Rupert’s Land Colloquium

WINNIPEG, MAY 23 to 25, 2024

We are pleased to announce our first live colloquium in six years, to be held in Manitoba from Thursday, May 23 to Saturday, May 25, 2024.

The University of Winnipeg will serve as our home base for registration and refreshments on Thursday evening, and for a full day of sessions on Saturday.

Friday will see us boarding a coach for a field trip to Clearwater, where local historian James A. M. Ritchie and the Waziyata Chankag'a Committee have invited us to experience this picturesque hamlet that punches above its weight historically. This is where Heritage Canada held its 1993 ceremony designating the heritage region that runs along the Boundary Commission NWMP Trail between the Red River and the Saskatchewan border. A mile away sits the marker for the western boundary of the first Province of Manitoba, the “postage stamp province” of 1870.

Ritchie will host a panel discussion on the conflict along the nearby international border in the mid-1850s, and the peace treaties that brought those conflicts to an end.

Later, we will visit the Star Mound, a 100-foot-high, ice-age moraine in southern Manitoba that rises abruptly from the prairie. The mound offers a panoramic view of the area and once housed an Indigenous village. La Verendrye visited in 1738, artist Paul Kane mentioned it in his writings, and American archeologist William Baker Nickerson excavated the site between 1912 and 1915.

Click here for an online schedule of events, or here for a printable, condensed version.

We are no longer accepting registrations for the full colloquium, but we have added shorter registration options for Saturday, May 25. To register, click here. 

To reserve accommodations at the Holiday Inn Winnipeg Downtown (just a block away from the University), call 1-877-660-8550 or visit their website.

The colloquium promises to be a spirited exchange of research and ideas, in settings both urban and sylvan. We can’t wait to see you there!

The Waziyata Chankag'a Committee is grateful for funding support from the Flandreau Sioux Tribe Historical Preservation Office.