Saturday, September 30th is Canada’s 3rd commemoration of Truth and Recognition, the national day set aside to remember the country’s residential school survivors and the children who did not come home.

To mark the occasion there are 20 teepees at Toronto’s Nathan Philips Square, where Toronto Council Fire is holding its ingenious legacy gathering .

The day will have a special meaning to a Nisga’a village in B.C.’s Nass Valley when a totem pole stolen in 1929 returns to the community.

 

The 11-metre totem was carved in 1860 to honour a deceased chief.  It was taken by a researcher and then sold to Scotland’s National Museum where it’s been since 1930.

BC’s minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation, says the totem’s homecoming could be a catalyst that spreads worldwide as more countries and institutions face requests by Indigenous Peoples to return their artifacts.