A ceremonial fire burned at the Gichi-Name Wiikwedong Reconciliation Garden today to mark the beginning of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Well over 100 people gathered at Kelso Beach at Nawash Park to listen, learn, and remember the history, including students and staff from École Catholique Saint-Dominique-Savio.
“Listening to those kids and talking about the impacts,” says Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Garden Trish Meekins. “For them to even understand and be able to put it into words, warms my heart that these young ones are learning the true history.”
Among the community members who attended the fire on the site where the Nawash village has stood since time immemorial was Owen Sound Mayor Ian Boddy.
“To have been around from before this gardens was even established, it’s wonderful to see what it’s become,” says Boddy. “It’s great to come back together and think about children that were taken to residental schools.”
As the ceremony concluded, visitors participated by entering the ceremonial space from the east and moving around the fire clockwise, performing a purification ritual by burning sage and cedar.
Those who participated could also take home sweetgrass.