Around twenty participants gathered at the Trinity United Church in Watson to participate in a mind-altering experience. Non-profit ecumenical organization KAIROS and the pastoral charge of the United Church brought the Blanket Exercise to the church in Watson on Sunday, November 3. 

The Blanket Exercise is an experiential learning activity that traces the impact of 500 years of colonialism on indigenous people in the country. Rather than experiencing a lecture or audiovisual presentation, participants were marshalled to the centre of the room to stand on a series of blankets. 

Three facilitators then began a narrative that required the attendees to adopt the persona of indigenous peoples, namely as representatives of all First Nations in Canada. The facilitators have brought the Blanket Exercise to countless Saskatchewan communities for residents to experience the heartbreaking and haunting representation of indigenous experience. 

Lorraine Bellegarde is the part-time coordinator for KAIROS Canada. The aim of the exercise is straightforward in Bellegarde’s view. 

“We hope that people all across Canada will become more aware of the 500 years of shared history that we’ve had in Canada, and not what was glossed over or what we have been told -- the real history of Canada.” 

Along with Lorraine’s daughter, Sadie Anderson who acts as a facilitator and narrative presenter, Tim Poitras of the Muscowpetung First Nation joins in as the knowledge ceremony maker. Poitras interjected at intervals throughout the afternoon with additional research, background information, and most importantly, critical cultural information that helped to frame the experience within the indigenous spiritual and social context. 

The ninety-minute narrative had participants listening to the chronological string of events throughout the centuries that led to the decline, disruption, and redistribution of indigenous populations. The participants standing on the blankets representing these populations were variously removed or relocated during the course of the narrative. 

In the case of the Beothuk people of Newfoundland who were declared extinct during the 1800s, several participants were removed from the blankets and retired from the group. The narrative continued to reflect the redistribution of entire First Nations as colonization continued. Again participants retired from the circle or were directed to other zones. The exercise worked its way geographically west and north as encroachment continued. Each time, fewer and fewer participants were left in the circle and the blankets on the floor, representing the original territories the First Nations communities agreed through Treaty to share with Europeans, became smaller and smaller. 

Perhaps the most haunting impact came in the wake of the residential school system and the “Sixties Scoop” whose impacts have only recently begun to be redressed. At the end of the exercise, only a handful of participants remained standing on the shrivelled areas left, some disconnected from the central community as a sad reminder of the social fracturing and individual poverty and hardship evident in Canada today.

The narrative was delivered as the three facilitators circled the participants, many of whom stood through the ninety-minute delivery. The effect on the participants was profound as evidenced by many of the comments shared during the talking circle at the end of the afternoon. Numerous participants were emotional and visibly impacted by the experience. 

Tim Poitras recounted a variety of social and cultural outcomes for indigenous peoples, not the least of which is the impact colonization has had on the status of women in First Nation communities and the perception by the general population. 

“Many of our Nations are dealing with abuse towards our younger females in general. Before contact, our females had a strong role in the community. In modern times, that role has diminished, so we have lots of complications.”

Poitras taught concepts through his own language with participants learning a bit of the lexicon, but more importantly, learning the associated values that stood as the underpinnings for First Nations social and spiritual order prior to European arrival. Coupled with examples of documents such as off-reservation passes and declarations of enfranchisement, the narrative resonated on an emotional wavelength that brought many participants to tears.

KAIROS has presented the Blanket Exercise to youth in schools and to adults in a host of different venues. Reverend Brenda Curtis of Westminster United Church in Humboldt is making plans for a return of the Blanket Exercise to the Humboldt region. To find out more about KAIROS and the Blanket Exercise, navigate to www.kairoscanada.org.