By James Wastasecoot
Former students of Mackay School in Dauphin, Manitoba came together Aug 30 – Sept 1, 2024 to catch up, remember and share their experiences as well as to chart future endeavours. “The gatherings help us to deal with issues in our lives and being together helps us to discuss how we were affected by the residential school system,” said Alice Bear who works with Peguis Child and Family. “ It is a start to understanding ourselves.”
This year’s gathering was smaller than previous years. Thirty four turned out to the venue at the Dauphin Friendship Centre, the actual Mackay School site not being available. “But it doesn’t diminish the importance of these meetings,” said Bear, who is also a board member of the Mackay Residential School Gathering Inc., the charity which the former students began in 2010. “It’s important that we continue to make progress and we reach out to other groups in the future.”
Duke Beardy, former chief of Split Lake Cree Nation said: “It was good to hear people’s sharing of their experience, it’s part of the healing process. We need to remember the bad experiences, we also need to say the positive things about it, we can share with the younger generations.”
Posted Oct. 2, 2021
By James Wastasecoot
The Pimotwak walkers, who took on a thousand-kilometer trek from York Landing, Tataskwayak and Fox Lake, arrived at the Manitoba legislative grounds on Sept. 30, the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. About two hundred individuals, many of them former students at Mackay Residential school, gathered on the grounds in bright sun to mark the holiday, and to remember the children of unmarked graves discovered at Kamloops and other locations during the spring and summer.
“This has been an emotional journey for all of us,” 
said Councillor Sophie Lockhart, principal organizer.
Posted Sept. 21, 2021 - Residential school survivors and supporters from Fox Lake Cree and York Factory First Nation began a walk on Sept. 18 from York Landing to the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg.
The Opimotewak (In Cree, “they walk”) are walking to commemorate the 250 unmarked graves and other remains of children found at former residential school sites across Canada this summer. Organizer Sophie Lockhart is a band councillor from Fox Lake Cree Nation. She said she was emotionally wrought by the discoveries and couldn’t sleep. “I decided I had to do something,” she said. “We gathered at our work place and formed a committee and from there we came up with a plan for the march. Tonight, we will stay at Grand Rapids and then drive back to Pontoon to resume our walk from there.”