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It was an extended and unhappy demise for the 600,000-square-foot retailer. Solely two of the white monolith’s six gross sales flooring have been nonetheless in use when its money registers lastly fell silent.
At the moment, the beginning of 2021, many had excessive hopes that the Bay’s retailer would keep away from the destiny of the neighboring Eaton’s outlet, which had been demolished to make method for the Winnipeg Jets’ area. However the property’s destiny was very unsure, with one actual property agency valuing the placement at $0 due to what a renovation or demolition would value.
Simply over every week in the past, nevertheless, the landmark’s future was secured — and probably not what number of had anticipated. The Bay introduced that it was giving the property and the constructing to Southern Chiefs’ Group, which represents 34 Manitoba First Nations. Having secured about 100 million Canadian {dollars} in funding, the bulk from the federal authorities, the Southern Chiefs have formidable plans for the positioning: inexpensive housing, assisted dwelling, a therapeutic heart, a day care, a museum, assembly areas and eating places, amongst different facilities. The plans additionally embrace a revival of the previous retailer’s Paddlewheel Restaurant, which many readers fondly recalled of their emails final yr.
Above all, the Bay’s determination handy over its former headquarters to a First Nations group within the metropolis with Canada’s largest city Indigenous inhabitants is deeply symbolic. The Bay, greater than another group, was a driving pressure behind the European colonization of Canada. The corporate was based in 1670 to use the fur commerce in Rupert’s Land, an space that makes up a few third of present-day Canada. King Charles II, with out consulting the Indigenous inhabitants, claimed the territory as England’s and gave it to his cousin. The corporate’s relationship with Indigenous individuals from that time on was one largely of exploitation.
“It’s fairly correct that First Nations are being given this land again,” Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Southern Chiefs’ Group informed me. “I believe it reveals that company Canada has an curiosity in taking an energetic position in form of rebuilding its relationship with Indigenous individuals.”
Chief Daniels informed me that negotiations for the acquisition of the constructing went again a minimum of 18 months. Early on, Chief Daniels stated, he traveled to New York with, amongst others, Phil Fontaine, the previous nationwide chief of the Meeting of First Nations, to satisfy with Richard A. Baker, the actual property magnate who owns the division retailer chain. He stated that along with agreeing to offer the constructing to the group, Mr. Baker promised to work with the chiefs on its revival.
The plan for the renovation is in superior phases, Chief Daniels stated, although negotiations are nonetheless underway for extra funding of about 30 million Canadian {dollars}.
The customarily ill-defined idea of “land again” has turn into the main focus of a number of Indigenous individuals in recent times. Many Indigenous individuals outline it as when governments return land — or crown land, as it’s generally referred to as — to the First Nations and different Indigenous teams. Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, the performing head of the division of Indigenous research on the College of Manitoba, stated that the Bay undertaking wouldn’t actually qualify as land again except the federal authorities formally acknowledged the shop as an city reserve, or sovereign Indigenous territory.
However he nonetheless praised the undertaking, often known as Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn, which he has not been concerned in.
“It’s a incredible initiative,” he stated. “Individuals ought to be very proud.”
Professor Sinclair stated that the undertaking would profit extra than simply Indigenous individuals, arguing that it will even be a boon to Winnipeg and its struggling downtown.
“Indigenous peoples shall be reoccupying an area that’s of necessary historic worth to us,” he informed me, “however they may also be cleansing up a large number {that a} large firm left behind.”
This week’s Trans Canada part was compiled by Vjosa Isai, a Canada information assistant at The New York Instances.
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Shadow Lake Lodge, a wilderness resort simply west of Banff, Alberta, is accessible solely by an eight-mile hike, although it rewards the bodily problem of getting there with a retreat within the backcountry.
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“What’s the purpose of setting objectives which can’t be achieved?” stated Vaclav Smil, the famend Canadian vitality scientist, in an interview with The New York Instances Journal. “Individuals name it aspirational. I name it delusional.” In his new ebook, Mr. Smil argues that, amongst different issues, it’s time for local weather activists to be “real looking” about the place fast decarbonization matches within the battle in opposition to international warming.
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The pattering of foot percussion is a ubiquitous sound in Québécois people music. It’s often known as podorythmie amongst ethnomusicologists, or as tapage de pieds colloquially in Quebec, and it helps Eric Boodman, a reporter for STAT, really feel linked to his dwelling in Montreal.
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The Atlantic provinces are seeing an increase in coronavirus instances.
A local of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Instances for the previous 16 years. Comply with him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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