Belongings of Grand Chief Cathy Merrick are carried into a ceremony at the Legislature in Winnipeg on Sept. 11.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
The long day of wakes began much like the previous night had ended: with prayers and songs lifting up the spirit of the late Grand Chief Cathy Merrick, the leader of 63 First Nations across Manitoba, who died suddenly last week.
As the sun rose Wednesday, hundreds of people enclosed the Oodena Circle, a natural shallow on the shoreline facing the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers in Winnipeg that has been a sacred meeting site for Indigenous peoples for more than 6,000 years.
People had flown in from coast to coast, many also making the long drive from Cross Lake, the northern Manitoba area surrounding Ms. Merrick’s home in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, where she grew up.
Chiefs with their headdresses sat next to elders on a centre platform, closest to the fire pit, conducting a traditional pipe ceremony. The women from Ms. Merrick’s family wore ribbon skirts and the men wore ribbon shirts, each paying homage to their heritage. Onlookers – among them Mounties in uniform, local police, business executives and government officials – accepted tobacco ties and smudged with sage to cleanse themselves and bear witness.
“She was selected by the chiefs, but she served everybody,” said Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, extending a formal invitation to the crowd to pay their respects later that morning at the provincial legislature, where Ms. Merrick’s family had given permission for her to be laid in state.
All week, wake services and vigils are being held in different cities and on reserves in her honour.
“The whole country is in mourning,” Mr. Kinew said, a murmuration of birds swirling in the sky above.
Ms. Merrick is the only woman to be given the honour of lying in state in Manitoba. But the 63-year-old was used to making history.
She was the first woman to become Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. She advocated for First Nations peoples even as she collapsed this past Friday while addressing reporters outside the provincial courthouse. She was pronounced dead in hospital that afternoon.
As a string of pallbearers held the white casket that bore her body, Ms. Merrick’s family arrived in the legislature for a private ceremony. Her own headdress, which she was famous for wearing – as it is usually reserved only for men – was carried by singers at the front, their traditional throat song and drums filling the hallways, echoing around the rotunda.
A line of hundreds more supporters followed behind, with a public viewing scheduled for several hours on Wednesday. The casket was later transported for another service at the RBC Convention Centre in the evening. Her body will be taken later this week to Cross Lake for a family funeral on Saturday.
Grand Chief Garrison Settee of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents 26 northern First Nations, said the legislature ceremony validated her years of leadership.
“Everybody was equal to her,” Mr. Settee said in an interview. “She lifted the voices of those who could not do it themselves, showing up in places our people and communities have not been brave enough to be in, brave enough to speak up in.”
Pimicikamak Chief David Monias said the procession underscored the lifetime of work that Ms. Merrick put toward building First Nations relationships with all levels of government. “Even in death, she’s bringing everybody together, setting aside our differences to celebrate a woman, a mom, a wife and one of our own.”
Geraldine Shingoose, an elder known as “Gramma” among most Indigenous communities in Winnipeg, could not hold back her tears as she saw Ms. Merrick’s body. “I will miss her dearly. She was our biggest hope and brightest light,” she said.
Ms. Shingoose had joined Ms. Merrick’s husband, Todd, and their three children the previous night for a vigil just steps away from the legislature. Holding back their tears Tuesday evening, as people flooded the streets with candles next to the courthouse where she had collapsed, Mr. Merrick said the size of the crowd was a testament to his late wife: “If you do good in this world, it comes back to you,” he said.
“Cathy was the best of us. She was everything and more.”
Manitoba Grand Chief Cathy Merrick was remembered as a leader who combined strength and compassion. Hundreds of people turned out at the legislature to pay tribute to Merrick, who died after collapsing and being rushed to hospital.
The Canadian Press