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Reconsidering historical commemoration often triggers strong responses. Some see removing monuments, renaming buildings or altering plaques as erasing history, whereas others interpret these actions as corrections to inaccurate, incomplete or harmful stories about the past.

History in Canada has primarily been told as a series of stories emphasizing settlers and their achievements, rendering Indigenous presence and experiences invisible. In these stories, Indigenous people and nations are occasionally included in events, though typically cast as ancillary figures within broader settler activities. Of the number of John A. Macdonald statues across Canada, how many of their plaques mention he was the first prime minister and how many mention his treatment of Indigenous people? These simplified narratives of history are broadcast through various channels including school curricula, monuments and other forms of historical commemoration, obscuring ongoing settler-colonial relationships.

Against the backdrop of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report and corresponding 94 Calls to Action, new ways to commemorate Indigenous histories have been met with support as well as resistance. 

Over the past seven years, Trent University’s first-year Foundations for Reconciliation course has continued to evolve as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people grapple with what it means to “reconcile.” Recently, historical commemoration has become a focus in the final weeks of the course, as it provides practical examples about what stories are told and how we remember, or sometimes forget, our pasts. 

Commemoration on campus

Trent University has recently faced its own commemoration debate, over whether Champlain College should be renamed. While some celebrate Samuel de Champlain as an explorer and nation builder, to many in the Peterborough, Ont., area, particularly First Nations, he was an early colonizer who murdered several Haudenosaunee chiefs and was the harbinger of cultural upheaval and environmental devastation that would follow. This led to the 2021 Champlain Report, which recommended keeping the name but removing a bust of Champlain, along with artwork that celebrated his colonial history. Another outcome of the report was the decision to use an Indigenous name for Trent’s next college, which has now been realized by naming the college Gidigaa Migizi after a local Elder, leader and professor from Curve Lake First Nation. This past year, Trent also installed a new cornerstone on Champlain College that addresses the original Treaty 20 relationship between the Mississauga Nation and settlers.

Bringing these campus examples into the classroom has been an effective way to discuss Indigenous histories and the complicated aspects of our shared legacies. These exchanges encourage deeper reflection among students about whose stories are being told and how public symbols and memorials influence our understandings of history.

Historical plaques and what they tell us

Since the 1990s, David Newhouse, professor and former chair of the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, has challenged students to go beyond settler-focused narratives and research the Indigenous history and current realities in their home territories. Expanding on this, we have introduced a new assignment in the Foundation for Reconciliation course that encourages students to consider stories told on historical plaques.

Students are asked to analyze the stories told (or not told) on plaques in their hometowns and create the text for proposed new plaques that centre Indigenous perspectives, contributions, resistance and resurgence. This requires students to look beyond one-dimensional settler narratives and uncover local Indigenous histories that have been minimized or ignored. For example, student plaques featured stories about Treaty relationships, prominent Indigenous leaders such as Nahnebahwequay (Catherine Sutton) and the importance of specific portage and canoe routes. 

It is important to note that confronting these histories can be emotionally difficult, especially for Indigenous students and community members who have personal or familial connections to residential schools, displacement and other impacts of settler colonization.

In 2021, an unknown individual threw red paint on the historical plaque outside Shingwauk Hall, a former residential school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. This act highlighted the plaque’s failure to acknowledge the traumatic history of this site. In response, the Ontario Heritage Trust, the provincial organization that develops and installs the ubiquitous brass plates, initiated efforts to update such plaques to more accurately represent the past, by including Indigenous experiences and perspectives. Since 2018, the Trust has updated several problematic plaques through their process of investigating: “Whose story are we not telling?” 

Through a 2024 collaboration, students in the Foundations for Reconciliation course were given direct feedback from Ontario Heritage Trust staff on their reimagined plaques. Student work was also showcased at an event titled “Indaanikesidoonaa Indaadibaajimowinan: Expanding the Stories We Tell,” which discussed the importance of inclusive historical commemoration. This project illustrates how commemoration is influenced by funding, government priorities and community consensus, and has the power to influence historical consciousness.

Truth, reconciliation and new forms of commemoration

Recent efforts to more accurately and meaningfully commemorate Indigenous histories have led to several positive initiatives. One such example is the Manidoo Ogitigan (Spirit Garden) in Kingston, Ont. The garden, designed by Indigenous artist Terence Radford and opened in 2021, offers a place of reflection, ceremony and cultural expression. The space works to foster a stronger connection between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities by telling the story of Alderville First Nation’s forced removal from the area. It does this through an interactive garden that invites visitors to learn by engaging with the land itself. 

Similarly, the Mino Bimaadiziwin (Living the Good Life) art installation in Exhibition Place reflects the ongoing presence and resilience of Indigenous cultures in Canada’s largest city. The installation was developed as part of an Indigenous placemaking initiative to show that, despite being forced to relocate, the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation are still the Treaty holders in Toronto. Both the Manidoo Ogitigan and Mino Bimaadiziwin underscore the value of interactive, living representations of history over static monuments, encouraging deeper land-based learning and community participation.

In the same spirit, the Jiimaan’dewemgadnong Pocket Park, in Peterborough, Ont., was developed in partnership with local communities and First Nations. The Anishinaabemowin name emphasizes the language’s crucial role in preserving and commemorating history. Translating to “the place where the heart of the canoe beats,” Jiimaan’dewemgadnong Pocket Park features a cedar strip canoe art installation with a heart at its centre. This installation honours the local history of Nogojiwanong (Peterborough), reflecting both First Nation and settler connections to the area.

These commemorative spaces differ from traditional monuments by centring Indigenous voices, acknowledging difficult truths and seeking genuine engagement. Rather than being imposed on a place, they are worked into the natural settings, demonstrating how Indigenous histories and contributions can be honoured in dynamic, interactive and culturally meaningful ways. Ultimately, these acts of commemoration are not about erasing the past but about telling more complex, accurate and inclusive stories of the past as part of a shift in how we conceive of and share history.

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One hundred years ago this November, the governments of Canada and Ontario signed treaties with First Nations of the Chippewa of Lake Simcoe (Beausoleil, Georgina Island and Rama) and the Mississauga of the north shore of Lake Ontario (Alderville, Curve Lake, Hiawatha and Scugog Island).

The Williams Treaties (1923), also known as the Williams Treaty (named after Angus S. Williams, the provincial negotiator) pertained to over 20,000 square kilometers of land in exchange for a one-time cash payment of $25 per person.

Since then, the signatories have shared how they were forced to sign the treaties, without lawyers, during one-day negotiations, and never were told about the loss of hunting and fishing rights.

Oral histories from treaty educator Maurice Switzer, and former Alderville chief and community historian Dave Mowat now consider the Williams Treaties as being among the worst treaties in Canadian history.

A 2018 agreement between the Williams Treaties First Nations and the governments of Ontario and Canada settled litigation about land claims and harvesting rights in the region. But the seven First Nations continue to grapple with the legacy of empty promises and ongoing questions.

Treaties area includes some Greenbelt lands

The Williams Treaties cover lands between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River, and along the shore of Lake Ontario up to Lake Simcoe.

Earlier this year, the seven Williams Treaties First Nations again asserted that lands would continue to be protected despite the provincial government’s now-reversed plan to develop the Greenbelt, which overlaps in the southern parts of the territory.

Chief of Alderville First Nation, Taynar Simpson, explained the cultural importance of these lands, and that development could “damage water systems and wetlands that supply groundwater, reduce flood risks and improve climate resilience.”

Settlements and industry encroached on Indigenous lands prior to treaties signing

When the Williams Treaties were signed in 1923, the impacts of colonization had already existed in Anishinaabeg territory for more than a century.

A wave of new settlement had already encroached onto Indigenous lands in central Ontario and both the forestry and mining industries had already started operations.

The punishing aspects of the Indian Act, which included the creation of new reserves, and the implementation of residential and Indian Day Schools, had already existed in this region for decades.

The Alderville Manual Training School (later Residential) was first opened in 1836 and numerous other Indian Day Schools existed throughout all seven Williams Treaties First Nations.

Impacts felt on lands, wild rice, or manoomin, and animals

These restrictive policies were coupled with a complete reconstruction of Anishinaabek traditional lands and waterways. Through the building of the Trent-Severn waterway, thousands of acres of manoomin (wild rice) were destroyed.

Overharvesting of these regions by settlers resulted in the extirpation of key animals such as salmon and eels, the extinction of the passenger pigeon, and massive declines in wild turkey populations.

Anishinaabeg continue to practise of ways of life

Under these pressures, the Anishinaabeg communities continued to practise their ways of life and challenged the treaty continually in court.

As Elder Doug Williams-Ban from Curve Lake First Nation has explained: “One of our favourite tricks was to plan our fishing expeditions for Saturday nights — we knew the game wardens would be watching Hockey Night in Canada!”

By 1994, the Supreme Court in R. v. Howard ruled that a Hiawatha First Nation man could be charged for fishing out of season as his harvesting rights had been “extinguished” in the 1923 treaty.

Williams Treaties First Nations reach $1.1-billion settlement

In 2018, the Williams Treaties First Nations and the governments of Ontario and Canada came to a final agreement, settling litigation about land claims and harvesting rights in the region.

The 2018 agreement saw governments of Ontario and Canada apologize and say: “We are sorry … continued injustices provided insufficient compensation and inadequate reserve lands … and failed to recognize and protect your treaty rights.”

The collective Williams Treaties First Nations approved a proposed $1.1-billion settlement. The settlement amounted to approximately $85 per acre for land surrendered under the Williams Treaties of 1923. The value of the land during the settlement was between $10,000 and $15,000.

The agreement outlined four key areas: recognition of pre-existing treaty harvesting rights, financial compensation ($666 million from Canada and $444 million from Ontario), the opportunity to acquire additional reserve lands (plus the apology).

Recollections of the 1923 Williams Treaties signing

Co-author Jackson Pind’s own great aunt, Ruby Marsden Hicks, was 95 years old and the oldest person from Alderville who received the settlement.

She said, “it was a long time coming … and would have really helped Ma and Pa.”

She remembers that her father, Moses Muskrat Marsden, was there in November 1923 when the Williams Treaties were signed in Alderville. He had said, “The Indians only wanted to know if they would still have their hunting and fishing rights and when they were told they would, they signed.”

Ongoing questions around Indigenous Rights following settlement

However, the restoration of harvesting rights has caused confusion among members of the Williams Treaties First Nations.

Before the settlement, a status member of the seven Williams Treaties First Nations could hunt and fish on reserve lands or within 50 feet of the “Indian Islands,” established under the islands of the [Trent Treaty of 1856 (Treaty #78)]. For the Anishinaabek who occupied the north shore of Lake Ontario, that included thousands of islands in all the rivers and tributaries that flowed into Lake Ontario.

The settlement’s terms, aimed at protecting fish during spawning season, restrict harvesting in these sanctuaries. These sanctuaries are significant historical gathering spots for ceremonial, practical and political activities.

The agreement doesn’t extend harvesting rights beyond pre-existing treaty areas. First Nations harvesting is limited to areas up to Silent Lake Provincial Park (Treaty 20).

Nations incurring land tax when adding to reserves

The financial compensation was divided equally among the seven Williams Treaties First Nations, with a portion distributed to members and the rest retained for infrastructure development or land acquisition.

To add new lands, First Nations must navigate the lengthy “Additions to Reserve” process, which can take up to 25 years.

The settlement allows for the addition of 11,000 acres to each First Nation’s reserve, but they must first purchase these lands and then undergo a sped-up, five-year Additions to Reserve process. During this time, the First Nations incur tax expenses on these large land parcels. They indirectly return funds to the governments responsible for treaty malpractice.

First Nations communities still grappling with legacy of Williams Treaties

These communities continue to call on the provincial government to adequately consult Williams Treaties First Nations when making important decisions on their lands, in the Greenbelt and beyond.

Reflecting on this treaty history, one can imagine that if our great-grandparents truly understood the full implications of their 1923 agreements, they might have chosen to reject the documents that have continually dispossessed their great grandchildren from their ancestral lands.

Editor’s note: this story has been modified from its original version to clarify that the Ontario government has reversed course on developing the Greenbelt.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.