This Canada Day, Niverville celebrated Canada Day in a way that honors both pre-settlement and post-settlement people. 

Spokesperson, Roger Armbruster, says they wanted to celebrate their history in ways that can bring people groups together. He wanted everyone to be able to celebrate that they are all Canadians. 

“We want this to be just a community celebration that brings people together and I believe it will be a celebration that everyone will enjoy.” 

During the celebration, they honored the man who created the Red River cart that they purchased. 

“That's why we're having the ceremony. There's something about the Métis Red River cart, which I believe represents sort of a connecting link between both the pre-settlement people and particularly the Mennonite people who would use these Red River carts.” 

He says people are coming to the understanding that they didn’t get the whole story of our Canadian history in school. 

“You don't get the perspective of the Indigenous peoples in our history and I think there's a desire to learn that now and so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, but that we build a new future.” 

A couple of high school students that are a part of a student action group on Indigenous issues shared a few words. 

Armbruster says while it is important to talk about our history, it is also important to celebrate the culture with music and dancing to connect with the hearts of people and get to know one another better. 

The celebration included a lot of Métis culture, for food they had buffalo burgers, bannock, and fried bread, and they had a Métis fiddler and dancer. "They will be getting into music like the Red River jig and other music that helped sustain the people even during hard times.” 

He says that every group of people has their own story and that it’s important to start talking with each other at a deeper level. 

“Whatever our ethnic background is I think we as human beings, we're all similar in the sense that we all want to love and to be loved, and we want to be understood in the heart and mind of another.”