Mural recognizes history while celebrating present and future connections
The Selkirk RCMP headquarters is now home to the community’s latest in a long line of beautiful murals that make our community a little brighter. The mural, Reconciliation by Rita Bennet was made by the collaborative effort of Rita Procyshyn (nee Bennet) who teaches art and social studies at East Selkirk Middle School, ESMS students, and Jaqueline Bercier who is the cultural proficiency lead teacher for the school division.
“Today we have an unveiling of a mural that I had the idea for, like 10 years ago. I wanted to bring the community back into the detachment in one way or another. So, during the RCMP 150th year, we’re doing different things; you can see an RCMP 150 flag posted right here, and we have an RCMP 150 quilt made by the River City Quilters around the corner. But, I wanted to take it one step further. We have incredible artists in this community in and around our RMs and I wanted to bring that inside the detachment,” said Community Policing Officer Paul Human.
Human made the connection that saw this happen when he was at ESMS. He spoke with Rita Procyshyn and, as the school has worked on many of the murals in our community in the past, they were able to work collaboratively to make a mural in the RCMP building.
“When you go see the mural, you’ll see the focal point right away is an RCMP Mountie in his Red Serge offering tobacco to a woman who’s in her Pow Wow Regalia passing the pipe to him. The seven grandfather teachings are represented on the mural and the sacred medicines are represented on the mural,” Procyshyn said at the unveiling.
The many elements of the mural represent reconciliation between the RCMP and Indigenous people (the bridge), our area’s colonial past (the railroad), and the work that must be done by having truthful and respectful conversations (the holding of a sacred pipe and offering of a tobacco tie).
At the unveiling ceremony, Human presented Procyshyn and student artists Alex Soche, Lynne Graham and Joseph Holder with a patch as well as East District Challenge coins recognizing their contribution to this project.
The students said that they learned a lot from participating in the project, particularly how much math is involved with creating a large-scale piece of art. They said it was a pretty cool project to be involved in.
Human is glad that this project that he’s been envisioning for years is now a reality.
“It’s awesome. It is something that as a community policing officer I wanted to have done for years because it brings elements from all the different communities that we belong to, or we serve into the building. Every time you walk by that here, as a member you walk by that mural to get your uniform on and go get your stuff ready for the day. That way you see our past and present and how you’re moving into the future,” he said.
