From Scooped Childhood to Couture

(60s Scoop Adoptee) D’Arcy J. Moses on Survival, Fashion, and Rebuilding in a Changing Industry

Fashion designer D'Arcy Moses reflects on his journey and his vision for the future.

June 22, 2026

By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – For D’Arcy J. Moses, fashion has never simply been about clothing.

It became a path back to identity, a form of ceremony, and ultimately a way to rebuild a life shaped by separation, loss, and resilience.

Born Dene and impacted by the Sixties Scoop, Moses was taken from his family as an infant and raised by a non-Indigenous family on a farm outside Camrose, Alberta.

“I’m a ’60s Scooper,” he says. “I was adopted out as an infant. The church took me away from my mother, and I was raised by non-Native people on a farm in Alberta.”

Growing up disconnected from his culture, he found himself drawn to another world – one found in the glossy pages of fashion magazines. “My mother used to have Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue magazines, and I was enamoured by them,” he recalls. “High fashion – haute couture – that’s what first really sparked my interest.”

Those magazines offered a glimpse of possibility. By his mid-teens, Moses understood that creativity would define his future. “I knew from a young age that I was creative, but I didn’t realize until my mid-teens that I wanted to get into clothing design.”

Current fashion designs by D’Arcy Moses.

Years later, after moving to Vancouver and Toronto, that childhood fascination began to take shape professionally. Along the way, Indigenous Elders recognized his talent and introduced him to the art of regalia making. “In my early twenties I was in Vancouver. I had some Elders take me under their wings and introduce me to regalia making.”

While refining his craft, Moses worked relentlessly to support himself. “I worked two or three jobs at a time – waiting tables, working in a sawmill, a lumber mill of all things. And in the evenings and weekends, I would just create.”

That persistence eventually paid off. “I had a few lucky breaks,” he says. “One of them was the Toronto Festival of Fashion, and the next day one of my garments ended up on the cover of The Globe and Mail, which was really big news at the time.”

#60sScoop separated her from her culture. Love brought it back to her.

Buffalo Narrows couple Darlene and Mervin Petit share their passion for land, hunting and fishing

Janani Whitfield · CBC News · Posted: Jun 21, 2026 

Listen to this article

Estimated 5 minutes

Darlene and Mervin Petit share a passion for teaching traditional ways of life to others. (Campbell Stevenson/SRC)

CBC's road trip series Land of Living Stories explores inspiring stories of community spirit from across Saskatchewan. In our latest visit, CBC-Radio Canada hit the road to Buffalo Narrows. This is one story in a multi-part series from that community.

WARNING: This story contains details of abuse.

When Darlene Petit first moved back to Buffalo Narrows, Sask., she wouldn't eat or even touch a wild rabbit, though her husband Mervin often went out to set snares. When he would bring her onto his boat, she'd take a book and read while he fished.

But their relationship over the years has reconnected her to a life and culture she almost lost, when she was taken from her family in Buffalo Narrows as part of the Sixties Scoop.

"Mervin was a big, big influence in my life, teaching me my cultural background," the 62-year-old said, explaining how her husband showed her the joys of catching their own food, from rabbit to wild chickens to moose. Thanks to him, she reconnected with the traditions of her Métis and First Nations ancestors.

"I started fishing and learning how to catch fish, and now I can outfish anybody," she said, laughing. 

Mervin Petit grew up fishing and hunting; within half an hour, he pulls up 30 fish in a net. It's a passion he's passed on to his wife, Darlene. (Campbell Stevenson/SRC)

Now the pair can often be seen sitting quietly in their boat, watching the bears and deer in the distance, or setting a net and hauling up fish they share with others in the village.

It's a fight to keep these cultural traditions alive, as people are losing touch with ways of life that go back hundreds of years, said 61-year-old Mervin. That's why he's so keen to help anyone who's interested learn how to hunt, fish and prepare food.

"I want everybody to feel that, all the young people, all the older people that don't know this stuff, I want them all to understand this stuff and keep doing it," he says. 

The pair say they don't need to rely on groceries, but instead eat the wild game and fish they catch themselves. It's a self-reliance they want to pass on to future generations.

"You're gonna need this more than ever in the coming years because of all the stuff that's going on now in the world; it's so expensive living," Mervin says. 

WATCH | This couple are dedicated to sharing traditions and love for the land:

Sharing traditional knowledge strengthens Buffalo Narrows power couple's bond

Darlene and Mervin Petit have been together for 43 years, and have grown closer through sharing their love of living off the land. Now they hope to pass that knowledge on to others in the community.

Scooped from childhood 

While Mervin's memories are deeply rooted in fishing and trapping, Darlene was taken from her family when she was three. She was relocated to Lebret, Sask, 780 kilometres south of Buffalo Narrows, and bounced from foster home to foster home. 

It was a traumatizing time.

"I was bathed in hot Javex water and things like that," she said. "And then when you're in foster homes, you're abused by other children that are in the home." 

Darlene Petit, pictured front row, second from left, is seen here with her siblings. They were separated as children by the Sixties Scoop. (Submitted by Darlene Petit)

Fortunately, her mother successfully fought to regain custody of her children, and Darlene was finally reunited with her family when she was 12. 

However, meeting Mervin was the catalyst for reconnecting with her roots, as he introduced her to his way of life.  

Mervin and Darlene Petit have been together for 43 years. (Submitted by Darlene Petit)

They've been together for 43 years now, through thick and thin.

"I went through a period of depression after my father passed away and to get better, Mervin used to take us walking in the bush," Darlene remembers. They'd walk for hours. 

"I don't suffer a lot from [depression], but that time I did, and that's how it helped, being out here on the water, on the land."

Mervin and Darlene Petit spend hours on the water, catching fish to share with others in the village of Buffalo Narrows. (Campbell Stevenson/SRC)

Others in Buffalo Narrows call them an inspiration. 

"They're definitely mentors in the community," said Candice Waite, whose kids and their friends recently joined Mervin and Darlene to learn about filleting and smoking fish. 

"When we pulled up there, they were eagerly waiting in their garage, literally fillet knives and hands with just an open heart," she said. They refused any payment, saying they just wanted to teach others, she recalled.

"I aspire to be Mervin and Darlene when I'm their age."

The joy the couple finds in sharing their traditions is plain in their smiles as they haul up a net full of fish in just half an hour. It's a gift Darlene doesn't take for granted, having been taken from her home as a child and having had to relearn her culture. 

And for his part, Mervin doesn't take her presence in his life for granted.

"She's my best friend," he says. 

"I just couldn't imagine living life with somebody else."

 

Read more stories from CBC's visit to Buffalo Narrows here 

Landback returns of Indigenous lands happening across country, can lead public planning

 

SOME GOOD NEWS!

New research from the University of Kansas has found that the landback movement, in which land is returned to its original occupants, has grown rapidly across the country as well. 

READ:  https://phys.org/news/2026-06-landback-indigenous-country.html 

Cree mom and son both graduating this year credit family in continuing their education

Charlotte Ross has earned a PhD, her son Steven an education degree

Creeson Agecoutay · CBC News · June 19

Charlotte Ross, left, and her son Steven Ross. (Submitted by Charlotte Ross)

Steven Ross and his mother Charlotte Ross have followed different educational paths, but both are celebrating graduations. 

"My mom was a major inspiration in my life to go to university," Steven said.

"She started with a rough childhood and she climbed all the way to the point where she is now and for me that's a great inspiration."

He recently graduated from the University of Saskatchewan's Indigenous Teachers Education Program (ITEP) in Saskatoon with an education degree in kinesiology and is already doing interviews for teaching positions in the province.

Both Steven and his mother are members of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, about 220 kilometres north of Saskatoon.

His mother Charlotte graduated from the University of Victoria with a PhD in Indigenous language revitalization through the Department of Indigenous education where she focused her studies on adult Cree silent speakers.

Silent speakers are those who understand a language but they can't speak it themselves — they usually respond with one-worded answers or give an English response, according to Charlotte.

"What were the impacts, why was this the case?" she said.

"It came down to trauma and having safety in language learning."

She has helped develop a language app with Montreal Lake Cree Nation and is assisting Cree speaker Senapan Thunder and her company Wicihsok, that is also working on Cree language revitalization.

Charlotte was the first person in her family to go to university and she graduated in 1988 from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor of arts in Native Studies.

"I never thought I would go to university because I didn't know what it was," she said.

"There were very few role models as with most [First Nations] communities."

She later learned how to read and write in Cree under the late teacher Freda Ahenakew, who assisted with Cree language revitalization and retention in Saskatchewan.

'No excuses' growing up

Charlotte credits her parents for instilling education as an integral part of her life while growing up in the small northern Saskatchewan town of Molanosa, on the northeast corner of Montreal Lake.

She had no reason to miss school as it was right across the highway from her home.  

"We lived literally a stone's throw away," she said.

"There were no excuses that it was too far, if it was snowing or raining, even in -30 degree weather, all you had to do was open your door and roll out."

Charlotte calls her father a "self-taught independent entrepreneur" who knew how to organize and mobilize. Over the years, he helped to build the roads and highways as a construction worker and also hunted, trapped, was a competitive dog sledder and commercial fisherman. Her mother, she says, was the rock of their home who lovingly raised the children, cooked, cleaned and sewed up her children's clothes when they were damaged.

"My parents were both not able to go to school but highly valued education as they knew it would help us in the future to open doors of opportunity that were never offered to them," she said.

When Charlotte was 14, she and her younger brother were part of the Sixties Scoop, taken from their home and put into the province's foster care system for four years.

She says it was during this time she found her voice to speak up for her family.

"I was able to advocate for myself and my younger brother to not be separated and to also remain in La Ronge where some of my siblings were living," said Charlotte. 

Sports and study

While Charlotte's upbringing was disrupted by the foster care system, her son Steven's upbringing flourished. He played hockey, soccer and junior football at Rosetown Central High School in Rosetown, about 120 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon.

That continued into university, where he helped lead a number of senior male sports groups in basketball and track and field, and now into his teaching career. He shifted his studies to kinesiology with a strong focus in Indigenous land-based learning. 

"I always talked about being a teacher in Grade 3, 4 or 5," he said.

"I never really took it seriously but it did eventually come to fruition. I wanted to be in education because I wanted to make a better future for our world."

Charlotte's message to other Indigenous families who want to go to university is just go for it, but make sure to do the work and ask for help when you need it.

"You have to reach out for help. Don't be shy, don't be ashamed to ask for help," said Charlotte.

National Indigenous People's Day celebrates culture, language and tradition

 Canada!

Q&A: 'Indigenous Peoples are not resisting the future; they are asserting their right to shape it'

They need to come home #NAGPRA

In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — or NAGPRA — required institutions to return human remains and burial objects

 

By Jaden Hawkins |  Jun. 18, 2026 

EAST LANSING, Mich. (News 10) - The clock is ticking for universities and museums to return thousands of Native American remains and artifacts from their collections.

In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — or NAGPRA — required institutions to return human remains and burial objects to their tribes of origin.

NAGPRA was updated in 2024 and now requires institutions to finish returning Native American artifacts by 2029.

“There were many years when there was a provision in the law about being culturally unidentifiable. And so, this was a substantial barrier for tribes to achieve repatriation,” said Matthew Bussler. “The January 2024 new NAGPRA rule that came out removed that provision, and so that has made this a lot more achievable for tribes to have that work accomplished.”

While Michigan has made progress, thousands of ancestral remains and artifacts in the state still haven’t been returned.

ProPublica shared the following data from its Reparation Database Report:

In Michigan, of the more than 3,200 reported ancestral remains taken from Michigan:

• 2,638 Native American remains were made available for return
• At least 609 Native Americans were not made available for return

The University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, with the 25th largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S., says it has made 54% of the more than 1,600 remains taken from the state available for return:

• 904 remains available for return
• 773 remains not made available for return

The University of Michigan has made 2,478 associated funerary objects available for return out of more than 11,200.

Michigan State University has made 100% of the 544 Native American remains and 84,900 funerary objects available for return to tribes.

“We have a really good unit on campus... that our doing the best with the resources they have to make sure that they get those ceremonial items, those cultural items, and those ancestral remains back to our tribes,” said Dr. Kevin Leonard, the Interim Director of the Native American Institute at Michigan State University. “I would like to say we are ahead of the curve, but there’s still work that we have to do.”

Dr. Leonard describes seeing Native American ancestral artifacts in museums like going to a cemetery, digging up a grave, and taking whatever you want from inside.

“They’ve basically grave robbed,” Leonard said. “You’ve disturbed their resting sites and taken things that aren’t yours. Those are our ceremonial and our funeral objects, and they need to be in our communities, and those remains of our ancestors need to be returned so they can be laid to rest and aren’t in a box or a display case in a museum.”

Dr. Leonard encourages people to speak with the native community more often. He said, “you don’t have to dig our grave sites” to know the history.

If institutions fail to comply or meet the NAGPRA 2029 deadline, they could face financial penalties.

SOURCE:  https://www.wilx.com/2026/06/18/they-need-come-home-museums-facing-2029-deadline-return-native-artifacts-remains/ 

Oral History Project Concludes

Haaland’sFederal Indian Boarding School Initiative also included in-depth reports on the schools’ multigenerational impacts. Nearly 1,000 Native children were buried at 65 different school sites, the federal government reported. Atrocities occurring within school walls ranged from physical and sexual abuse to failed attempts at cultural genocide, the report found.

 
 READ: https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/indian-boarding-schools-oral-history-project-concludes/275393

FIRST AMERICA (podcast) #FirstAmerica #America250

 First America Merciless Indian Savages | Episode 1 Rebecca Nagle View All Episodes 

• Native people have been written out of the American story."

  Without us, you don’t know what happened.

  We’ve all been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that’s not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders, in their own words, what they were most upset about was Native Americans. How did we all miss that? Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) to talk about how hunger for Indigenous land drove the Revolution. Welcome to First America, the true story of how the United States came to be, and how our current political moment was 250 years in the making.

  CLICK: https://lnk.to/FirstAmerica 

   

  Don’t know whose land you live on? Look it up here!  
  
  Resources:
  – Dig into more of Ned Blackhawk’s scholarship here

  🎙️Listen to First America–the true story of how the United States came to be. 
• And how our current political moment is 250 years in the making. 
• Out now - wherever you get your podcasts! #FirstAmerica #America250

ICT News

 

The Battle of Greasy Grass Celebrations, Juneteenth and an Indigenous Father’s Day

71-year-old ’60s Scoop survivor meets sister she didn’t know existed

Tyler Barrow

VIDEO:  

 

Opens in new window

Published: June 17, 2026 

Marie Miller always thought she was an orphan, but she reunited with a sister she never knew she had earlier this year.

Marie Miller always believed she was an orphan.

It was only later the Calgary woman learned she was taken as a baby from her grandmother’s arms as part of the ’60s Scoop in Winnipeg.

On Tuesday, she finally met the sister she never knew she had—Sally Tripp.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” said Miller, now 71.

“She’s not going home, (but) if she is going home, I’m going home with her.”

“It’s really happening. (It’s) unbelievable,” said Tripp, 72.

The ’60s Scoop was a time from the 1950s through the 1980s where Canadian government policy allowed for the removal of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Indigenous children from their families.

They were then placed in non-Indigenous homes.

At just two years old, Miller was put in a foster home in Selkirk, Man.

The home she ended up in was less than 40 minutes from where her birth family lived.

“I went to school with some of my relatives and didn’t even know it,” said Miller.

“I was just very alone; I was pretty much on my own.’

Marie Miller

One of her earliest recollections is playing with a doll in a big house with a sunken living room at age nine.

Miller described her childhood with her adoptive parents as unpleasant.

“They were not kind to me growing up at all,” said Miller.

“They were very standoffish toward me.

“There was no kindness or warmth at all; I never felt it.”

Around 12 years old, she knew she “didn’t belong” in her adoptive home.

“It was just a feeling I needed to be with my own people,” she said.

“They would constantly tell me that I was nothing but an Indian and that I was never going to be anything.

“I knew early on I was not comfortable in this home.”

She struggled for years to connect with her birth family via adoption records or any information she could glean from her adoptive parents.

“When all this came out—that it was wrong to take these children in the first place—that’s when records started to disappear and any of the illegal adoptions or shady adoptions were covered up,” said Miller.

After some reluctance, her husband convinced her to use Ancestry.ca for DNA testing.

After sending in her information, a cousin popped up, and they connected.

She then took her birth certificate’s long version, where she matched an address in Winnipeg where her birth mother lived after she was born.

“My cousin almost stopped breathing,” said Miller.

“She said, ‘That’s where I used to live. That was our grandparents’ house.’”

The home remained in the family.

Miller was given a list of potential family members who all turned out to be related.

While connecting with her cousin, she verified blood relations to Miller’s father.

It was one of her cousin’s sisters who told Miller she had a sister.

“I said, ‘Give me her number,’” said Miller.

Miller connected with Tripp on Jan. 17, and the two learned they previously crossed paths.

“We both were at the Winnipeg roller rink at the same time; we both went to Midtown Buffet at the same time,” said Miller.

Sally Tripp

For Tripp, it has also been a welcome moment meeting her younger sister.

Tripp has extensive knowledge of the family history and says both she and Miller were put in adoptive care in 1955 by their mother, who has since passed.

Their father came to rescue both from adoptive care before they were put up for adoption.

Then, as Tripp tells the story, the authorities came to their home and decided the family could look after her, but the family was not fit to handle Miller and took her from her grandmother’s arms.

Sisters Marie Miller (right) and Sally Tripp were separated when they were babies in the ’60s Scoop.

Tripp has been looking for Miller for a long time, and Tuesday’s gathering in Strathmore, Alta., brought her closure.

“That first phone call was over 3.5 hours,” said Tripp.

“To find her after all this time. And, you know, the sad part is she didn’t know she had a family.”

The two sisters are set to head to a family reunion in Selkirk on June 28, where they’ll meet with dozens of family members.

“I can’t wait; I got the camper packed,” said Miller.

The two share other half-siblings, but they are each other’s only full siblings.

Miller does have an appointment to get her status card while attending the family reunion, for which Tripp will vouch for her.

Proud to be Inuit: Greenland

 

Arte Reportage - Greenland: Proud to Be Inuit - Watch the full documentary - Arte.tv

Arte.tv

A hunter, an activist and a tattoo artist:Three Greenlandic women talk about their pride in belonging to the Inuit people.

AMERICA 250: Erasure

 

CLICK:  https://ictnews.org/news/america-250-a-step-by-step-guide-to-indigenous-erasure/

Video 60s Scoop Demand Action

CLICK TO WATCH:

60s Scoop survivors demand action on 10th anniversary of provincial apology - Global News

Everytime I watch these videos, I question whether or not we know the true numbers of children taken in North America... Trace

The Creation Story (film)

 

The interview about the film: 

https://youtu.be/j71vTr0bJkU?si=r0M9AMNutC_yVbWs 

THE FILM:

https://www.thecreationstory.co/ 

In the summer of 2022, Jasper Young Bear, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, invited three friends from outside of his community to a unique ceremonial offering that took place in a medicine lodge on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. Across three days, Jasper tells his people’s Creation Story, a story as old as time immemorial itself.
‍
Previously preserved and passed down the generations in an oral tradition that Jasper was born into, his reasons for committing it to film for the first time in history soon become apparent, and are as urgent and pertinent as the story itself.
The result is a film like no other. Primarily a kind of ethnographic record that will preserve this story for the ages, it has now been thoughtfully married to a cinematic experience, to create a new kind of genre —  a medicine film. 

Thunder Bay NEWS update #MMIP

 

Press conference for missing Webequie member Kelsey Anderson, who was reported missing on May 9 and whose body was recovered from Thunder Bay’s Neebing-McIntyre Floodway.

Indigenous families call for permanent search team in Thunder Bay

by MBC News | Jun 6, 2026

By: Jon Thompson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ricochet

---

Indigenous searchers are calling for the creation of a permanent search and rescue team in Thunder Bay, where the bodies of four missing persons have been found  over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, Thunder Bay’s police chief and the region’s First Nations leaders traded barbs on social media, amid criticism of the force’s actions during the search. Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler and Thunder Bay Police Service chief Darcy Fleury exchanged critical social media posts on Wednesday and Thursday. Fiddler accused the police of instructing searchers not to look in a set of abandoned grain elevators.

READ:  https://www.mbcradio.com/2026/06/indigenous-families-call-for-permanent-search-team-in-thunder-bay

 

MORE: https://ricochet.media/indigenous/five-missing-people-found-dead-as-first-nations-leaders-demand-answers-in-thunder-bay/ 

Canada: National Indigenous Histories Month

June 03, 2026 | By Connor Wilkes

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.

Harvard's First Native Students?

Indigenous Learning Forum

Native American communities reflect on the nation’s 250th anniversary

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.

 LISTEN: https://www.wabe.org/native-american-communities-reflect-on-the-nations-250th-anniversary/

https://www.wabe.org/native-american-communities-reflect-on-the-nations-250th-anniversary/ 

Middle schoolers create 10,000-piece mosaic to honour residential school survivor

This year for Every Child Matters — The Power of the Individual to Effect Change, students in Saint John focused on residential school survivor Andrea Simon, who is now an elder of Abegweit First Nation. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)

 

VIDEO:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/project-orange-mosaic-saint-john-bayside-middle-school-9.7220810 

 

Woman who had to give up baby urges Ottawa to apologize for forced adoptions

 

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.”

Finding Family, Finding Truth

New play unfolds in the shadow of ’60s Scoop

 Ben Waldman Jun. 1, 2026

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.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/2026/06/01/finding-family-finding-truth

 

ICT NEWS May 29, 2026

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.”  

read: https://www.thepublicopinion.com/story/news/2026/05/23/corps-of-engineers-grants-dakota-access-pipeline-permit-for-lake-oahe/90213735007/ 
 

BAD NEWS #NoDAPL

National Day of Action: Survivors, leaders call for continued funding of residential school investigations, healing in Winnipeg

May 27, 2026  

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-old on 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.

Unspoken

 

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.

Good to Be Back

 Sixties Scoop survivor raised in U.S. reunites with siblings in Winnipeg

Melody Roberts, 66, only learned she was taken from family after outreach worker tracked her down

Arturo Chang · CBC News · May 19, 2026 

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.

• 'I'm not alone': Sixties Scoop survivors gather in Winnipeg to reconnect, heal

• 10 years after apology, '60s Scoop survivors call for support beyond 'grossly inadequate' payout

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.

• Far-flung '60s Scoop siblings — one in Texas, one in New Zealand — meet Manitoba uncle

• Survivors say cases of 'pretendians' make reconnecting with community even harder

"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."

WATCH | Siblings reunite decades after Sixties Scoop:

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.