PORCUPINE PLAIN, Sask. — On the last day of September, the community hall in this small forest-edge town will smell of bannock and jam. There will be needles and beads on the tables, a free lunch for anyone who walks through the door, and a walk through town to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
The gathering on Sept. 30 is the latest such event Porcupine Plain has held, and it is a deliberate expansion of what came before. Koral Kriger, the town's community development officer, told SaskToday that last year's event, a bannock and beading afternoon hosted by Elder Lily Earnshaw and organized with Métis Nation-Saskatchewan Eastern Region II and the Porcupine Plain Métis Local, drew about 20 people. This year, the town and the Métis Local wanted to bring together the strands of the previous two years into a fuller day: a bannock and jam workshop, a community lunch, a reconciliation walk, and a beaded earrings workshop.
The hands-on nature of the program is the point. Rather than a single ceremony or a speech, the day asks people to make something together — to knead dough, to thread a needle, to walk side by side — and in doing so to sit with the history the day commemorates. Tammy Willerton, president of the Porcupine Plain Métis Local, framed it plainly: "Truth and Reconciliation means learning from the past and understanding, respecting and healing so we are able to build a better future." She said she hopes the gathering gives people a chance to come together and learn about Métis traditions.
That impulse to gather across cultures is not new here. In February 2023, Porcupine Plain hosted "Breaking Bread Together In Reconciliation," an event that began when Elder Margaret Harrison approached Métis Nation-Saskatchewan Eastern Region II and the local Métis community about a cultural potluck. It grew into a mini folk festival, with Métis jigging, Ukrainian music and Easter egg painting, Filipino performance, Norwegian music, and a supper of dishes from each tradition. The Creeland Dancers and the Dean Smith Band closed the night. Sponsored by BHP Jansen and the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan Eastern Region II and its Elders Branch, it was an early sign of the kind of broad, participatory gathering the town is now building on for Sept. 30.
The date itself carries weight that reaches far beyond Saskatchewan. Sept. 30 is both the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day, and the two observances are intertwined. Orange Shirt Day grew out of the story of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwépemc woman from the Dog Creek reserve in British Columbia. In 1973, when she was six years old, her grandmother bought her a shiny orange shirt to wear to the St. Joseph Mission Indian residential school. On her first day, staff stripped her, took away her clothes, including the orange shirt, and she never wore it again. "The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn't matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing," Webstad has written. Her story became the foundation of a movement that asks Canadians to wear orange on Sept. 30 and to remember that every child matters.
The federal statutory holiday is younger still. It was established in response to Call to Action 80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which called on the federal government, in collaboration with Indigenous peoples, to create a statutory holiday honouring residential school survivors, their families, and communities, and ensuring the history and legacy of residential schools continue to be publicly commemorated. Bill C-5 received royal assent on June 3, 2021, setting Sept. 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The legislation moved through Parliament in the weeks after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, a moment that pushed the country's reckoning into public view.
For a town of roughly 800 people, tucked into the Porcupine Provincial Forest near Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, the day is a local act within that national frame. Kriger said it offers a chance for the community to learn and reflect on the history and continuing impacts of residential schools, while recognizing the strength and resilience of First Nations and Métis neighbours and building greater understanding and relationships within the community.
The Métis presence in the region is long-standing. The Métis are one of Saskatchewan's founding peoples, and Métis settlement in what is now the province predates the arrival of agrarian society by more than a century. Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, founded in 1993 as the successor to the Métis Society of Saskatchewan, represents Métis people across 12 regions, with Eastern Region II covering Melfort, Hudson Bay, and surrounding communities, including the local in Porcupine Plain. The Sept. 30 event is supported by Sask Lotteries and SaskCulture.
The day is open to everyone, for all of it or part of it. Organizers ask that people register for the bannock and jam and beaded earrings workshops so there are enough supplies to go around; registration is by calling or texting Willerton at 306-873-1235. Other learning is happening around town as well. The Porcupine Plain Public Library is inviting residents to walk through the fall leaves at Scott Park while learning about the history of the babushka, and to take part in activities offered over the weekend and on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
What distinguishes the Porcupine Plain gathering is its insistence on participation over observance. A workshop, a shared meal, and a walk are modest things. But they are the kind of everyday actions that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action imagined — reconciliation as something practiced in kitchens and on sidewalks, not only in legislatures. In a town this size, where neighbours know one another and where the Métis Local and the municipal office work side by side, the bannock and the beads are the point: a way of learning history with your hands, and of building the relationships that the day asks for.