Chief says First Nation in northeastern Manitoba ‘eagerly awaiting’ monument to 1972 tragedy
Global News
A Manitoba community is hopeful a project to commemorate the lives of residential school students who were killed in a Winnipeg plane crash 52 years ago will go ahead as planned.
The chief of a First Nation in northeastern Manitoba says his community is hopeful a project to commemorate nine people — eight of them residential school students — who were killed in a plane crash 52 years ago will go ahead as planned.
On June 24, 1972, a plane taking the students home to Bunibonibee Cree Nation for the summer, from residential schools in Portage la Prairie and Stonewall, crashed in a vacant lot on Linwood Street in Winnipeg, with no survivors.
Richard Hart, chief of Bunibonibee — which was then known as Oxford House — told 680 CJOB’s The News on Thursday that it was a happy day in the community, as the mostly teenage students were going to be reunited with family.
“The school year was done, and we had a number of our young people who had gone off to residential school returning home that day,” Hart said.
“Everybody was eager. It was a beautiful day. Kids were coming home. Their families hadn’t seen their loved ones for 10 months…. Such a wonderful day ended so tragically.”
The First Nation, in partnership with the Royal Canadian Aviation Museum and the city, has been working on a memorial for the crash victims to be located at Linwood and Silver Avenue, near the crash site, on the Yellow Ribbon Greenway Trail.
The plan is for a pedestal monument with the names of the victims, as well as a small park area.
Hart said a similar monument was erected in Portage la Prairie, at the site of one of the residential schools the students attended, and that the community itself commemorates the incident every year, as difficult as it may be for those left behind.
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