You would have been forgiven for thinking the School of Health Sciences was having a picnic.

After all, blankets covered much of the open grassy space in the Humber Arboretum, with room for 110 participants to stand and move around comfortably.

But over the next 90 minutes, the blankets had been folded again and again until they were small patches of cloth. Fewer than a quarter of the original participants were left to balance precariously on each small spot, surrounded by empty space. Others sat in chairs that circled the blanketed area, quiet and thoughtful and, for some, teary.

This was no picnic: faculty and staff from Humber’s School of Health Sciences were participating in an Indigenous education activity known as the Blanket Exercise.

Developed 20 years ago by Kairos Canada, a faith-based human rights group, the interactive exercise teaches participants about five centuries of Indigenous history on the northern part of Turtle Island (now Canada), using narration and physical movement to illustrate the devastating effects of colonization, disease and assimilation initiatives.

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