14 | NATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY
SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2024
literature
Niigaan Sinclair’s ‘Wînipêk’: Celebrating Indigenous perspectives, reconciliation, and Winnipeg’s crucial role
BY KRISTIN MARAND
In front of a standing-room-only crowd at McNally Robinson this past May, Anishinaabe writer, editor, and activist Niigaan Sinclair launched his newest book, Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre.
Comprised of 80 of Sinclair’s newspaper columns, the book is a collection of stories, thoughts and observations about Winnipeg. Attended by citizens of all ages, current and former politicians, authors, activists and artists, the event featured an introduction from Mayor Scott Gillingham, short readings from the book and a heartfelt conversation led by host Shelagh Rogers. The book is an intertwined look at history, culture, language, racism, resilience, and reconciliation and posits that Winnipeg is at the centre of it all in many layered and nuanced ways. Sinclair delivered his readings and commentary with insight and humour, with the oft-heard refrains of “welcome to Winnipeg” and “that’s Winnipeg.” In his opening reading, from an infamous column following the protests at the Manitoba legislature on Canada Day 2021, Sinclair compared the editing of the royal statues on the legislature grounds to the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Sinclair described the 2021 events as “a rare, necessary, and unsettling step” towards reconciliation – one that produced the first installments of Indigenous representation and art on the legislative grounds. He points out that in contrast to Winnipeg’s most famous uprising, no one was harmed in the process. “We are the first place
we have been at the solutions the longest. We have been thinking, engaging and dealing with the basic premise, which is that every single one of us lives beside, works beside or is married to each other – That’s what it means to be a Winnipegger; that’s what it means to be a Manitoban.” The second story Sinclair shared underlines the progress that has been inching along in Manitoba for decades, as he told the story of being cast as Joseph opposite a white girl in his school Christmas play in Ashern in the mid-eighties. He has also shared this story on his podcast Niigaan and the Lone Ranger, where his mother joked that upon looking for her son among the cast, she realized that she had inadvertently become the grandmother of an interracial baby Jesus. Sinclair uses that story to illustrate what it’s like to grow up in Manitoba, “where there is a consistent, continual engagement of what it means to live together.” In conversation with Rogers, Sinclair discussed the important differences between land acknowledge- ments, land commitments, and land blessings. He explained the linguistic history behind the book’s title, its greater contextual meaning of the watershed area of Lake Winnipeg, and how he sees Winnipeg as not only the centre of the continent and the centre of reconciliation but also the “centre of the spiritual forces which coalesce and intersect in this place.” Rogers asked Sinclair about his relationship with his grandfather – a residential school Survivor who, despite a lifetime’s worth of justified anger, often manifesting in violence, chose love. They also discussed the hope that younger generations are bringing to the conversation: “My father’s generation was the first in the room, my generation, my job, is to be the critical mass in the room, and my daughter’s generation are making whole new roads.” Rogers described Sinclair’s contributions as “unvanishing stories”. “Consistently, continually, we have the ability to think of solutions for this country’s most pressing issues; around the environment, affordability and this crisis involving listening to each other in a conflict. All of that starts with Indigenous peoples, and you can see examples of it over the history and the present and the future,” Sinclair explained.
after confederation, the first footsteps of this country. We are also the place that has inherited the longest-serving series of violent policies and practices that have come to characterize this place; you only have to drive around the city to see that. We know what genocide looks like. We know what 150 years of this country looks like,” Sinclair said. “But that also tells us that
Niigaan Sinclair FILE PHOTO
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