Reserve 107 peacemakers receive YMCA peace medallion

Sylvia Weenie's journey of understanding began 10 years ago.

She was withher late husband, Ben Weenie, former chief of the Young ChippeweyanFirst Nation, when he sat down for dinner with Leonard Doell, of the Saskatchewan Mennonite Central Committee.

The two gathered to discuss reserve land which was given to settlers in the 19thcentury and how they could better help the people in the area realize the history, rebuild the treaty relationship and resolve the issue.

Weenie said she knew something good would come of it as she listened to her husband and Doelldiscuss their differences, their perspectives and how they could reach an agreement or understanding.

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"I knew just sitting there watching, good things are about to take place," Weenie said.

That initial meeting led to a feast at Stoney Knoll, Ray Funk said.

Funk is one of seven people who received the medallion in the adult category. Weenie also accepted a YMCA peace medallion on behalf of her late husband, who passed away in April.

Funk mentioned how Stoney Knoll is sacred to both the First Nations people in the area as well as the Lutheran and Mennonite communitythat settled there.

"I think in our Saskatchewan context, there's nothing more important than building stronger relationships between the Indigenous folks and the settlers that have come in the last 150 years," Funk said.

Funk hopes the medallion will help build the kind of understanding needed to foster a healthy community.

"This is the only place in Canada where a displaced Indigenous community and the settler community are workinglike this together in harmony and co-operation," Funk said.

Weenie adds the whole situation is not about displacing another community in favour of another.

"One of the things that late Ben had said is 'that's not what we're out there to do,'" Weenie said. "We want to work together to help the government to come up and make things right, to do things right."

A documentary called Reserve 107 has been put together and can be viewed in full online.