On Thursday, October 3rd, the Decolonizing Lens presents a film screening of Kanàtenhs — When the Pine Needles Fall – a film by Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel.

The event will include a film screening and discussion of Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel’s award-winning documentary. Kanien’kehaka artist and activist Ellen Gabriel became the first Indigenous artist to win the Grand Prix of the Conseils des arts de Montréal for this work in April 2024. The film recounts the 1990 “Mohawk Crisis’ (the siege of Kanehsatà:ke) from the perspective of Indigenous women land defenders.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and CHRR Affiliates Dr. Niigaan Sinclair and Dr. Sean Carleton.

The event is co-sponsored by Decolonizing Lens, WAG-Qaumajuq, the Margaret Laurence Endowment Fund (Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba), the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and the Centre for Human Rights Research.

Free and open to all. No registration is required.

Join us for a special evening with Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel and Sean Carleton as they discuss their new book, When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance (Between the Lines). The event will be hosted by CHRR Research Affiliate Dr. Kiera Ladner.

There have been many things written about Canada’s violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in the summer of 1990, but When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance is the first book from the perspective of Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, who was the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) spokesperson during the siege. When the Pine Needles Fall, written in a conversational style by Gabriel with historian Sean Carleton, offers an intimate look at Gabriel’s life leading up to the 1990 siege, her experiences as spokesperson for her community, and her work since then as an Indigenous land defender, human rights activist, and feminist leader. Gabriel’s hopes for a decolonial future make clear why protecting Indigenous homelands is vital not only for the survival of Indigenous peoples, but for all who live on this planet.

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel is a Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton (Turtle Clan), artist, documentarian, and Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist living in Kanehsatà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Homelands.

Sean Carleton is a settler historian and professor of history and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Treaty 1 Territory.

Host Kiera Ladner is the Canada Research Chair in Miyo We’citowin, Indigenous Governance & Digital Sovereignties and a Distinguished Professor of Indigenous Politics and Canadian Politics at the University of Manitoba.

No registration is necessary. This event will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park and also available as a YouTube stream.

Co-presented by Between the Lines, the Centre for Human Rights Research, and the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba.

Join the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture and the Centre for Human Rights Research on Friday, October 4th for a creative writing workshop exploring traditional stories with Anishinaabe-Ukrainian writer Patty Krawec.

Traditional stories contain a wealth of information about how to relate to each other and the world around us, and they evolve over time to address the needs of particular communities or times. In this creative writing workshop participants will take a traditional story from their own community and rewrite it in part or in whole to highlight its relevance to contemporary needs. We will have time for talking about our traditional stories and the issues that concern us, writing, and then sharing what we’ve come up with.

Participants are asked to bring something to write with (ex. a notebook or a computer) and a story they are familiar with. 

Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer and speaker belonging to Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory and residing in Niagara Falls. She has served on the board of the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre and co-hosted the Medicine for the Resistance podcast. She is a founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation which challenges settlers to pay their rent for living on Indigenous land and then disburses those funds to Indigenous people, meeting immediate survival needs as well as supporting the organizing and community building needed to address the structural issues that create those needs. 

To ensure we have enough space, please register at: https://forms.office.com/r/zS7E9z6uib.

For information on getting to the University of Manitoba campus, please see: https://umanitoba.ca/about-um/our-campuses/getting-here. If you have any questions, please contact chrrman@umanitoba.ca.

In collaboration with the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture, please join us on Friday, October 4th for a discussion with Anishinaabe-Ukrainian writer Patty Krawec on her book, Becoming Kin.

Patty Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer and speaker belonging to Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory and residing in Niagara Falls. She has served on the board of the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre and co-hosted the Medicine for the Resistance podcast. She is a founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation which challenges settlers to pay their rent for living on Indigenous land and then disburses those funds to Indigenous people, meeting immediate survival needs as well as supporting the organizing and community building needed to address the structural issues that create those needs. With a background in social work, Patty focused on supporting victims of sexual and gendered violence as well as child abuse. She is a strong believer in the power of collective organizing, and was an active union member throughout her career as a social worker. 

Her current work and writing focuses on how Anishinaabe belonging and thought can inform faith and social justice practices and has been published in Sojourners, Rampant Magazine, Midnight Sun, Yellowhead Institute, Indiginews, Religion News Service, and Broadview. Her first book, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future was published in 2022 by Broadleaf Books. Her second book about the ways that subaltern writing and storytelling can help us reimagine that future will be published in the fall of 2025. She lives on Twitter as @gindaanis and you can find her online at daanis.ca 

No registration is necessary.

For more information on getting to the University of Manitoba campus, please see: https://umanitoba.ca/about-um/our-campuses/getting-here. If you have any questions, please contact chrrman@umanitoba.ca.

On Tuesday, August 27th and Wednesday, August 28th, 2024, the Centre for Human Rights Research at the University of Manitoba and the Winnipeg School Division will welcome elementary, middle, and secondary educators to the “Putting the Knowing and Teaching of Canada’s Past in the Hot Seat” workshop. 

The free two-day workshop, held at the University of Manitoba and Wolseley School, will facilitate discussions of how we might best teach and learn Canadian history in a way that acknowledges Indigenous histories and ongoing histories of colonialism. This will include presentations from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and scholar of education, curriculum, and pedagogy, Dr. Lindsay Gibson.

Programs for each day of the workshop will be emailed closer to the dates.

Seats are limited! Register now to secure your space at the workshop! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact the event coordinator, Hannah Belec at hannah.belec@umanitoba.ca.

This workshop is made possible by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada: Knowledge Synthesis Grant. For more information on the project, check out our web page.

On Wednesday, July 3, 2024, the Centre for Human Rights Research and the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Manitoba hosted Dr. Anne Lindsay for a seminar on “Archival Work for Social Justice Research, Indigenous Rights, and Human Rights Research.” This seminar is part of the CHRR’s Methods + Mediums in Human Rights Research series.

Dr. Anne Lindsay is a settler historian who has worked for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and for the Office of the Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools. Trained in both archival studies and history, she has been doing research in the areas of missing Indigenous children and Indian Residential School cemeteries in Manitoba and North-western Ontario for over ten years, and has been working with Indigenous individuals, families, and communities to locate records for over twenty. Her work with the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project has contributed to the creation of a research guide and related video modules designed to support families and communities searching for loved ones who were sent to Indigenous Hospitals and Sanatoria in Manitoba – including Indian Residential School students – in the period from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Dr. Lindsay shared the complex process she undertook, working alongside William Osborne, to locate the burial sites of his three aunties — Betsey, Isobel, and Nora Osborne — three sisters who were forced to leave their family and their Cross Lake Community and who never returned home. You can learn more about William and Anne’s work in their publication with At the Forks. The search to locate their burial sites anchors a broader conversation regarding the Indian Residential School System in Canada & how this living past continues to impact communities and families today.

Dr. Lindsay also shared her work with the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project and her dreams for a fully autonomous, Indigenous-led archives in Canada.