eagle tells me, “Then I said to the students: Why don’t we make a garden with In- digenous medicines everywhere?” The students loved the idea, imme- diately co-ordinating a letter-writing campaign with their teacher, Mark Walterson. Red Eagle then presented the letters and the idea to Duane Nicol, Selkirk’s chief administrative officer. “Everyone who heard of this project — and why the students wanted it to happen — came on board immediate- ly,” Red Eagle said. The result is Anishinaabe Mashkiki Gitigaan — The People’s Medicine Gar- den, which opened this past Wednes- day as a part of the $2.6-million City of Selkirk Manitoba Avenue East Revital- ization Project. Now, in one of the city’s new “pocket parks” between the Selkirk Friendship Centre and a barbershop, citizens can see four traditional Anishinaabe and Cree medicines (cedar, sage, sweet- grass, and tobacco) planted throughout the site. They were planted by the original In- digenous and non-Indigenous students who offered the idea for the park. Centred is a mitig, a “Tree of Life.” “That tree reminds us about sacri- fice and how we are all connected,” Red Eagle tells me. On the eastern side is a monument to where the sun rises. Now, every time someone stands in that spot — in the original site of the St. Peter’s Indian Settlement and within a mile of the Red River — members of my home- town can see the light of the morning and of possibility. That is how it always should have been and now, how it can be. niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca Light of possibility shines at medicine garden NIIGAAN SINCLAIR OPINION JEANNIE RED EAGLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Anishinaabe Mashkiki Gitigaan — or The People’s Medicine Garden — sits in one of Selkirk’s ‘pocket parks’ between the Selkirk Friendship Centre and a barber- shop, and contains four traditional Anishinaabe and Cree medicines: cedar, sage, sweetgrass and tobacco. B_03_Sep-28-20_FP_01.indd B3 9/27/20 5:37 PM ;