Manitoba hockey player organizes Reconciliation Run

Each crunch under her step served as a reminder. Twenty-six kilometres is a great distance. But this path seemed like nothing to young Donald Bunn, who would have run it in an instant to be back in the arms of his family and community.

When Tréchelle Bunn reflects on the stories from her Unkan (grandfather), that’s one of the things that strikes her the most.

“Twenty-six kilometres seems far, but when you’re a kid and you know your family and community is 26 kilometres away, it doesn’t seem that far at all.”

Twenty-six kilometres stand between Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation and Birtle Residential School. Until last year, it was a path some survivors dared not walk. The stories of their heartbreak and hardship at the school only ever partially told. And when Canada, for the first time, acknowledged what many in Indigenous communities have known for decades, it brought back the horror from the days not so long past.

And so it was time. Time to help her community heal, to go back to the site where it all started. On foot, the community moving together.

“I remember feeling really heavy and sad. But then in an instant, it almost shifted…” Bunn recalls.

Her spirit changed as she watched a Birtle residential school survivor, Terry Wasteste, stand on the school’s front lawn and share his story. He prayed. And performed a pipe ceremony on the grounds where so much was taken from him.

“Everything the Canadian residential school system stood for was to solve the so-called ‘Indian problem’ and eradicate Indigenous people and culture through assimilation and I think that day with my community, to see an elder speak and perform and practice our culture on the front lawn of the very institution that tried to destroy us, I think it was proof that it failed.”

“It’s still something that gives me chills just talking about.”

And as each survivor and community member left the school that day, some on their own terms for the first time, the failure was more apparent. The positive force of her community was re-ignited in every step, as they healed through the movement.

Bunn sees movement as medicine, helping her stay balanced in her physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

The University of Manitoba hockey player knows this intimately. And as she trains for another season in Canada West, she knows much healing still needs to be done.

Bunn is organizing another walk/run, this time for reconciliation. She got the idea after seeing the number of non-Indigenous people who wanted to join the healing walk she initially organized for her family and community. ​

“I remember taking a step back and looking around when we were gathered on the front lawn of the Birtle Residential School the day of the walk and seeing my community intermixed with strangers I’ve never seen before, non-Indigenous community members from around Manitoba, that was really impactful.”

On September 30, Bunn is inviting everyone to again join together in movement and healing as they walk or run a half marathon from Birtle Residential School to Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation. It will begin with a pipe ceremony and prayer and conclude with a feast.

“It’s really important to me to do it on September 30 because so often if people do get a day off, give them an opportunity to take part in a meaningful event. I think for the Indigenous community, it’s a day for us to heal and connect with one another and for the non-Indigenous community, it’s really a day for reflection and education.”

When Bunn trains, she finds herself looking inward and she hopes the participants of the run will have that time to do the same after they’ve listened to the stories of survivors and walk the path that so many children would have given anything to run down. ​

If you can’t be in Manitoba and want to join the run virtually, you can do so through the website: reconciliationrun.ca.

The event will be an officially sanctioned half marathon for those who are serious runners, and will be accessible for those who want to walk.

Since heading it up, Bunn has heard from people in other provinces who want to start their own Reconciliation Run.

“It’s definitely going to be an annual thing here in Manitoba,” she promises.

As Bunn keeps the conversation going, she’s also encouraging others to give space to Indigenous people to speak if they’re comfortable doing so, taking it upon themselves to educate through podcasts, movies or books, or participating in events like the Reconciliation Run.

Bunn’s teammates from the University of Manitoba Bisons hockey team will complete the run in a relay style.

“The way they’re coming together for me to support the run is incredible. And I think that speaks to the connections you can make through sport and how impactful sport really is when things are done in a good way,” Bunn said, before pausing to explain.

“It’s something that the Indigenous community uses a lot, ‘doing things in a good way,’ like doing things with good intentions.”

And that’s what she hopes to see from everyone on September 30, regardless of whether they’re at home, work or running those 26 kilometres her Unkan so desperately wanted to.

For more information on the Reconciliation Run, visit www.reconciliationrun.ca