As I pushed my rental car along Highway 6 toward Fisher River Cree Nation, the Manitoba landscape unfolded like pages from someone else’s photo album – familiar in theory but personally unrecognizable. The late summer wheat fields glowed amber under an endless prairie sky, a scene simultaneously foreign and deeply connected to my assignment.
I’d come to document the homecoming of Joseph Kipling, a 57-year-old Sixties Scoop survivor returning to the community he was taken from as a child. The Sixties Scoop – that clinical term for the government-sanctioned removal of thousands of Indigenous children from their families between the 1950s and 1980s – always reads differently when you’re looking into the eyes of someone who lived through it.
“It feels like I’m dreaming,” Kipling told me, his voice steady but eyes constantly scanning the horizon as we approached Fisher River. “Fifty years is a lifetime. But somehow, the land still speaks to me.”
Kipling was seven when social workers arrived at his family’s home in 1965. Within hours, he was separated from his parents and four siblings. By nightfall, he was in Winnipeg. Within weeks, he had been adopted by a non-Indigenous family in southern Ontario.
“They weren’t bad people,” he explained of his adoptive family. “They just didn’t understand what they were participating in. None of us did.”
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs estimates that approximately 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their homes during the Sixties Scoop era. The psychological and cultural impacts have echoed through generations, with many survivors never finding their way back.
According to records from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba, roughly one-third of children taken during this period lost all connection to their communities, languages, and cultural identities.
Elder Marlene Murdock, who helped coordinate Kipling’s return through Fisher River’s community reunification program, explained how the wounds remain raw. “Each person who comes home represents dozens who never will,” she said while preparing a small welcoming ceremony. “The families here – they never stopped looking, never stopped hoping.”
Kipling’s journey back began three years ago through the Manitoba government’s post-adoption registry. DNA testing eventually connected him with a cousin, which led to confirming that his mother and two siblings were still in the community.
“I had this fantasy that I’d instantly feel at home,” Kipling admitted as we parked outside the band office. “But it’s more complicated. I don’t speak Cree. I didn’t grow up in the ceremonies. I’m trying to be patient with myself.”
The provincial government issued a formal apology for the Sixties Scoop in 2015, and a $875 million class-action settlement was reached in 2017, providing individual compensation to some survivors. But money doesn’t restore lost time or cultural connections.
“The settlement helped acknowledge what happened,” said Kipling. “But no amount of money gives you back your language or the chance to know your grandmother’s stories.”
Fisher River Chief Darrell Thaddeus sees homecomings like Kipling’s as bittersweet validation of the community’s resilience. “When children were taken, our community didn’t just lose individuals – we lost our future knowledge keepers, our language carriers, our ceremony leaders,” he explained during the community gathering for Kipling. “Each person who finds their way back strengthens us.”
Inside the community center, about forty people gathered for Kipling’s welcome. Among them was his 77-year-old mother, Martha, who sat quietly in her wheelchair near the front. Their reunion the previous evening had been private – too sacred for journalists to document.
“She recognized me right away,” was all Kipling would share about that moment. “She said she never stopped praying.”
Recent data from Manitoba Indigenous Services shows that while the Sixties Scoop officially ended decades ago, Indigenous children still make up over 90 percent of children in provincial care despite representing roughly 30 percent of Manitoba’s child population.
“The system has different names now, but many communities still feel the same effects,” noted Dr. Esther Grant, a researcher at the University of Winnipeg who studies intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities. “When we celebrate reunifications like Joseph’s, we must also acknowledge how many families remain separated today.”
The afternoon unfolded with ceremony – an elder offering prayers, community members sharing stories, photos being taken. Kipling was presented with a star blanket, its vibrant colors representing protection and new beginnings.
“I don’t know what happens next,” Kipling confessed as we watched the sunset later that evening. “I have a life in Ontario – a job, friends. But something in me feels settled being here. Maybe home isn’t just one place anymore.”
His sister Angela, who was four when he was taken, sat beside him. “We’re not trying to make up for fifty years in one visit,” she said. “We’re just starting a new chapter. The book didn’t end when they took him – it just got complicated.”
As Canada continues reckoning with its treatment of Indigenous peoples, stories like Kipling’s illuminate both historical injustices and the ongoing journey toward healing. They remind us that reconciliation isn’t an abstract policy goal but a deeply personal process playing out in communities across the country.
For Kipling, this homecoming marks both an ending and a beginning. “I spent decades wondering where I belonged,” he said, watching as his nieces and nephews played nearby. “I don’t have all the answers yet, but at least now I know where to look.”
