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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.
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.
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.
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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