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2d ago

Vatican Repatriates More Than 60 Indigenous Artifacts to Canada

Indigenous leaders will guide conservation at Canada’s national museum ahead of community returns.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, right, along with representatives from various First Nations receive a kayak and other indigenous artifacts at Trudeau Airport in Montreal, on Saturday, on December 6, 2025.
National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak speaks during a press conference welcoming 62 Indigenous cultural artifacts on their arrival from the Vatican in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, on December 6, 2025.
Isaiah Bernard of Potlotek First Nation, Isaiah Andersen from Winnipeg, Katisha Paul of the Lil'wat and Tsartlip Nations and Peyal laceese of the Tsilhqotin Nation embrace after a press conference welcoming 62 Indigenous cultural artifacts on their arrival from the Vatican in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, on December 6, 2025.
Katisha Paul of the Lil'wat and Tsartlip Nations, left, and Peyal Laceese of the Tsilhqot'in nation touch a crate containing Indigenous artifacts at Trudeau Airport in Montreal, on Saturday, December 6, 2025.

Overview

  • The crates arrived in Montreal with more than 60 items taken from First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities over a century ago, including a rare Inuvialuit sealskin kayak.
  • The collection is being transferred to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau for examination, cataloguing and community-led identification before reunification.
  • The Holy See and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Pope Leo is gifting the items and their documentation, following a process initiated under Pope Francis.
  • Researchers and Indigenous leaders dispute Vatican claims that the objects were freely gifted for the 1925 Vatican Mission Exposition, noting the era’s suppression of Indigenous culture.
  • There is no public inventory and reports differ on the exact count, while leaders such as Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak call the return an emotional step that does not end reconciliation.