Wearing matching orange “Every Child Matters” shirts, Louise Menow and her three children waited in a line to get inside the Canada Life Centre in “Winnipeg” on Sunday.
Along with more than a thousand others, they came to honour beloved leader Mazina Giizhik-iban, widely known as Murray Sinclair, during a public memorial service.
“I’m getting chills already thinking about it,” said Menow, who is originally from Norway House Cree Nation. Her mother attended the Portage La Prairie Indian Residential School.
“Not only did he give survivors a voice, but he gave a voice to all the children that were found, he gave a voice to all the survivors to speak up and talk about their story — he gave them that strength.”
Sinclair died on Nov. 4 at the age of 73, after a lifetime fighting racism and drawing attention to “Canada’s” genocide against Indigenous Peoples.
On Nov. 10, a public commemorative service was held in lieu of a state funeral usually reserved for someone as significantly known as Sinclair — “Manitoba’s” first Indigenous judge, a senator, and the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
High-profile attendees included Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew — who was by Sinclair’s side in the hospital and considered Sinclair his “uncle” — as well as Governor General Mary Simon, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
On the day Sinclair died, Kinew ordered an Anishinaabe sacred fire to be lit on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building over four days last week.
Firekeeper Robert Wiens stayed awake inside a teepee for more than 100 hours as hundreds of people came through its doors to offer prayers, burn semaa (tobacco) and pay their respects.
He recalled that alongside Indigenous community members visiting the sacred fire were also the city’s mayor, chief justices, lawyers, academics, and politicians — all showing up to honour Sinclair, with many shedding tears.
“This man was loved and respected,” Wiens said.
Sinclair’s Anishinaabe name — Mazina Giizhik-iban — means “One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky,” according to his official obituary.
His spirit was fed with his favourite foods, including his preferred candy, jujubes. Wiens said that from Nov. 4 to 7, about two cords of timber kept the sacred fire going non-stop.
The sacred fire serves “as a map, a gateway to get the spirit to the Spirit World,” Wiens explained. “So at any time that spirit is having trouble getting there, that fire will show them how to get there.”
Wiens described the Sinclair family as fixtures at Indigenous community events in “Winnipeg,” and remembered the former judge as jovial to meet.
“I’ve heard many stories on how he was very humble and very fair with his people that he was presiding over for their cases,” Wiens said. “And people noted him for that — he was a human judge.”
Sinclair was a fourth-degree Midewiwin — specifically a western doorway chief and road chief of the Three Fires Midewiwin Society. His family decided that Mide’ funeral rites should take precedence over Sinclair’s public duties because of his identity as an Anishinaabe inini (man) and the importance of his spirituality, the Midewiwin Lodge.
Last Thursday, Three Fires hosted a private funeral at the Centro Caboto Centre in “Winnipeg.” Only his immediate family, close friends, adoptive and Midewiwin ceremony family were there.
That day, Sinclair — who loved rock music and began riding a motorcycle at 70 years old — was escorted in a casket by fellow bikers along the city’s perimeter highway, to his final resting place at Glen Eden Memorial Gardens.
Participants in that procession played Pink Floyd’s song “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2,” with its lyrics: “Teachers, leave them kids alone / Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!”
The message was symbolic of his lifelong work of fighting for justice for Indigenous Peoples and shedding truth on the dark legacy of “Canada’s” Indian Residential Schools, where children were stripped from their families, and often spiritually, mentally, physically, and sexually abused — with many never returning home — until the last “school” closed in 1996.
Sinclair’s grave at Glen Eden is just kilometres south of his hometown, “Selkirk,” where he was born on St. Peter’s Reserve — the former home of his Peguis ancestors, who were coerced into surrendering their ancestral lands and forcibly displaced out by Selkirk-area settlers.
His ancestors were pushed onto today’s Peguis First Nation — in a flood-prone area west of Lake Winnipeg.
When Sinclair died, he had been in palliative care at the St. Boniface Hospital, several months after the death of his wife, Katherine Morrisseau-Sinclair, also known as Animikiikwe-iban.
She was by his side for many years and they had five children: Dené, Niigaan, Gazheek, Kizhay and Miskodagwaaginikwe. At Sunday’s public memorial service, Sinclair’s granddaughter, Sarah Fontaine-Sinclair, spoke on behalf of the grandchildren.
She recalled one time her mooshom helped a man using crutches with his shopping bags, by offering him a ride to the bus stop from a Giant Tiger store.
“Mooshom was always teaching me about kindness and patience … he had a powerful gift to make everyone feel special and heard,” Fontaine-Sinclair said.
“I think dad’s frequent phrase was ‘reconciliation is a participatory endeavor,’” said his son Niigaanwewidam (Niigaan) James Sinclair during his eulogy.
Niigaan shared many stories of his dad. In 2001, when churches were not yet talking about reconciliation, he encouraged his dad not to accept an honourary degree from St. John’s College — an Anglican institution — because it was a denomination responsible for harming many Indigenous children. But Sinclair accepted the honour, and made a powerful and educational speech that moved the audience including religious educators, later explaining to his son that was why he attended.
Niigaan said his proudest memory was Sinclair presiding over “Manitoba’s” Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1988. Others included his work with the federal Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples three years later, and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which released its report in 2019.
But Niigaan said it was the Manitoba Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest that was the hardest on Sinclair.
Niigaan said he felt anger at how “Canada’s” colonialism forced his father to spend “a lifetime dealing with this country’s racism, division, violence and genocidal actions.”
“I have a confession to make and it’s hard to make this and say it here,” Niigaan said. “Canada, I’m angry at the way that you took dad from us … I’m angry that he was often the lone voice of dignity against the wall of callousness, and that he would work often with leaders who would treat human beings so poorly.”
Despite not always being treated with the same respect he showed others, Sinclair made it his life’s work to fight for equality.
He left an impression on many people of all walks of life, including one non-Indigenous woman, Sandra Somerville, who described him as an “inspiring hero.”
She met Sinclair when she was a former assistant to Cyril Keeper, a federal Member of Parliament in the 1980s.
“He was a holder of many people’s truths,” she said. “He knew how to translate that into public education, and into public documenting, so nobody can ever say it didn’t happen.”
Somerville remembered a time Sinclair gave an eight-hour presentation to a group of civil servants and other provincial employees on the history of colonialism in “Manitoba,” including residential schools across the country, and on ways to engage in reconciliation.
“I was extremely impressed and really deeply moved,” she said. “My only regret is that it wasn’t videotaped.”
Many residential “school” survivors traveled long distances to honour Sinclair. One of them was Secwépemc advocate Phyllis Webstad, founder of Orange Shirt Day, who said she’ll best remember the way Sinclair used his words.
“He had a simple way to describe what happened to us at the residential schools, and the history of colonialism in this country,” she told reporters. “His simple words described a complex situation, and for me it gave perspective to my life because I’ve always had trouble with words.”
Webstad said Sinclair would “forever be in my heart, forever in my memory,” recalling him visiting “Williams Lake, B.C.” in 2013 to support her as she held the country’s first-ever Orange Shirt Day.
Skownan First Nation member Joseph Maud, 64 — a Survivor of Pine Creek Indian Residential School — explained how he, too, was deeply impacted by Sinclair’s work.
He drove nearly four hours with his nephew and daughters to attend Sinclair’s service.
“I’m going to continue [Sinclair’s] legacy, oh boy, he lit a fire in me,” he said. “For the longest time, a lot of the stuff was swept under the rug — the children that didn’t come home.”
Maud was taken from his family when he was five, and attended residential “school” from 1965 to 1969. He said his older cousin went missing from the institution about 74 years ago, his body only being finally recovered last year.
Maud first met Sinclair during the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, at a meeting with Elders in Skownan. Later, from 2009 to 2010, he worked as a contractor under Sinclair at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Maud said he talks about his experiences to audiences in schools and municipalities of his area of “Manitoba,” but also wherever he finds himself — often in coffeeshops in “Dauphin, Man.,” to anyone who will listen.
“I’m going to continue [Sinclair’s] legacy about speaking the truth,” he said.
One project on Maud’s plate is to build a monument in the town of Dauphin to memorialize the students who attended residential “schools.” He ultimately wants to see the Doctrine of Discovery used to justify colonization rescinded.
Last Thursday, as the Midewiwin funeral was underway, the sacred fire burned out to ashes. Firekeeper Wiens reflected that “we’ve had some very, very interesting experiences.”
“Last night I was talking about the transition story of life,” Wiens said. “Something very unique happened to the fire, and it was felt by everybody.”
Wiens believes it was the spirits confirming to Wien and others that the existence of a higher power is real. He noted people there were of various faiths and beliefs. Afterwards, the sacred fire’s ashes were taken to a “clean place out in the bush,” he said. Marika Schalla — also known as Waabishkaanakwad Ikwe (White Cloud Woman) — brought her Ojibwe bilingual language program students from Isaac Brock School in “Winnipeg” by bus to the legislative grounds.
“For me and my students, truth and reconciliation is one of the most important things we learn about for the entire year,” said Schalla, who designed truth and reconciliation planning guides from Kindergarten to Grade 8 for the Winnipeg School Division.
“They really were passionate about showing their respects to him,” she added, “and they wanted to offer tobacco and sing songs for him, for his memory — and I thought it was beautiful that the kids came up with coming here on their own today.”
Editor’s note: This is a corrected story. A previous version erroneously stated St. John’s College was a Catholic institution — in fact it is Anglican. We apologize for the error.
