*Warning, some content below may be triggering for some individuals. Topics include Residential Schools, Sixties Scoop Survivors

This is the first year the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, formerly known as Orange Shirt Day, is a statutory holiday in Manitoba. Held each year on September 30, the day offers Canadians an opportunity to reflect on the history, legacy and ongoing impact of the residential school system, and on stories of Indigenous culture and resilience. Did you know there is a unique museum in Manitoba that captures a very difficult part of that story?

On Long Plain First Nation lands in Treaty Two territory, minutes away from the centre of Portage la Prairie, visitors will find the National Indigenous Residential School Museum.

This building was one of the 17 residential schools that operated in Manitoba and one of 164 residential schools across Canada. An estimated 150,000 children from First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities were forced to attend these schools, often forcibly removed from their communities for extended periods of time and forbidden to practice their culture or to speak their own languages. Thousands never returned home, dying from preventable and treatable illnesses, from abuse and malnourishment or while trying to escape and buried in unmarked graves. Built in 1915 and designated a national historic site in 2020, the building now displays artifacts from its history and from local Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing, telling the stories of survivors and their families.

The museum was created as a memorial to honour and support survivors and their families, the community and for future generations as well as a place of education for all Canadians. The effects and the impact of the residential school era is still felt across these lands. The National Residential School Museum stands as a reminder of the atrocities committed by the Canadian government and the various religious organizations that ran them with the goal of assimilation, conversion and eradication.

Travel Manitoba staff visited the Museum for learning and reflection in July 2024. Over the past several months, Travel Manitoba staff have been engaged in learning through the Business in Reconciliation course from Legacy Bowes, including reading and conversation on topics such as Indigenous communities pre-contact, residential schools, the Sixties Scoop and treaties.

We spent time exploring the Museum’s exhibits including rusty metal beds, tools of punishment for students, newspaper clippings about students who had run away or school events and ads urging white families to adopt Indigenous children as if they were pets. We watched survivor stories recorded on video and learned from Elders Lorraine Daniels and Dennis Meeches, who had attended the school himself. We also learned about the rich Indigenous past in the area including the bison hunt, some of the traditional teachings and medicines and learned about the Indigenous reclamation of that lost knowledge, culture and language.

Visiting the National Indigenous Residential School Museum and its grounds offered us a profound way of connecting with stories, cultures and truths.

If you would like to book a trip to the National Indigenous School Museum, contact the museum to schedule your visit.