The Town of Okotoks stood its tipi and welcomed Indigenous speakers Saturday for an event marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Following a ceremony in the tipi, with seating and a speaker outside for guests, Town officials accompanied Piikani Elder Herman Many Guns and Old Sun Residential School surivor Dr. Vincent Yellow Old Woman of the Siksika First Nation to a monument dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous women and victims of the residential school system.
The monument, created by Blackfoot ceremonialist and Town of Okotoks Indigenous Relations Advisor Desmond Jackson, stands in Ethel Tucker Park near the Laurie Boyd Bridge, and people are welcomed to hang ribbons, shoes, red dresses, or other items on orange rope strung between its four columns.
