Survivors of a forced relocation are focusing on the future after an apology from the federal government.
In 1956, 250 Sayisi Dene people were put on airplanes in Little Duck Lake and dropped off on the shores of Churchill.
What followed was starvation, violence, substance and death.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett offered the third and final formal apology Wednesday morning in Winnipeg.
"We are sorry,” said Bennett during a ceremony at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. “Sixty years ago the Government of Canada made a tragic and fatal decision that continues to impact all Sayisi Dene First Nation members to this day."
About 100 people, including survivors and family members, were in attendance for the apology.
Special ceremonies were held Tuesday in Churchill and Tadoule Lake where the government acknowledged its role in removing the Dene people from their land.
Bennett said the government apologized three times in three different locations because the people of Sayisi Dene First Nation are now scattered across the province, in some cases for health reasons.
Only 18 of the original survivors of the relocation are alive.
The community resettled in their traditional land at Tadoule Lake in 1973.
"Today we live in peace in Tadoule with lakes full of fish and the hills are full of wildlife far away from the alcohol, violence, starvation, death and all those negative bad things that we grew up with as children,” said Sayisi Dene First Nation Chief Ernest Bussidor.
The Sayisi Dene will receive compensation as part of a $33 million settlement package.
Survivors and band members will get anywhere from $15, 000 to $20,000 each depending on the time spent in Dene Village or Camp 10, according to Manitoba Keewatinow Okimakanak.
The remaining money will be put in a trust fund.
Bussidor said the community has put together a plan to help create more jobs and economic development in Tadoule Lake.
