In Winnipeg, a donated building becomes a force for reconciliation
After the Hudson’s Bay Co. department store shuttered its hulking, 650,000-square-foot building in downtown Winnipeg in 2020, Peatr Thomas was asked to replicate one of his murals in the empty windows. The Inninew and Anishinaabe artist at first hesitated. If any entity casts a colonial shadow in Canada, it is the Hudson’s Bay Co.
Established in 1670 by the king of England, the HBC existed for centuries as a fur trading enterprise that upended the lives of First Nations as it aggressively expanded into what would later become Canada. Mr. Thomas didn’t want to be affiliated with it.
Yet given the flagship store’s physical prominence and historical relevance, Mr. Thomas also saw an opportunity. The project could be a way to share his vision of a “new future,” he says, “built on truth.”
Today his vibrant mural, “Aski Pimachi Iwew,” reflects the story of the Earth’s renewal. Animals painted in black, on a red background representing dawn, depict the seven ancestor teachings of “Turtle Island,” which is what many Indigenous people call North America: love, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty, humility, and truth.
The mural is accompanied by text written by his mother, a survivor of the country’s onetime residential school system for Indigenous peoples:
A new sunrise with the new moon.
After a time of change and awakening.
Turtle Island is new once again, built on truth in the sacred seven ancestor teachings.
Ancient knowledge once lost, is taught to us again by Mother Earth in all that she
