Indigenous curator marks return of artifacts from Vatican vaults

As a trove of Indigenous artifacts repatriated from Vatican vaults landed in Ottawa this week, Tanya Harnett’s heart soared.

The associate dean of Indigenous relations for the arts faculty at the University of Alberta , Harnett is a member of Saskatchewan’s Carry the Kettle First Nation. An artist herself, she curated the Royal Alberta Museum’s permanent exhibit on residential schools.

She met with Pope Francis in Lac Ste. Anne on his reconciliation quest to Alberta in July, 2022.

The Pope apologized for the historical abuse of children in Catholic-run residential schools, calling it “genocide.”

For more than a century, Indian Residential Schools took some 150,000 Aboriginal children from their homes and communities. Among them, three generations of Harnett’s family went through resid