Chantal Fiona

Métis Spiritual Resurgence

Please join Dr. Chantal Fiola, Distinguished Indigenous Scholar’s Chair from the University of Winnipeg, to discuss and celebrate the vibrancy and uniqueness of Métis identity and spirituality. As a distinct Indigenous nation, Métis people have held interesting relationships with spirituality and religion over time. Dr. Fiola will share her research on the historic spiritual dispossession and contemporary resurgence occurring among the Métis and illustrate how Métis people are making space to bring traditional ceremonies back into their lives and communities.

About Chantal Fiona

Chantal Fiola is Michif (Red River Métis) with family from St. Laurent and Ste. Geneviève, MB. She is the author of Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality, which won her the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award. Her follow-up book, Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities, was nominated for the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction and won the Association for Manitoba Archives’ Manitoba Day Award. Dr. Fiola is currently the Distinguished Indigenous Scholar’s Chair (2021-2024) at the University of Winnipeg where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies. Chantal is two-spirit, Midewiwin, a Sundancer, and lives with her wife and their daughter in Winnipeg. 

Headshot credit: Madix Photography