Growing up, my family wasn’t involved in any Métis cultural activities. In fact, we weren’t involved in our culture as a whole. It wasn’t until high school that I started to learn about my culture, but even then, it was only slightly, and I didn’t fully start learning until I started university. As I didn’t grow up around my culture, I hadn’t gone to any powwows or things of that nature at all until I was eighteen.

From Friday, March 10 until Sunday, March 12 Trent University hosted the 47th Annual Elders and Traditional Peoples Gathering. This year, the theme was Returning to Ourselves. This was the first time the event was able to be held in person again since the initial outbreak of COVID-19. 

In this article, Cheyenne Wood revisits the conversation around the renaming of Champlain College, and for the first time, offers an alternative: Louis Riel. Wood details the contradictions involved in Champlain's name remaining on campus, and builds an argument for replacing it with that of the Métis revolutionary, Louis Riel.