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Winnipeg Free Press
05-06-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Stamp to celebrate 2Spirit pride
The summer of 1990 will forever loom large for Elder Albert McLeod. That year, Indigenous leaders from all over North America — including McLeod, who helped organize the event — assembled at the third North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering (now known as the Annual International Two-Spirit Gathering) near Beausejour. It was a powerful, transformative and intensely spiritual weekend, where attendees could be held by all the Indigenous history, culture and ceremony that had been stolen. ALEX LUPUL / FREE PRESS FILES Elder Albert McLeod helped organize the 1990 North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering, where the term Two-Spirit was introduced to the lexicon. ALEX LUPUL / FREE PRESS FILES Elder Albert McLeod helped organize the 1990 North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering, where the term Two-Spirit was introduced to the lexicon. 'You know, I was born in the '50s, and grew up in the '60s and '70s, and we knew nothing about our Indigenous identity, our past. Many of us had lost our language, and it was really this process of forced assimilation to being white or western — and that didn't fit with us. We were curious about our histories,' says McLeod, who turns 70 this year. 'We had asked, through ceremony, for this information about our identities.' And what they received that weekend, McLeod says, was a gift. It was there that Fisher River Cree Nation member Myra Laramee introduced the term two-spirit, which she says came to her in a vision. Two-spirit was a revelation, a term that can describe someone's sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity, informed by the Indigenous understandings of gender, spirituality and self-determination that colonialism sought to destroy. Now, that historic event is being commemorated by Canada Post as part of Places of Pride, a four-stamp collection featuring illustrations honouring specific sites of LGBTTQ+ history in Canada. Supplied Places of Pride stamp Two-Spirit commemorates a 1990 gathering near Beausejour that led to the birth of the term. Supplied Places of Pride stamp Two-Spirit commemorates a 1990 gathering near Beausejour that led to the birth of the term. McLeod, one of the directors of 2Spirit Manitoba, worked with the Canada Post team on the Two-Spirit stamp, which depicts people participating in ceremony under a summer night sky. (The artwork is also featured as a mural at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.) 'You see the big drum, you see the women's fire, you see the pipe, and you see the sweat lodge, and there's actually a hawk there — and the full moon. It happened on a full moon. So there's all these elements at play that weekend that really changed our lives forever,' McLeod says, noting that many other Indigenous LGBT groups in North America changed their name to two-spirit by the following year, a reflection of just how resonant the term was, he says. The coining and claiming of two-spirit was an act of liberation, he says. 'As Indigenous people it was our inalienable right and our inherent right to receive that (spiritual name), but because we were gay, that was something that was not given to us because of the form of homophobia and transphobia outside the Indigenous community and inside the Indigenous community. So we had to make that pathway ourselves.' These days, thanks to the work of McLeod and others, two-spirit is a widely recognized term. In 2017, former prime minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for Canada's role in the systematic criminalization, oppression and violence against LGBTTQ+ Canadians and used, explicitly, the term two-spirit. In 2022, the Canadian government released its Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan, which saw 2S move to the front of the acronym — 'which is historically accurate, because we are the first queers of the Americas,' McLeod says. And the gift given in the summer of 1990 has since been passed down to subsequent generations of two-spirit people. 'It's been 35 years, so a generation or more has passed, and we do see youth today who are in their 30s and they're not carrying the burden that my generation carried. They are finishing high school. They are going to university. They do have careers. They have families. They have houses. They have children. So they're getting on with their lives without this sort of barrier,' McLeod says. 'It really is a form of not having to carry that legacy of intergenerational trauma or the impact of Indian residential schools or day schools, and just live their life to the fullest but being protected at the same time for that expression or that identity.' The Places of Pride stamps and collectibles are available now at and at select postal outlets across Canada. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Why these sisters from Fisher River Cree Nation hoop dance
The Mason sisters from Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba spoke with CBC Radio's Unreserved about their love of hoop dancing. They've performed all across North America, including at the World Championship Hoop Dance Contest in Arizona earlier this year.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Sport
- CBC
New book about hockey team from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School set for Thunder Bay launch
The story behind Pelican Lake Indian Residential School's hockey team 5 hours ago Duration 4:38 Social Sharing Beyond The Rink: Behind The Images of Residential School Hockey is a new book that tells the story of the championship hockey team from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School near Sioux Lookout, Ont. It's set to launch in Thunder Bay on May 21. The authors say the book reveals the complicated role of sports in residential school histories, commemorating the team's stellar hockey record and athletic prowess while exposing important truths about 'Canada's Game.' Janice Forsyth is co-author of the book and a member of the Fisher River Cree Nation. She spoke with Mary-Jean Cormier, the host of Superior Morning, about what she hopes readers take away from it. Forsyth said the survivors of residential schools are finding the language to tell the stories so that other people can understand more about their experience. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Mary-Jean Cormier: What an amazing and oftentimes heartbreaking book. Can you tell us more about this story? Janice Forsyth: The story started with a series of photographs from the National Film Board that I saw with one of our co-authors, Kelly Bull at his home in Timmins many years ago. It started to unfold from there because I wondered what was the National Film Board doing taking these really professional photographs of those residential school hockey teams on this tour of Southern Ontario, because you don't just send the National Film Board on a tour like that. So, over the years, I wondered what did the photographs mean? What did the boys think about that hockey experience, especially coming through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC], the whole era of litigation and thinking through their own histories? What did they think about the future, not only for Indigenous youth, but for Canadians more broadly? So, the pictures sparked some really important conversations on a whole range of important issues. MC: This is a project that's happened over time, correct? JF: Yes, more than 20 years ago, which really goes to show how long some of these projects do take. I think sometimes people believe that these "research projects" can be carried out in the span of a year or two years. And you see this often with government funding or some types of research funding, but the really good stories take a long time to tell. They will often change in the retelling as people think more deeply about things and as time passes by and other events that shape their understanding of life take place. MC: You collaborated with three surviving members of that championship hockey team for the book, can you tell me a bit about those men and what it was like hearing their stories first hand? JF: There was actually a much larger team that was part of this research. Over the years, the number of people kind of came and went. A couple of student theses were written about the project. Fatima Baba did her MA thesis initially interviewing two of those survivors. And then Braden Te Hiwi, who is also an author on this book, wrote a history of sport and recreation at Sioux Lookout Indian Residential School. And then Alexandra Giancarlo, who is really the first author on this book, she worked with the three survivors, doing in-depth interviews over a couple of years with them to try and kind of suss out their story now that we are well past the TRC. So, I really only knew Kelly Bull. He's one of the three survivors and he's kind of been in my life for many, many, many years. My mom knew him when we were all living in Timmins, Ont., and she used to support his coaching and sport and recreation endeavours in northern Ontario. He actually helped me get into North American Indigenous games way back in 1995, so he's been a mentor in my life and so I can really only speak to knowing Kelly. What's really important for me is just how deeply Kelly and the other survivors think about their experiences in the residential school system. I think a lot of what the public thinks about the TRC and the Indian Residential School system is told from a particular angle, which is often what they see in the media and the abuses that they suffered at school. And that's very true because that definitely happened, without a doubt. But they think about it also in so many more complex ways and in this case, it's about the role of hockey in particular in shaping his identity as an Indigenous person and trying to make sense of that experience in the context of residential school. How do you take this experience where he formed friendships and had experiences that he didn't otherwise have, and yet reconcile that with an education system that was hell bent on changing him and erasing him from his identity? That's really heavy stuff to think through. So, I think it really goes to show that the residential school survivors really have a lot more to offer in terms of thinking about the future of Indigenous life in Canada and about, you know, Indigenous relations with Canada more broadly. MC: You mentioned that there was a photographer from the National Film Board that accompanied the team on their tour and those images are part of what drew you in. What was that like when you first saw those pictures and started to hear bits and pieces of the story? JF: That's how the book opens up, and I still remember it, although I recognize memory is fallible. But I still remember the feeling of sitting at his kitchen table and he was looking through these large photographs. Kelly would flip through the pictures and I was of two minds because I was busy looking at the pictures. I was really struck by the clarity and the quality of the photos and I knew right away that they were professionally taken. But also just the way in which the kids were posed. Some of them are really creepy, to be honest. In one case there's this photograph of them in Ottawa and Parliament Hill and their heads are cleanly shaven. They've been dressed in these shiny uniforms and they're posed looking up at this kind of parliamentarian who's playing what I think is a recorder — almost like a pied piper kind of photo where the focus is really on the man who's playing the little flute and the kids are there looking up at him adoringly. He wasn't talking about the photographs like we might talk about a photograph, he was actually talking past them about something much bigger. There's other photos that are staged where there's these images of "Indianness" in the background, like this massive totem pole where the kids are kind of looking at this man who's pointing up at the totem pole as if he's teaching them about their past, even though totem poles would not have been part of Cree or Ojibway culture. So you go through all of these photos that are clearly educative, they're meant to tell a story, but they're meant to tell a story from Indian Affairs point of view because at that time, Indian Affairs could hire the National Film Board to take photographs for your own department, especially if they were in service of telling a nationalist narrative. I also remember Kelly looking through the photographs and my head was kind of just lost in the photographs at the same time that I remember him talking about the photographs. He wasn't talking about the photographs like we might talk about a photograph, he was actually talking past them about something much bigger, about the erasure and all of the different types of abuse that were happening in school. So, it was almost like he wasn't mindlessly flipping through the photographs, he was almost using them as touchstones. So, that's where I realized there was something much bigger going on here and so began the whole project, if you will, with him and with the team over the years because they ebbed and flowed to try and tell that story, like what is really going on here? What really happened in 1951? Why were those photos made? What are the residential school survivors now able to tell us about those photographs and what do they hope for the future? MC: What do you want readers to take away from this book? JF: All of the different authors will tell you different things, which I think is a beautiful part about stories because they're all equally true. For me, I think, because I've been doing research in the residential school system, focusing on sports and games for more than 20 years, I just really like to emphasize how deeply residential school survivors think about and try to talk about their experiences, and rightly so. For many years the focus has been on a fairly particular story about trying to tell the story of abuse and about coloniality from a certain angle to do the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports. But I think now that we're 10 years past like the TRC, residential school survivors now think more deeply about their other experiences trying to tie in things like sport and recreation, and not just talk about it as a positive experience. I think they themselves are trying to reconcile how is it that they really enjoyed these moments of freedom and other moments of expression knowing that those same activities were actually integrated into the school system to try and erase their identities? How is it that you can actually find meaning in these genocidal activities? And what do you do with that now? So, I really think survivors now are thinking much more deeply. They're finding the language and we're helping them to try and find the language and tell the stories to tease out those threads so that other people can understand what their experience is about, and so the second generation survivors, communities and Indigenous nations and even Canadians more broadly can address those underlying tensions, especially in the space of sport, physical activity and recreation. That to me probably is the most important thing and the thing that I talk about most.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Sport
- CBC
The story behind Pelican Lake Indian Residential School's hockey team
"Beyond The Rink: Behind the Images of Residential School Hockey" shines a light on the success and complex history of the 1951 Sioux Lookout Black Hawks hockey team from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario. The book was co-authored by Janice Forsyth, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a member of Fisher River Cree Nation, located north of Winnipeg. Here's what she has to say about the new book, which examines the photographs that helped document the team's story.
Winnipeg Free Press
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Victorious milestone
Miss Chief Eagle Testickle likes to show up without invitation. In Kent Monkman's vision, the two-spirit trickster intrudes semi-nude on the Fathers of Confederation as they plot the British colonies' future. She replaces Washington, clad in drag, during the Delaware crossing. These are the sorts of provocations, captured in massive paintings with the exquisite technique of the Old Masters, that's made Monkman one of Canada's most celebrated (and infamous) artists. KENT MONKMAN Kent Monkman's Miss Chief's Wet Dream, 2018 KENT MONKMAN And as of a couple of weeks ago, Miss Chief has taken up space in another distinguished setting — this time, with a friendly invitation. History Is Painted by the Victors (to Aug. 17) at the Denver Art Museum marks the first major American exhibit for the artist from Fisher River Cree Nation who grew up in Winnipeg. The show is represented in a sumptuous hardcover book, an exhibition catalogue by the same name, that can be purchased online. 'The exhibit's quite a milestone in my career,' says Monkman. 'They're behind (in the U.S.) in terms of some conversations around Indigenous people, but they're moving forward and Indigenous contemporary art is really starting to get some traction.' Monkman now splits his time between Toronto and New York. At 59, he's still youthful, debonair even, and seems to be entering the golden era of an already illustrious career. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Acclaimed Fisher River Cree Nation artist Kent Monkman's work takes aim at the art world as much as the social world. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES From 2019 to '21, two monumental works of his greeted visitors to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, thanks to a commission for their Great Hall — some of the most coveted real estate of any art gallery in the world. Since then, demand — and auction records — for Monkman's work have soared and glowing references have piled up in the New York Times, Guardian and international art press. But the artist, who's still exhibited regularly in Winnipeg (notable recent examples include the WAG-Qaumajuq's blockbuster Kent Monkman show, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, in 2019-20), has not left his hometown simply in his rearview window. The spectre of the Prairies looms large in his work. 'It's important to give locality to his work as Kent references Winnipeg and Manitoba a lot,' says Adrienne Huard, a Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe curator and scholar (who uses they/them pronouns). They contributed a chapter to the Denver exhibit catalogue about the Canadian Prairies' influence on Monkman. 'And I think there are quite a few important conversations that are happening here, including around MMIWG2S (missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit) and two-spiritedness, whereas other places aren't quite there yet.' KENT MONKMAN Le Petit déjeuner sur l'herbe, 2014. Monkman's art frequently references Winnipeg and Manitoba. KENT MONKMAN History Is Painted by the Victors is something of a retrospective of a career still in bloom. It covers 20 odd years of artmaking after Monkman turned away from abstraction in the early 2000s towards his signature history and landscape painting style. 'Normally I'm kind of involved as a curator, but this was a very different project,' says Monkman. '(Curator John Lukavic) assembled works in an order that he felt represented different themes in my work, with the idea of introducing my work, in many ways, to the American audience.' This includes, among other things, selections from his Urban Res series from roughly 10 years ago, depicting Winnipeg's North End. Tattooed Renaissance angels, buffalo, bears, police and escaped prisoners collide in scenes unfolding along Sutherland Avenue and Main Street while Miss Chief, Monkman's alter ego, bears witness. KENT MONKMAN The Deposition. KENT MONKMAN The Deposition. In one work, Le Petit déjeuner sur l'herbe, modernist, Picasso-like feminine figures lie scattered along the street in front of Winnipeg's New West Hotel. 'There's a brutality to Picasso's style (depicting women),' says Huard. 'And this scenery reflects the violence that Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit peoples face. They've been discarded, hypersexualized.' Monkman's work takes aim at the art world as much as the social world, and these critiques intersect where modernism is concerned. He's connected modernism — with its ideas of progress and innovation — in the visual arts with the colonial project of modernizing Turtle Island by violent force. This has helped inspire him to rediscover more traditional European styles, like history painting, pooh-poohed by Picasso and the modernists. 'It's such a sophisticated visual language that was essentially discarded by the modernists,' says Monkman. 'I want to use it to convey Indigenous experiences, both contemporary and historical. We have this whole universe and our cosmologies weren't conveyed or understood… I want to find a language enabling me to reach the widest audience possible.' KENT MONKMAN Seeing Red, 2014. KENT MONKMAN Seeing Red, 2014. The irony that history painting has its own Eurocentric trappings isn't lost on Monkman or his scholars. But as Huard reflects, this sort of tension speaks to the experience of Winnipeg Indigenous artists and communities in general. 'I think we're allowed to critique colonial structures,' Huard says, 'and also participate within those structures.' After its spring run at the Denver Art Museum, History is Painted by the Victors travels to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and will be open to the public from Sept. 27 to March 8, 2026. Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
