You are invited to join in The Blanket Exercise at Kitchissippi United Church

Wed, May 20, 7pm –to 8:30 pm

This is the history we didn’t learn in school. It is an invitation to come to a better understanding of why the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada is often broken and how we can take action together.

The exercise uses blankets to represent the lands of what is now called Canada, and the distinct cultures and nations which live on those lands to this day. Participants represent the First Peoples; when they move onto the blankets, they are taken back in time to the arrival of the Europeans. The Narrator and a European (or two) work with the participants to read a script while the exercise goes through the history of treaty-making, colonization and resistance that resulted in the nation we today call Canada.

The Aboriginal Rights Coalition worked with Indigenous elders and teachers to develop this interactive way of learning the history most Canadians are never taught. The Blanket Exercise has been offered thousands of times and was last completely updated in 2013.

The Exercise takes 30-40 minutes and will be followed by a talking circle of at least 30 minutes.

Please join us and invite friends and family members too.  The May 20 event is suitable for Grade 9 to Adult.  Participants will be invited to make a freewill offering towards the honorarium for the facilitators.

“For me it was like living out a parable; the parable of the last 500 years here in North America. Believing that God speaks through history, I entered into the process hoping to discern and understand what God might be saying through this 500-year-long text,” Rev. John Van Sloten, New Hope Christian Reformed Church, Calgary