The tikinaagan ceremony

Commissioners of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls finish the last steps of the tikinaagan, or cradleboard, ceremony at the final report’s closing ceremony on Monday, June 3, at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. In the ceremony, the commissioners sat on a star blanket and, once the report was swaddled and placed in a cradleboard, touched the pages with sacred materials from different Indigenous peoples. That included water from the east, west, south and north, held in copper cups—with the northern water having come from an iceberg. The report was then tied with a Métis sash. Grandmothers and family members, seen sitting behind the commissioners, then acknowledged the bundle before it was handed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. See our story on the closing ceremony later today at Nunatsiaq.com (Photo by Kahlan Miron)