Assiniboia Residential School Commemorative Monument & Gathering Place
The Assiniboia Residential School Commemorative Monument & Gathering Place was inaugurated on September 30th, 2022. The Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group now owns the land underneath the Monument, but it is only a small portion of the former school site that once included a classroom building, girls’ and boys’ dormitories, auditorium, chapel and sports fields.
Design & Architecture
Working together with the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group over a five-year period, the Commemorative Monument & Gathering Place was designed by Herbert Enns as Collaborating Architect, with assistance from Darian McKinney.
This project addresses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action through collaboration. This strategy and commitment was established early in the process by Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine and the ARSLG Board, as well as through input from many agencies, institutions and individuals. The property acquisition process underlying the site transfer was completed over several years with the help and guidance of the RCMP and ther City of Winnipeg.
The plaza contains more than 1,000 names of the students who attended the school from 86 communities. The names are engraved into blocks of Indiana limestone and painted with copper. Both common and Indigenous community names are engraved on the top surface of the twenty-eight anodized aluminum markers, together with the number of students from each community.
The markers are folded and formed to reference tipis, arrowheads, and school desks at child height. Situated in a circle around the sacred fire, they create a safe gathering place of reflection. The desk-height markers are tilted so that people with disabilities and varying abilities, as well as children, can easily read and examine them. Each marker carries a shelf upon which to place offerings of tobacco. The twenty-eight markers are set in groups of seven and organized by the four colours of the medicine wheel.
Monument Features
The font used throughout the Monument is called Assiniboia. The letter forms were derived from and inspired by the handwriting of Survivor David Montana Wesley. As a student, he explored his interest in photography and often made handwritten notes on the backs of his photo prints. From those notes, this same font now appears again in the blocks bearing the names of the students and the markers bearing the names of their home communities.
Lighting mounted within each marker illuminates the names on the plaza. A surrounding boardwalk is shaped like the rings of the oak tree that was removed from the site, and eight oak-plank benches are now there for sitting and contemplation. A field of natural Indigenous grasses was planted in the spring of 2023. The gardens surrounding the Monument include plantings of ceremonial herbs, native plants, shrubs and trees.
Live Video from 621 Academy Road
Where to Find Us
Assiniboia Residential School Commemorative Monument & Gathering Place is located at 621 Academy Road in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Parking Instructions
Our memorial site is located near a cluster of buildings on Academy Road in Winnipeg, with multiple tenants and very restricted parking for their staff. In the interest of being good neighbors, ARSLG has clarified parking restrictions with the owner of the buildings and parking lot.
Parking Restrictions at ARSLG Memorial Site: No parking is available in any of the parking spaces near the cluster of buildings that includes 611 to 621 Academy Road during business hours Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
For visits during the business day, free parking is available on surrounding residential streets. The closest residential street parking is on Wellington Crescent South, which is just east of the site on the north side of Academy Road.
If you wish to visit the site after 4:30 during the week, you may use a parking spot in the adjacent parking lot during your visit.
Thank you for respecting these parking restrictions and helping us to be good neighbors to the tenants surrounding our memorial site.
Land Acknowledgement
Assiniboia Residential School Commemorative Monument & Gathering Place is located at 621 Academy Road in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. We acknowledge we are on First Nations land, Turtle Island, inhabited by First Nations from time immemorial.For thousands of years, First Nations people—the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota, Dene, and Anishininew Nations—walked and lived on this land and knew it to be the centre of their lives and spirituality. The Anishinaabe call this land Manitou Ahbee, the place where the Creator resides. We acknowledge this became the homeland of the Métis people.We acknowledge and welcome the many people from countries all over the world who have come to join us, Turtle Island’s First Nations, in calling this land our home. We acknowledge we are now all bound together by Treaty 1.
—Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine