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EMAIL ME: tracelara@pm.me (outlook email is gone)
THANK YOU CHI MEGWETCH!
Members of
the Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre set
up a display at the Thistle entrance of the Library highlighting First
Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures and histories. This display marks
National Indigenous Histories Month, and Indigenous Peoples Awareness
Week.
The display includes a variety of items including
Wampum belts; a drum and rattle; beaded gloves and moccasins; seal and
rabbit pelts; various Métis sashes; Inuit embroidery and carvings, and a
variety of other tools and handcrafted items.
Members of the Brock University and wider
community are invited to a week full of learning, reflection and
crafting during Indigenous Peoples Awareness Week, hosted by the
Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre beginning
June 23rd. Students, staff, faculty and community members can visit brocku.universitytickets.com to see a full list of events and reserve their tickets now.
Be sure to follow Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre on Instagram and Facebook to be the first to hear about events, news and updates.
America
marks 250 years of independence on the 4th of July this year, and
observances
file photo, Trace
will be wide-ranging. That includes those who are the
descendants of America’s original inhabitants.
By the time
European settlers arrived, historians estimate more than 10 million
Indigenous people inhabited the land now called America. In the
centuries that followed, battles, diseases, diminishing resources and
forced land removal led to the rapid decline of the Native population.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Native Americans
is currently under 7 million people — only 2% of the nation’s population.
As Native people continue to face land disputes and the highest poverty rate in the U.S., “Closer Look”
assembled a Native American panel to reflect on the country at 250
years and offer perspectives as the nation reaches this milestone.
Christine Nayler seen in this November 2025
photo. She was 15 when her newborn daughter was taken away from her in
1982. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sharif Hassan
By Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press| Jun 1, 2026
Christine Nayler spent only four days with her newborn daughter
after giving birth at a hospital north of Newmarket, Ont., in 1982,
before her baby was taken away from her.
Then a 15-year-old expectant mother living in Toronto, Nayler was
sent to a relative’s home north of the city to have her baby. She was
expected to return home without the child.
While she was being repeatedly told she couldn’t keep the baby,
Nayler was still hopeful that her family would change their mind.
But they didn’t.
“I always say that the day that I left the hospital without her was
my death day because I feel like I died that day,” said Nayler, who now
lives in Barrie, Ont.
“When your child is alive and she’s just taken from you for no other
reason than you’re young and you weren’t even given a chance to be a
mother, like, that changes everything that you feel about the world.”
Nayler was among hundreds of thousands of unwed mothers who were
coerced and forced to give up their children for adoptions in
post-Second World War Canada.
Decades after giving up her child, Nayler has launched a petition,
asking the federal government to acknowledge its role and apologize for
being part of the unjust system.
Her petition has garnered more than 600 signatures from across Canada
and was tabled in the House of Commons last week, giving the government
45 days to provide a written response.
“I want the government to acknowledge the harm that was done to us and the role that they played in it,” she said.
In response to questions about the petition on Saturday, the Office
of the Minister of Jobs and Families told The Canadian Press the
government is grateful to those who have shared their experiences.
“Canadians have carried this history with them and the profound and
lasting impacts that forced adoption practices have had on mothers,
adoptees, and families,” it said in a written statement, adding that the
government is committed to addressing the legacy of this issue.
“Canada recognizes that this was a systemic issue affecting people
across the country. Important legal safeguards, including Charter
protections and international human rights commitments, now help ensure
that such practices cannot occur today.”
The latest play written by southern Manitoban duo Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold is Rattle, a story rooted in the inherited legacy of the ’60s Scoop.
Based on the stories of Robert Doucette and Roberta MacKinnon —
friends and students of the playwriting pair — this play from
Brandon-based Root Sky Theatre, directed by Charlene van Buekenhout and
Cory Wojcik, opens at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film on Wednesday
night.
Rattle is the fourth product of the Racine-Lakevold playwriting partnership, following Misty Lake, Stretching Hide and 2024’s Owl Calling.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: From left: Alissa Watson is Lina,
Dezarae Meade is Crystal and Josh Ranville is Dan in the play Rattle by
Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold.
Each play by the twosome thus far has been a heartfelt study of
issues facing Indigenous Peoples in Canada, using history as a mirror to
understand the country’s legacy of both immense harm and attempted
reconciliation.
A co-production with local collective Theatre Incarnate — Brenda McLean and Christopher Sobczak — Rattle was awarded the best full-length play award in Theatre BC’s Canadian National Playwriting Competition.
Earlier this year, Racine, a professor of native studies at Brandon University, also launched Stolen Science, a
podcast about the “largely unacknowledged contributions of Indigenous
Peoples to Western European science between 1670 and 1870,” according to
the university.
Rattle is set on a North End street in Winnipeg where
friends Bobbie (Melanie Badger) and Dan (Josh Ranville) are finding
where they belong.
Meanwhile, Bobbie’s son Jordan (Mackenzie Wojcik, Cory’s son) forges a
bond with Dan’s kid Crystal (Dezarae Meade), who hopes against hope
that she won’t have to move to the south end.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: From left: Dezarae Meade (Crystal) and Mackenzie Wojcik (Jordan) forge a bond as the kids of members of a found family.
Dan and Bobbie met when Bobbie aged out of care, learning to relate to one another as found family.
The character of Bobbie is based on MacKinnon, who was taken away
from her biological family at the age of two. Adopted by a Mennonite
family, Bobbie is always wondering not only where she came from, but why
she was taken away, the actor explains.
“Any moments where the past is brought up it’s just too painful to confront those things,” Badger says.
Fateful interactions with the next generation and her ancestors help
Bobbie find her truth, she adds. “In that moment it’s her healing
moment, you can really feel that part of the play where she found her
place,” adds Badger, an actor whose most recent performance was in 2019,
in Theatre by the River’s The Hours That Remain.
Badger’s first performance was in Douglas Nepinak’s Crisis in Oka, Manitoba.
That play — staged at Prairie Theatre Exchange last year as part of the
second annual Kiyanaan Festival, produced by Van Buekenhout and Philip
Geller — has served as an inspiration for both Lakevold and Racine.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: Josh Ranville, who plays Dan in Rattle, as been acting since he was a child.
“I’d like to think of it as blood memory as an actor, that’s the
choice I made (in approaching the role of Bobbie), is that instant
connection to her mother, her memory, her roots, her place,” says
Badger, who works for the Winnipeg Foundation and Manitobah Storyboot
School, a national charity offering cultural craftmaking workshops.
The play opens Wednesday with nightly performances to Saturday beginning at 7:30 p.m. Matinees run Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The production is sponsored by the Riverton & District Friendship
Centre and received funding from the National Sixties Scoop Healing
Foundation of Canada, along with both Canada and Manitoba arts councils.
Another headline:
Dakota Access Pipeline permit granted after six-year review
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the
development Thursday morning while presenting to the Williston Basin
Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, drawing applause from the oil industry
attendees.
Burgum, who became North Dakota
governor in 2017 while Indigenous-led protests against the pipeline were
ongoing, called the drawn-out environmental study “a cloud of
uncertainty over the whole Bakken.”
Sixties Scoop Survivors and Indigenous leaders marched through
Winnipeg Wednesday calling on the federal government to ensure long-term
support for residential school investigations, healing and community
programs.
The march through downtown came on National Day of Action, five years
after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the former Kamloops
Residential School.
At Oodena Circle Survivors shared stories of residential schools, the
Sixties Scoop, family separation, and the healing work still happening
today.
“The pain did not end when the schools closed,” said Christina
Kitchekesik, a residential school Survivor. “It lives in our families,
it lives in our communities, and it lives in our spirits.”
Sixties
Scoop Survivors and family members shared stories of residential
schools and family separation in a Oodena circle on National Day for
Action in Winnipeg on May 27, 2026 (CityNews)
Ava Halpin was eight years old in 1964 when she was taken from her family and sent to live with three different white families.
Halpin says programs supporting Survivors have helped many reconnect in a variety of ways.
“That is why we need to keep these programs going to help the
survivors heal, to keep learning about who we are and stay connected,
stay together,” Halpin said.
Ava Halpin speaks about her experience of being taken from her family in 1964 when she was an 8-year-oldon National Day for Action in Winnipeg on May 27, 2026 (CityNews)
By late morning, hundreds walked from The Forks to the Manitoba
Legislative Building where the focus shifted toward calls for continued
federal funding tied to truth, healing, and investigations into children
who never came home.
A national e-petition, sponsored in the House of Commons by Winnipeg
MP Leah Gazan, calls for long-term support for Survivor healing,
cultural supports, and community-led efforts connected to unmarked
burial site investigations.
“We’ve been asking for answers from the federal government what is
exactly happening with the funding and the services that we have been
receiving as First Nations and our organizations, our communities, and
we still have not received any commitment, and the messaging right now
is that the funding is going to be sunsetting,” said Kyra Wilson, Grand
Chief of Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
PBS Utah’s documentary examines the federal Indian boarding school
system and the lasting impact it had on Native communities across the
United States. These schools were created with one purpose: to force
Native children to abandon their languages, traditions, and identities
in order to fit into Anglo‑American society. The film uses firsthand
Native testimony to show how these policies reshaped families,
communities, and tribal nations for generations.
The story
traces the roots of the system back to the late 1800s, when military
officer Richard Henry Pratt pushed the idea that Native people could be
“civilized” only by removing children from their homes and immersing
them in English, Christianity, and military discipline. His approach
became the model for federal boarding schools across the country.
Children were stripped of their hair, clothing, and names. Speaking
their own languages was punished. Many never returned home.
Donna
Morin, left, and Joseph Lambert, right, welcomed Melody Roberts,
middle, at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday evening. The biological
siblings were separated in the Sixties Scoop, with Lambert and Roberts
only learning recently they were taken from their family. (Coleen Rajotte)
Siblings separated
in the Sixties Scoop have reunited after one of them — raised in the
U.S. knowing nothing about her family — returned to Manitoba.
Melody
Roberts embraced biological siblings Joe Lambert and Donna Morin during
their first in-person meeting at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday
evening.
"It's good to be back," the 66-year-old from Eugene,
Ore., said as a welcoming party greeted her with signs, singing and
drumming at the airport's arrivals area.
Morin, 61, wept as she
hugged her older sister. She recalled a story her grandfather told her
decades earlier, about taking Morin's mother to hospital and that
"she'd come out without children."
"I just thought she left them there, and then I heard about the Sixties Scoop," Morin said.
"I
got a list of the children that she had lost. And so I found most of
them. I only had [Joe] and Melody to find — and I finally found them."
The
Sixties Scoop refers to a period from the 1950s to about the
mid-to-late '80s when government policies enabled First Nations, Métis
and Inuit children to be removed from their homes and placed instead
with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents.
Joseph
Lambert, far left, and Donna Morin, far right, with Morin's daughter
Samantha Sinclair, and granddaughters Madison and Lily, ahead of the
arrival of Melody Roberts at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday
evening. Lambert holds an image of Roberts on his phone. (Justin Fraser/CBC)
Roberts didn't know she was a Scoop survivor until recently.
"When I was old enough, I was told I was adopted. But that's all I knew," she said Monday.
"It was shocking. I was kind of taken aback by it. I had mixed emotions about it."
More
than 20,000 children are estimated to have been taken from their
families, though advocates say the numbers could be much higher.
In Manitoba, a provincial inquiry from 2015
said more than 3,400 Indigenous children were "shipped away" to
adoptive parents between 1971 and 1981 alone — some sent to other
countries.
Survivors "grew up thinking they were not wanted," said
Susanna Tasse, social services and outreach co-ordinator with Winnipeg
charity Hope Centre Ministries.
"There's abandonment issues all their lives because they felt they were not wanted."
It
was Tasse who helped reunite Morin, Roberts and Lambert. She said it
all started about a year and a half ago when she realized Lambert — one
of her clients — was also a survivor.
"I
said to him, 'You know, Joe, you're a Sixties Scooper,' and he just was
very confused, [asking] well, what's that?" Tasse said.
Tasse
tracked down Roberts first, and arranged for her and Lambert to exchange
emails and meet over Zoom. Then she found Morin, who lived only "a few
blocks away" from Lambert in Winnipeg, and looped her in.
"It's
really heartbreaking, now that they're in their senior years, that they
ended up finding each other … wishing that they would have tried sooner
in life," Tasse said, but "this is also a beautiful story, too."
Having family has 'totally changed my life'
Lambert did not get a chance to meet his mother or some siblings who died before he learned about his past.
"I didn't know I had a family, so I didn't have anything to miss," he said.
But
the 68-year-old said the discovery has made his life better. He said
he's now a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation after a long time
struggling with his identity.
He's also hoping to visit another brother, who lives in B.C., in the coming months.
Before
discovering he had family members, Lambert "was just being
self-destructive to myself, [because] I had nothing left to live forward
to," he said. "It's totally changed my life."
Coleen Rajotte, vice-president of the 60's Scoop Manitoba Council Inc., said many other survivors would also like to reunite with their families, but "have no idea where to start."
Supports are needed to help them with the search, and to allow them to "get back home," she said.
"Melody,
who's coming all the way from Oregon, she had to save up to make this
trip. And that is, in our minds, completely wrong," Rajotte said.
"She
was taken away from her family and shipped to the United States by the
Manitoba government. Why should she have to pay to come back to meet her
family?"
Roberts will be spending three days in Winnipeg with her siblings, Morin said.
"We
just got done looking at a bunch of pictures of my family and my other
brothers and sisters and my mom and dad," Roberts said during a phone
interview, as the siblings drove to The Forks Monday afternoon.
"It's been really awesome. I'm really enjoying myself here."
Siblings reunite decades after Sixties Scoop May 19|
Three
siblings have reunited in Manitoba decades after being separated during
the Sixties Scoop, which saw thousands of Indigenous children removed
from their homes and placed with non-Indigenous families. Melody
Roberts, who grew up in the U.S. and until recently knew nothing of her
family, returned to Manitoba over the weekend for the first time to meet
her brother and sister.
The Numbers That Explain Why Your Grandchildren Will Be Fighting Wars Over Water (But With Robots)
Over
the next four years, they’re planning to build more than 12,000 data
centers in the United States. Currently there are 5,500. They’re going
to MORE THAN DOUBLE them in four years. Total investment: $5.2 trillion.
Protesters rally against STAMP data center plan during Hochul visit in Buffalo
The demonstration called for a moratorium on new data center development across the state.
Tommy Gallagher (WGRZ) May 22, 2026
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Environmental activists, local organizations, and
members of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation gathered outside the Buffalo
Irish Center to protest proposed data center development in New York
State.
Specifically, they targeted plans for the STAMP site in Genesee
County while Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a fundraiser inside on Thursday
evening.
The demonstration, organized by several local groups and
environmental advocates, called for a moratorium on new data center
development across the state. Protesters focused their concerns on the
proposed project at the Genesee County STAMP site.
Although Hochul did not directly address demonstrators outside the
event, she discussed the Genesee County STAMP plant earlier in the day,
saying New York has some long-term interest in data centers, but only
with certain standards.
Stream Data Centers, the company behind the proposed project, says
the development would create 125 permanent jobs at the STAMP site and
approximately 1,200 construction jobs during the buildout.
According to Honor the Earth, there are currently at least 106 proposed
data center projects near or on Native lands. In western New York, a
proposed $19.46 billion data center project would sit
adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory, threatening an old
forest that tribal citizens use for hunting, fishing, and gathering
traditional medicine.
STOP DATA SURVEILLANCE CENTERS
The Underground Blueprint to Destroy the Tech Bro Plan to Enslave the Planet With AI Data Centers by 🐺The Wise Wolf
OR: How a Broke Hobojournalist With No Car Weaponized a Zero-Budget Strategy to Kill the Coming AI Dystopia Before It Starts
Step one: Corporation identifies land it wants. (”That subdivision would make a great server farm!”)
Step
two: Corporation identifies local politicians who appear purchasable.
(This step is easier than you’d think. Most politicians advertise their
availability through campaign finance disclosures.)
Step three:
Campaign contributions flow. (Legally! It’s all very legal! Just
structured donations that definitely don’t constitute bribery because
we’ve defined bribery in a way that excludes all the ways rich people
buy politicians.)
Step four: Local politicians create or gain
control of a “development authority” or similar governmental body.
(Every state has slightly different names but they all do the same
thing: provide legal cover for theft.)
Step five: Corporate
executives or their proxies sit on that authority. (Just like how
Pfizer’s VP George Milne sat on New London’s development board. Totally
normal. No conflict of interest here. Just government officials who
happen to work for the corporation benefiting from the government
decisions they’re making.)
Step six: The authority declares the
project serves “economic development” and therefore provides “public
benefit.” (Jobs! Tax revenue! Economic growth! Never mind that a Costco
also provides all those things.)
Step seven: Eminent domain gets
deployed. (This is the part where armed government agents show up to
inform you that your family home of 30 years now belongs to people who
own more money than your town’s entire assessed property value.)
Step
eight: Properties get seized. (The government takes your house. You get
“fair market value” which is determined by the government. You cannot
negotiate. You cannot refuse. You leave or they arrest you.)
Step
nine: Land transfers to the corporation. (Usually for $1 or some other
nominal fee because why pay market rates when you’ve captured the
government.)
Step ten: Corporation gets massive tax exemptions for
10 to 20 years. (Because obviously a multi-billion-dollar data center
needs tax breaks. How else will the investors afford their fourth
vacation homes?)
Step eleven: The public pays for all the
infrastructure upgrades. (New roads to the facility? Public expense.
Upgraded power lines? Public expense. Water infrastructure? Public
expense. The corporation pays for none of this.)
Step twelve:
Corporation keeps all the profits. (Shocking twist: the economic
benefits that supposedly justified the taking don’t actually benefit the
public whose property and tax dollars funded everything.)
A still from the film "Stomping Freedom." It will premiere for the first time at the Little Art Theatre on May 27.
The American Indian-led arts nonprofit Caesar’s Ford Theatre
will premiere a new film called “Stomping Freedom” in Yellow Springs
this month, ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. The film examines who
was in Ohio at that time.
Caesar’s Ford Theatre is a performing
arts organization focused on telling American Indian historical dramas
with American Indian actors. Using the term “American Indian” is
deliberate as well, as this is the legal term used by the United States
government to identify citizens of federally-recognized tribal nations, which have specific legal rights.
“Stomping
Freedom” is a political thriller that recounts the tension between
Shawnee villagers and American settlers during the American Revolution
in 1778. The story begins at Caesar Creek, when an interpreter for the
Shawnee tribe Caesar receives a letter with news he’s charged with delivering to Shawnee war chief Weyapiersenwah, also known as Blue Jacket.
“This was the home of tribal nations that lived
here and could trace their culture and heritage back thousands and
thousands and thousand years to this area."
Kane Stratton, the director and screenwriter for the film said
Caesar's Ford Theatre wants the audience to understand Ohio wasn’t part
of the United States 250 years ago.
“This was the home of tribal
nations that lived here and could trace their culture and heritage back
thousands and thousands and thousand years to this area,” he said.
Jake Tiger (enrolled Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Red Lake Ojibwe and Sac and Fox of Oklahoma descent)
played Blue Jacket in the film. Although not Shawnee himself, he said
he worked with Shawnee language specialists when speaking Shawnee in the
film.
He said he tried to channel his own ancestor, the Seminole
warrior Osceola, who also fought for the sovereignty of his people
against the U.S. government, when portraying Blue Jacket.
“You
know, that kind of grit and tenacity and that steadfastness of that
lifestyle, and I tried to portray that in this dialog. So I took a lot
of inspiration from my own cultural background and tried to do the best I
could with due diligence and respectfully portray it as a Shawnee war
leader,” he said.
Tiger said he appreciated the level of
consultation that went into the screenplay, set design and attire to
ensure everything was historically accurate and culturally appropriate.
“It felt like a movement, more than just one person doing this on their own and kind of dictating the narrative,” Tiger said.
The
film was funded in part by the America 250-Ohio Commission to recognize
the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Yellow
Springs Community Foundation was also a major donor to this effort,
Stratton said.
The film premieres at the Little Art Theatre on May
27 at 7 p.m. A donation is required for admission. Tickets can be
reserved in advance.
The film includes mature language, so it may not be suitable to view for younger kids, Stratton said.
Following
the screening, production team members will reflect on the filmmaking
experience and share plans for Caesar’s Ford Theatre's future.
Stratton said if there’s enough interest from the first premier, there’s potential to put on more screenings.
2026 marks a milestone in America’s history – 250 years since the
signing of the Declaration of Independence. Our founding document put
forward aspirations that have shaped America and inspired the world. But
the Declaration may surprise you. It calls the Native peoples of
America “merciless Indian Savages.”
For generations, stories of Native America have been kept separate and apart from the American story.
Take
a fresh look at the history of our region — and hear today’s Indigenous
voices. It’s part of Still Here: Native American Resilience in New
England — a special series from Connecticut Public, featuring radio
storytelling, in-depth videos, digital stories, pictures and a community
conversation.
Chapter 1: An enduring spiritual connection to the land
Mark Mirko / Connecticut Public
In
the several hundred years since the arrival of Europeans to New
England, known as "Dawnland" to its original inhabitants, Native peoples
have been forced to live on a small fraction of their ancestral
homelands.
For more than 10,000 years before Europeans arrived, the Northeast
was home to many tribes with organized leadership and governance; it was
among the most prosperous parts of North America. A connection with the
land endures – and you care for it like it’s a member of the family.
Chapter 2: The hidden history of Indigenous slavery
Sir John Henry Lefroy / Cornell University Library
This
image — a portrait of Jacob Minors of St. David's Island — helped
reconnect Indigenous peoples in Bermuda and New England. Its caption
contained a clue: "Reputed to be of Indian descent, and probably
descended from one of the Pequod captives."
It's a surprising and overlooked story, a blind spot in the narrative
of early America: the hidden history of Indigenous slavery. As colonial
powers took over Native land, white settlers were enslaving Native
people. Some worked in New England. Others were kidnapped and shipped to
an isolated tropical island. For generations, a lost tribe in Bermuda
wondered about its past. Centuries later, they’ve reconnected with
family – in New England.
Chapter 3: ‘An unsung hero:’ A runner puts his tribe on the map
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library / Leslie Jones Collection
Ellison
"Tarzan" Brown's victory at the 1939 Boston Marathon is seen as a
turning point in the visibility and recognition of New England's Native
people.
In the 1930s, runner Tarzan Brown twice won the Boston Marathon – and
carried the Narragansett tribe’s name out of obscurity and onto a
global stage. “He was like an unsung hero for a long time,” his
granddaughter says. “It’s just good to see him get the recognition he
deserves.”
Chapter 4: A reverence for water, celebrated with music
Katie Lenhart / Dartmouth University
Jeremy Dutcher and Yo-Yo Ma greet the dawn with a song and music from We Are Water at the bank of Kwenitekw (the Connecticut River).
A Connecticut singer is taking Native art and culture to new places.
He invited Indigenous musicians – as well as one of the world’s most
famous cello players – to perform at sunrise on the banks of the
Connecticut River. The performance highlights Native peoples’ deep
connection to nature and water.
Visitors to the 2025
Schemitzun, one of the largest powwows in the Northeast and hosted by
the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation
As Native communities face continued challenges to their overall
well-being, many find strength in cultural heritage and tradition.
Powwow gatherings are a chance to reconnect with family, culture and
values.
and Four days ago, yet another apology in Canada..
Unless an apology and the 60s Scoop history is on nightly news and broadcast where the entire country can hear it, it's pointless. Nothing changes... Native Adoptees in the US are still waiting for open records and repatriation... Trace
A provincial inquiry in 1985 deemed the practice, which came to be known as the '60s Scoop, as cultural genocide. Manitoba apologized for the
practice in 2015.
Viviane
Echaquan-Niquay was 12 years old when her sister Lauréanna died of
pneumonia at the Saint-Eusèbe Hospital in Joliette, Que., in 1973.
At least, that’s what she says her family was told by the health care officials in charge at the time.
“My
mother told me when she arrived in Joliette, she went to the funeral
home,” Echaquan-Niquay recalls, adding that, to facilitate her parents’
journey, she was tasked with caring for her younger siblings at their
home in Manawan, an Atikamekw First Nations community in Quebec’s
Lanaudière region.
She continues, “She says
she saw a baby in a styrofoam box. She said, ‘That baby is too big. They
look like they’re 10 or 11 months old. Are you sure that’s my baby?’”
Lauréanna was two-and-a-half months old.
Echaquan-Niquay
says the funeral director waved her mother’s concerns away, closed the
box and explained that Lauréanna would be buried in a nearby cornfield.
“My
mother and my father said, ‘Can we put a cross?’ They told them, ‘no,’”
Echaquan-Niquay tells CTV News. “‘A plaque, at least?’ ‘No, not if the
child isn’t baptized.’”
She insists her sister was baptized the August prior.
“When
my parents said they were going to get my sister, if it really was her,
they said, ‘we’ll bring her to the cemetery here in Manawan, and we’ll
put a cross for her,’” said Echaquan-Niquay.
Lauréanna’s body was never released to her family.
An empty tikinagan, a baby carrier. (Echaquan family)
Ghost babies
Lauréanna Echaquan was born on July 20, 1973.
To this day, Echaquan-Niquay says she still has “flashes” of her sister’s short existence.
“I
remember my sister was in a tikinagan, [baby carrier] and my mother was
doing the laundry,” she said, looking off into the distance. “We didn’t
have a laundry machine, so she was doing it by hand.”
Echaquan-Niquay repines she’s always felt disturbed about what happened to her family.
She
says she understands now that historically, Lauréanna is just one of
Quebec’s many “ghost babies,” Indigenous children who went missing or
died after being admitted to hospital to receive medical care, mostly
between the 1940s and 1980s.
In many cases,
parents were later informed that their child had died, but were never
given death certificates, access to their bodies or told the exact
location of where they would be buried.
Rumours have pervaded that some babies may have been swapped and later offered up for adoption or sent to residential schools.
The
Echaquan family in 2019, including Vivian Echaquan-Niquay and her
parents, Armand Echaquan and Madeleine Dubé. (Echaquan family)
Uncovering the truth
The
Echaquans are one of 130 families taking part in investigations to find
more than 220 children following the passing of Bill 79, An Act to
authorize the communication of personal information to the families of
Indigenous children who went missing or died after being admitted to an
institution.
The bill was introduced in
the National Assembly in 2021 by Ian Lafrenière, Quebec Minister of
Domestic Security and First Nations Relations.
“This
is a dark side of our Quebec history,” he tells CTV News. “We’re
talking about families who have been looking for their children for
years, some as much as 40, 50 years.”
The
government is working with Awacak, an Indigenous organization dedicated
to finding missing Indigenous children across the province.
Part of the search, Lafrenière explains, involves unlocking decades-old documentation.
As
such, the Echaquan family says they have been able to access
Lauréanna’s birth and death certificates, as well as some medical
records.
However, Echaquan-Niquay says she questions whether the records are a truthful recollection of what happened to her baby sister.
She explains that the registry in Manawan lists Lauréanna’s death as Oct. 27, but the provincial civil registry states Oct. 28.
Additionally, the autopsy report from the hospital has Lauréanna’s death on Oct. 30.
Some
families, like the Echaquans, Lafrenière adds, have told him that they
were unsure whether the bodies they were shown were of their children at
all.
“In some cases, kids were sent to
adoption without notifying the families, so you can imagine how hard it
is,” he said. “They have been living without knowing what exactly
happened.”
Since Bill 79’s passage, four exhumations have taken place in Quebec.
Lauréanna’s would be the fifth.
Awacak is an Indigenous organization dedicated to finding missing children. (Echaquan family)
Searching for Lauréanna
On May 1, Quebec’s Superior Court authorized the exhumation of Lauréanna’s presumed resting place.
Four sites were identified, including a soccer field near the Joliette cemetery, where a cornfield once stood.
“I felt light,” said Echaquan-Niquay of the court decision. “But I also felt pain because my parents weren’t there.”
Her
parents, Armand Echaquan and Madeleine Dubé, both died within weeks of
each other in the spring of 2021, never knowing what truly happened to
their baby girl.
“I have hope that we will
find my sister,” she said, adding that her wish is to bring her home to
Manawan and offer her a proper burial.
If the
exhumation process doesn’t lead to little Lauréanna’s body, buried in
her styrofoam box, Echaquan-Niquay insists that she will continue
looking - even if it takes forever.
The exhumation is set to begin on June 8 and last three weeks.
Snow Raven takes us on a mesmerizing journey into the heart of shamanism, the power of sound, and the sacred connection between humans and nature. Born in Yakutia, she shares her experiences growing up in the vast Arctic wilderness, where silence and the elements shape the spirit. She explores the deep-rooted traditions of her people, the significance of the drum as a portal between realms, and the transformative power of voice and rhythm.
From surviving -96°F winters to using sound to heal and communicate with unseen worlds, Snow Raven reveals ancient wisdom that modern society is only beginning to understand. With a mission to reconnect people to their primal essence, she teaches indigenous singing techniques and rituals that awaken hidden parts of the soul. A powerful storyteller, healer, and musician, Snow Raven bridges the gap between ancient and modern worlds, offering a path back to the wisdom we have forgotten.
By Trace L Hentz (blog editor) It appears that Baby Deseray was placed by the same adoption lawyer Ray Godwin and the birthmother dealt wi...
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You are not alone
To Veronica Brown
Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.
Diane Tells His Name
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Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie
NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS
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We conclude this series & continue the conversation by naming that adoption is genocide. This naming refers to the process of genocide that breaks kinship ties through adoption & other forms of family separation & policing 🧵#NAAM2022#AdoptionIsTraumaAND#AdopteeTwitter#FFY 1/6 pic.twitter.com/46v0mWISZ1
As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
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