The First National Day of Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, 2021, was an important day in Niverville, not only because it was the day that our community's new Historical/Cultural Museum was officially opened, but it also marked the beginning of a series of other Community Events over the course of the next year that are all part of  Niverville's Journey Toward Truth and Reconciliation .  One can find summaries of the various ceremonies listed below at this link , and from there one can gain further links to an even more in-depth coverage and analysis of each of those ceremonies to which your comments and feedback are encouraged. 1.   The Opening of Niverville's Cultural/Historical Museum on  September 30 , 2021  -- Part 1   2.    The Opening of Niverville's Cultural/Historical Museum on   September 30 , 2021  -- Part 2  3.  The Ribbon-cutting for an Authentic  Métis Red River Ca...

  The Opening of Niverville's Cultural/Historical Museum on September 30, 2021 -- Part 1 Summary Unlike other communities within the present-day Rural Municipality of Hanover, Niverville was more cosmopolitan and cross-cultural right from the start, comprising English, Scottish, Mennonite farmers, and eventually Jewish, Arab, German, French, Chinese and multiple other ethnicities, giving us an inside track for pursuing inter-cultural communication, understanding and reconciliation.  With the opening of the Niverville Museum on September 30, 2021 (on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ), however, more of our people are coming into a greater awareness and appreciation for the role of the First Nations and the   Métis with their earlier connection to the land.  The Indigenous worldview is that people and land are connected.  Could greater reconciliation between pre-settlement and post-settlement peoples be a key to greater healing of the people an...

As a follow-up to the unveiling of a cairn at the site of the Shantz Immigration Sheds on Manitoba Day , May 12, 2022, Niverville was able to take a further step in strengthening the M & M (Mennonite and  Métis ) Connection  on Canada Day, July 1, 2022.  By oral tradition, Louis Riel has been quoted as having said, "My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back!" In rolling out the Cart on to a pad and under a Timber Frame, this time the Canada Day Celebration had more than speeches, but it was the artists who were giving the Metis their spirit back.  This gathering was a Celebration of  Métis  Culture , complete with the  Métis Fiddle and Dance to the  Métis  Red River Jig , and complete with buffalo burgers, bannock and fry bread at the end of the ceremony in which much cross-cultural connecting and relationship-building took place. Spirituality is upstream fr...

A follow-up event after the December 4, 2021 ribbon-cutting ceremony of a   Métis  Red River Cart for Niverville that was constructed by Armand and Kelly Jerome took place on Manitoba Day,  May 12, 2022 at the unveiling of a Cairn at the site of the Shantz Immigration Sheds located two miles south of Niverville on 6th Avenue and Highway 311. This, of course, was the site where the earliest Mennonite settlers were temporarily stationed  while awaiting their allocated property on the  East Reserve  (present-day  Rural Municipality of Hanover ) between 1874 and 1876.   It was timely that this unveiling of a cairn at the site of the  Immigration Sheds  took place on this date, the very day that 152 years earlier, on May 12, 1870, the  Manitoba Act  was passed by the  Canadian Parliament  and received  Royal Assent  which created the  Province of Manitoba  as the 5th Province in Canada.  The...