Gwen Cook and Manitoba Moon Voices Inc.

The Gwen Cook Memorial Award was created to honour the memory of Gwen Cook (Bimosekwe) who was a founding Grandmother of the Manitoba Moon Voices Inc.’s (MMVI) Grandmother Advisory Circle.

The Gwen Cook Memorial Award will be presented to an Indigenous woman or gender diverse individual who is enrolled in post-secondary studies in Manitoba, is a member of MMVI, and exemplifies the qualities of the late Gwen Cook.

The $1,000 scholarship is intended for a person who is enrolled in post-secondary studies with a minimum 60% course load (9 credit hours per Fall and Winter term).

How to apply:

Eligible applicants must complete the application and submit it to MMVI

Applications must be received by 4:30pm Friday, January 2, 2026.

Completed applications must include:

• Filled out application
• Essay explaining what traditional leadership means to you and how you put these into practice (500 – 1000 words)
• A copy of most recent transcript
• Proof of Indigenous ancestry
• A letter of recommendation
• A resume

About Gwen Cook

Gwen was a proud Maskgeko Anishibaabe Ikwe who was born in The Pas, MB and grew up in Flin Flon and Cranberry Portage, MB. She was a loving mother, sister, grandmother and friend who had a strong and gentle spirit.

Gwen was a leader in the community who adhered to traditional practices, values and leadership. Education was important to Gwen. She attained her Bachelor and Master of Social Work and was pursuing a Doctoral degree before her passing.

Gwen worked in Winnipeg for forty years at various organizations where she loved working with people. She contributed to the community by volunteering on various boards like Ka Ni Kanichihk and the Grandmothers Working for Good Life Council. Gwen was also a committee member of the Master of Social Work Indigenous Knowledge Program (U of M). She provided expertise in social services and shared her traditional knowledge.

Gwen was an active member of the Three Fires Midewin Lodge for over twenty years and was a fourth degree Midewin woman.

Reclamation of the Anishinaabe traditional way of life was essential to Gwen and she encouraged others in their own healing.

Become a leader in the field of environmental protection 

RRC Polytech is introducing the new Environmental Studies and Land Relations diploma program – a scientific, land-based program that combines environmental science, fieldwork, and Indigenous knowledge in meaningful, practical ways. This program is designed for learners who want to work directly with the land and support communities. Classroom learning blends with land-based experiences, hands-on research, and Work-Integrated Learning opportunities across Manitoba. 

Throughout the program, students gain essential technical abilities in laboratory work, field sampling, safety practices, and wilderness preparedness across seasons. Courses connect environmental testing with Indigenous knowledge, led in partnership with community Knowledge Keepers and industry advisors. Students develop skills in data collection, environmental assessment, and monitoring of land, water, soil, and biodiversity, which will prepare them to support sustainable resource management with cultural respect. Using a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, students will learn to evaluate environmental impacts, work with community frameworks, and consider reconciliation and sovereignty in environmental planning and management. 

The program emphasizes communication and career readiness. Students build practical skills in writing, speaking, digital fluency, and job preparation, including resumes, interviews, and workplace collaboration. These skills support success in the environmental sector and help students navigate evolving roles in conservation, consulting, and community-based research.

Students participate in a Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) opportunity, where they will gain real-world experience with community or industry partners. Whether choosing a paid co-op placement or collaborating on a full-term community or industry research project, students will apply their skills in environmental monitoring, conservation, and land stewardship while developing professionalism, collaboration, and confidence in their chosen field. 

Graduates leave with the ability to build relationships with communities, analyze complex environmental issues, collaborate in research, prepare policy recommendations, and support decision-making processes that honour Indigenous rights and land connections. With a strong foundation in science, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and applied fieldwork, the Environmental Studies and Land Relations diploma program equips students to become knowledgeable and ethical environmental practitioners committed to stewardship, sustainability, and reconciliation. 

Courses at-a-glance 

Employment potential 

Graduates of the program will be prepared for careers in: 

• Environmental and resource management for Indigenous communities 

• Environmental education and land-based learning  

• Advocacy and policy work in environmental justice 

• Nonprofit organizations focused on Indigenous rights and environmental protection 

• Government agencies involved in land management, conservation, and sustainable development 

• Academic and research institutions 

Registration 

Applications for Fall 2026 will open in January 2026 when the Program Explorer and Catalogue has been updated. Subscribe to this blog to get automatic updates right to your inbox! Scroll the list and select “Indigenous Education.”

For more information on the application process and admission requirements, contact the Indigenous Academic Advisor at indigenous.advisor@rrc.ca.  

Each year on November 8, communities across Canada gather for ceremonies and vigils to honour the contributions and sacrifices of Indigenous veterans. These events offer a moment to reflect on the long-overlooked experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s military history.

During wartime, Indigenous soldiers served with courage and distinction. Yet, when they returned home, many faced systemic discrimination. Reserve lands were taken by the government — some later granted to non-Indigenous veterans as farmland — while Indigenous veterans were frequently denied the same benefits and support programs offered to others. In some cases, they were pressured to “enfranchise,” a policy that required them to give up their Indian Status and cultural identity in exchange for Canadian citizenship and its associated rights.

It wasn’t until 1994, when Indigenous veterans and their families began advocating for recognition, that these injustices began to gain wider attention. Their efforts sparked a national conversation and helped pave the way for the commemorations we see today.

Now, Indigenous service members are acknowledged and celebrated at all levels for their vital role in shaping Canada’s military legacy. November 8 is not only a day of remembrance — it’s a call to honour truth, resilience, and the ongoing journey toward reconciliation.

To recognize, acknowledge, respect and remember what Indigenous veterans did for our country, we are gifting staff & students commemorative pins. 

Pins can be picked up from the Notre Dame Campus Indigenous Student Support Center (F205).

Stop by 12:00pm-2:00pm to collect your pin.

Pathway Programs for Indigenous Learners

Are you an Indigenous learner interested in a career in business, technology, communications, or engineering but not sure where to begin? RRC Polytech’s Pathway Programs are designed to help you take that first step. These programs nurture your skills, build your confidence, and prepare you for success in full-time diploma studies — all while connecting you to a supportive community that wants to see you thrive.

Join us for the Pathway Programs Information Session on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, from 6:00–7:00 p.m. at 2055 Notre Dame Ave (Room F205) to learn how you can start your journey.

Discover Your Pathway

Each Pathway Program helps you explore your interests, develop essential academic and technical foundations, and access mentorship and career-focused supports. When you complete a pathway, you’ll be ready to apply for reserved seats in related diploma programs, setting you up for continued success.

Pathway to Business, Creative Communications and Digital Technology Programs

If you’re a storyteller, creative thinker, or entrepreneur at heart, this pathway helps you develop the skills to turn your passion into a profession. You’ll explore exciting fields like business, hospitality, marketing, journalism, media production, and digital media design while gaining the learning strategies and technical foundations to succeed in post-secondary education.

After completing this pathway, you’ll be eligible to apply for limited reserved seats in:

• Business Administration
• Creative Communications
• Digital Media Design
• Hospitality and Tourism Management
• Professional Sales and Strategic Marketing

Pathway to Engineering Technology Programs

If you’re curious about how things work — from bridges and buildings to engines and electrical systems — this pathway helps you prepare for a future in civil, electrical, mechanical, or power engineering technology. You’ll strengthen your math, science, and problem-solving skills while gaining hands-on experience that connects classroom learning to real-world applications.

After completing this pathway, you’ll be eligible to apply for limited reserved seats in:

• Civil Engineering Technology
• Electrical Engineering Technology
• Mechanical Engineering Technology
• Power Engineering Technology (4th Class)

Pathway to Information Technology Programs

Interested in shaping the digital world? This pathway helps you build the foundation for a career in information technology, where you can explore areas like software development, cybersecurity, or IT systems management. You’ll develop the technical skills and confidence to move forward in a rapidly evolving, high-demand industry.

After completing this pathway, you’ll be eligible to apply for limited reserved seats in:

• Application Development and Delivery
• Cybersecurity
• Full Stack Web Development
• IT Operations

Take the First Step Toward Your Future

RRC Polytech’s Pathway Programs are more than just a stepping stone — they’re a launchpad for your career and personal growth. They provide a supportive learning environment that honours where you’re coming from and helps you build toward where you want to go.

Come connect with instructors, advisors, and Indigenous supports who will walk alongside you as you move from Pathway to diploma — and into the industry of your choice.

Pathway Programs Information Session

• Tuesday, November 4, 2025 | 6pm – 7pm
• 2055 Notre Dame Ave, Room F205

Mínwastánikéwin is an Ininimowin word that means ‘to set it right.’

General RRC Polytech Application Required

The deadline to submit applications for the Mínwastánikéwin Truth and Reconciliation Award is January 31, 2026.

The Mínwastánikéwin Award honors the resilience, strength, and voices of Indigenous students at RRC Polytech. Supported by the College community through campaigns raising awareness of Indigenous-led initiatives like Orange Shirt Day and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit People Honouring and Awareness Day, this award celebrates reflection, culture, and the ongoing journey of Truth and Reconciliation.

In 2025, Dakota artist Dasia Chatkana’s Orange Shirt design, showing a trail of footprints into a dark forest, pays tribute to children who survived Residential Schools, while Métis artist Shayre Curé’s Red Shirt, featuring a handprint over a woman’s mouth, honors Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit People.

Indigenous full-time students can apply by submitting proof of Indigenous heritage, a General RRC Application, and a one-page essay on what Truth and Reconciliation means to them. The deadline is January 31, 2026, via email to financialaid@rrc.ca. Last year, the award celebrated the voices of Kayla Frobisher and Elizabeth Ford.

For full details, see the Awards, Bursaries, and Scholarships Catalogue.

A reflection on “We Are All Connected” and the journey from separation to synthesis 

Connected by the river between Deshkan Ziibing and Western classrooms, 
I learned to translate myself across imposed boundaries, 
my body remembering what curriculums demanded I forget. 

Years beneath a Nordic winter light, I witnessed a partner’s spirit 
dance with her Sámi heritage, I recognized my mother’s rhythms— 
separate melodies carried on the same human breath. 

Under Oaxaca’s brilliant sun, I felt ancestral whispers 
in Zapotec ceremonies that echoed my grandmother’s teachings, 
revealing a resonation within my soul: 
Indigeneity flows beneath the categories 
colonial knowledge requires to maintain itself. 

Now, returning to Red River’s evolving halls, I witness 
how far we’ve come—Indigenous buildings open to all, 
diverse programs flourishing under one institutional sky. 
Yet still I see us gathered in familiar circles, 
celebrating culture while dwelling in separate spaces— 
progress and distance coexisting under the same roof. 

This beadwork invites us to thread what was never truly separate: 
each letter, each language, each story 
forming a constellation that has always been whole, 
even when our eyes were taught not to see it. 

I’ve been thinking about translation lately—not just between languages, but between worlds. How do we carry meaning across the boundaries that history has drawn between us? 

These questions live in my body. Growing up status First Nations from Chippewas of the Thames, I received early teachings about being related to all things. Yet as I moved through five provinces over a decade, I discovered how easy it becomes to forget what you’ve always known. The further I traveled from home, the more I translated myself into languages that had no words for the wholeness I once understood. 

The Awakening That Changes Everything 

Two winters ago in Oaxaca, privilege revealed itself through scarcity. I’d gone seeking Indigenous culture that was celebrated rather than hidden—and found it pulsing through Zapotec ceremonies and daily life. But when our water ran out and we received a refill in 24 hours while local families waited 40 days, I finally understood. Every drop I consumed came from somewhere, from someone. Every resource that seemed infinite to me was desperately finite for others. 

That awakening followed me home to Manitoba, transforming how I understood the water flowing from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, the electricity powered by Treaty territory resources. The question became: how do we move from recognition to genuine reciprocity? This question lived in me as I developed “We Are All Connected”—how could we create opportunities for others to experience this shift from knowing about connection to feeling it in their bones, not through scarcity and crisis, but through collective creation? 

Beadwork as Knowledge System 

When I discovered that Indigenous scholars describe beadwork as “knowledge mobilization and translation,” something clicked. The Anishinaabemowin word for beading, manidoominens, contains manidoo (spirit) at its root. Every bead becomes prayer, every pattern becomes teaching. 

This isn’t uniquely Indigenous—from Sámi duodji to West African kente, humans have always encoded meaning through material creation. The act of creating together builds relationships that transcend verbal communication. Our hands remember what our minds might forget. 

The Initiative as Living Practice 

“We Are All Connected” emerges from this understanding. Throughout the academic year at RRC Polytech, anyone can pick up a card featuring one of seven reflective questions based on the Seven Grandfather Teachings. They write their response in any language—Tagalog, Punjabi, Mandarin, Ojibwe, English. Later, at beading stations across campus, they translate their words into colored beads, each letter assigned its own hue. These individual contributions join together in a growing installation that physically manifests our interconnection. 

This embodies what Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall calls Two-Eyed Seeing—”learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges.” We’re creating space where both can coexist without hierarchy. 

When someone writes “respect” in English or “ᑭᔅᑌᔨᐦᑕᒧᐏᐣ” (kisteyihtamowin) in Cree, they’re recognizing that every language carries its own understanding of universal concepts. Transforming these words into beads, they participate in Indigenous methodology that understands knowledge as something we create through relationship, not consume in isolation. 

Nobody is teaching about reconciliation here—we’re practicing it. When diverse backgrounds contribute their truths to a shared creation, when those contributions are valued equally regardless of language, when the process honors Indigenous methodology while welcoming all participants—that’s the difference between performance and transformation. 

What Changes When We Thread Connection 

For years, I saw being “the hyphen between worlds” as burden—always translating, never fully belonging. But through this initiative, I’m discovering that those of us who live between worlds carry special gifts. We know what it feels like when connection breaks. We understand viscerally what’s lost when we forget our relations. 

When participants engage, something shifts. A student from India might write about respect through touching elders’ feet, while someone from Norway describes it through personal space. Both truths matter. The beading itself becomes meditation, ceremony, prayer—whatever the participant needs. You can’t bead someone else’s truth; you must sit with your own. You can’t rush the process; relationship takes time. 

Creating Tomorrow’s Memory 

By year’s end, our installation will contain hundreds of contributions in dozens of languages. But the physical artifact isn’t the point. Transformation happens in the moments when someone realizes their grandmother’s teaching echoes across cultures, when they see their mother tongue valued equally, when they understand that reconciliation isn’t about helping “others” but recognizing ourselves in each other. 

This installation will grow beyond this year, potentially adding new sections annually. Imagine entering RRC Polytech in five years and seeing layers of connection, generations of truth-telling woven together. 

If you’re reading this and feeling something stir, know that this is the beginning of remembering. We all carry ancestral knowledge of connection, even buried under generations of separation. “We Are All Connected” isn’t teaching this truth—it’s creating space to remember and practice it. When you pick up that card, select those beads, you’re not participating in someone else’s culture. You’re reclaiming your birthright as a human being: the right to connection, to creativity, to contribution. 

The river connecting my childhood territory to Western classrooms flows through all of us. Your grandmother’s wisdom—whatever tradition she carried—points toward the same truth: we are related to everything and everyone, and this relationship requires our conscious participation. 

So come. Bring your language, your questions, your uncertainties. Bring your grandmother’s teachings and your children’s dreams. There’s a place for all of it in this weaving. 

Because underneath the categories colonial knowledge requires, beneath the boundaries we’ve been taught to maintain, flows something that’s always been whole. We just need to thread it back into visibility, one bead, one truth, one connection at a time. 

We are all connected. We always have been. Now we’re making it visible. 

How to Join the Weaving 

• Keep an eye on student and staff news for beading station locations and times as they move across campuses throughout the year 

• Pick up intention cards at any beading station (take as many as you wish—there’s no limit on contributions) 

• Write your response to any of the Seven Grandfather Teaching questions in whatever language speaks to you 

• Return to a beading station to translate your own words into beads—you can bead your entire answer or choose certain words and phrases to emphasize—this personal act of creation is part of the practice 

• Your completed beadwork and card will be added to our growing collective installation 

If you have any questions, contact Craig Fisher cfisher34@rrc.ca.

September 22 – 26

Join us for RRC Polytech’s 7th annual Truth and Reconciliation and Community Engagement Week.

This week-long series of events invites all students, staff, and faculty to gather, learn, and reflect as we prepare for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (Orange Shirt Day) on September 30.

From keynote speakers and sharing circles to workshops, cultural teachings, and conversations with Knowledge Keepers, each session offers an opportunity to deepen understanding, spark dialogue, and bring Truth and Reconciliation into classrooms, workplaces, and beyond.

Everyone is welcome, no registration required (unless noted).

Learn, heal, and connect — together we can create meaningful change.

Check out and subscribe to the Truth and Reconciliation and Community Engagement blog for the full list of events!

Join us at RRC Polytech for MMF Citizenship and Harvester Card sign-up sessions!

The Manitoba Métis Federation will be on campus September 23 at Notre Dame Campus (West Lot) and September 25 at Exchange District Campus (Atrium) from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. All students can apply free of charge, while staff will need to bring $10 cash for a Citizenship card and $10 for a Harvester card.

Bring these items to your appointment:

• Completed MMF Application Form
• Genealogy documentation (or supporting relative documents)
• Long-form birth or baptismal certificate
• Government-issued ID
• Passport-quality photo (can be taken on-site for free)
• Payment (if applicable)

This is your chance to complete your application in person and get help from MMF representatives. Don’t miss it! Subscribe to the Truth and Reconciliation and Community Engagement blog for more opportunities like this!

Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation pursues initiative with RRC Polytech that will change healthcare education delivery across the province

On August 22, a transformative initiative rolled into Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation and the first cohort of students stepped into a classroom-on-wheels. Their first day of Health Care Aide training in Roseau River marked a trailblazing opportunity for healthcare education delivery in the province – a program born from months of collaboration, vision, and dedication.

“I genuinely look forward to coming to class and learning something new every – it’s definitely a great opportunity that everyone should take advantage of. This program is the first of its kind, and we get to be part of history in the making,” said Stacey Patrick, Health Care Aide student.

Read the full story on the MarComm blog.

Join us to celebrate!

As summer turns to fall, the days and nights balance in harmony, reminding us of the cycles of change and renewal. The Fall Equinox is a time to gather in community, reflect on the season’s gifts, and prepare for the months ahead.

RRC Polytech invites students, staff, and community members to join us in honouring this transition with a Pipe Ceremony led by the Elders-in-Residence, followed by a Feast.

Friday, September 19, 2025
10am – Pipe Ceremony
12pm – Feast

Roundhouse Auditorium, Manitou a bi Bii daziigae
Exchange District Campus

This gathering is open to all. Please remember to bring your Feast Bag as we come together in respect, gratitude, and celebration of the season. No registration is required. If you have any questions, please contact Sara McIvor-Prouty, Manager, Indigenous Student Supports and Community Relations smcivor@rrc.ca.