This is the story of a flag.

Not the Maple Leaf, not the provincial ones. It’s not a flag you salute. It’s one you reckon with.

It was created by a man named Curtis Wilson, an artist from the Wei Wai Kum First Nation on Vancouver Island.

Curtis wasn’t commissioned by a government agency or a branding firm. He sat at his kitchen table in 2005 and began sketching a flag because he felt something was missing. There was no flag (no national flag) that represented Indigenous peoples across Canada. No symbol flying at city halls or outside schools that said, we belong here too. So, he designed one.

He called it “Gelgapola”. It means “standing together in support of each other.”

It is, of course, based on the Canadian flag: the same red bars on either side, the same bold maple leaf in the middle. But Curtis reimagined those symbols through his own cultural lens.

On the red sides — salmon. They symbolize family, community, and resilience.

The maple leaf is still there, but inside it swims an orca because for many Indigenous nations, the orca is a protector, a family leader, a symbol of unity. By placing it at the heart of the Canadian symbol, Curtis wasn’t just decorating. He was making a statement: Indigenous peoples are not outside the Canadian story. We are the heart of it.

Curtis passed away in six years ago. He was just 39 years old. But his legacy lives on every time that flag is raised.

And it’s being raised more and more often at powwows, marches, and memorials. In classrooms and university lobbies.

In 2021, when we all began reckoning with the unmarked graves at former residential schools, thousands of Canadians turned to that flag. Sales surged. People raised it on their homes, their businesses, their boats. Not because they were turning their back on Canada, but because they wanted to believe Canada could be better.

The rights to the flag’s design belong to Wilson’s estate and a portion of every flag sale supports his two children. There’s only one authorized retailer of it: the Flag Shop.

The Canadian Indigenous Flag isn’t a replacement for the Maple Leaf.

It doesn’t try to fix everything.

Hopefully, it just reminds people what still needs fixing.

THE WEEK THAT WAS
The News You Didn’t Hear… But Should Have

🌈 Les Optimistes: Good News We All Need

• A Grade 9 class travelled 230 km to Halifax from P.E.I. to bring a grad party to their classmate who is undergoing treatment for leukemia at the children's hospital. 

• A $2M donation for a top Canadian immunotherapy scientist in Victoria will help expand clinical trials that are putting some end-stage cancer patients into remission.

• U.S. President Donald Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination has been withdrawn.

• 🌿 America's happiest workers sell weed: A new survey finds that workers in the U.S. marijuana industry are the happiest of any job sector.

• Idaho’s so-called "Hetero Awesome Fest" was an absolute bust, with videos and posts showing barely a soul at the anti-pride fest. This is “winning”?

• Jeff Bezos was forced to change his Venice wedding reception venue after activists threatened to flood the canals with inflatable crocodiles to block access.

🐶 Paw and Order

• A Cape Breton lobster crew got the jaws-dropping surprise of a lifetime when a 4.5-metre great white shark circled their boat and took a quick bite out of the hull.

• Cougar sightings near Whistler have led to biking trail closures in the Sea-to-Sky region as authorities respond to increased aggressive behaviour.

• An orphaned black bear cub found alone is now in the care of Langley’s Critter Care Wildlife Society, where it’s getting a second chance at a wild life.

🥊 This Dumbass Trade War is STILL On?!

• Nearly 10,000 pounds of live Newfoundland lobsters flew straight to Spain, a first for the province, signalling fresh hopes beyond U.S. trade hurdles.

• Canada’s untapped critical minerals could be a goldmine for jobs, with a new report suggesting their development could spark hundreds of thousands of positions and boost the economy amid U.S. trade tensions.

• The U.S. economy shrank 0.5% in Q1, missing forecasts as U.S. President Trump’s trade wars rattled businesses.

  • Consumer spend also slowed sharply in the first quarter.

• Trump’s proposed “revenge tax” targeting other countries could backfire, not only hitting Canadian businesses but costing the U.S. billions in revenue and investments.

• Most U.S.-made cars now come with a 25% Canadian tariff, turning an Ontario retiree’s dream 1969 Ford Shelby Mustang from Iowa into a $30,000 pricier ride.

🎶 Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do

• In Ontario, brain-computer tech is turning sci-fi into real life: giving kids with disabilities the power to control their environment using only their thoughts.

• Ontario parks will test Canada’s first beach-cleaning robot this summer, called BeBot, which is a Zamboni-style machine that removes plastic, glass, metal, and other debris from beaches. 

• Zero chill: Research shows glaciers in Western Canada are melting twice as fast as a decade ago.

🛶 This Land Is Their Land

• Two firefighting sisters from Pinaymootang First Nation are working on the front lines of Manitoba's wildfires side-by-side.

• A new children's book, Celebrating Potlatches, shines a light on the vital ceremonies that were banned by the Canadian government for more than 65 years. 

• Nurses in First Nations communities in New Brunswick were left out of the province’s $10,000 retention payments aimed at addressing staffing shortages.

🚫 The Deleted Scene Files

• Ontario's promised temporary Science Centre is still MIA, as the province now says no decision has been made on where, or if, it will appear before the new one opens at Ontario Place.

• Inflation held steady at 1.7% in May, in part due to slower rental price increases.

• Loblaw’s pledge to end property controls is being watched by Canada’s Competition Bureau, which sees the move as a win for shoppers and a potential way to lower grocery prices.

• A Canadian woman can’t sue her ex for sending “nearly nude” workplace photos to her bosses, as a tribunal ruled he acted in 'the public's interest.'

• Waterloo gaining serious XP: For the first time ever, the world’s biggest Call of Duty tournament is happening outside the U.S., and it's landing in Kitchener, Ontario. 

• New national health data shows overdose deaths in Canada dropped in 2024, but the numbers remain far above pre-pandemic levels.

🐄 Dystopian 1984 (But With More Cowbell)

• An Ontario senior lost more than $15K to a deepfake of Doug Ford on Facebook advertising a mutual fund account. 

• Florida outdoes itself, again: Florida is building a new detention centre dubbed ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ to hold migrants on an airstrip in the Everglades. 

• A 21-year-old tourist says U.S. border agents denied him entry, and strip searched him, after finding a meme of JD Vance bald on his phone.

• Some folks really want offline time: Internet company Spectrum confirmed that an Ohio woman lost her service connection due to "several shotgun blasts" to a cable line.

• The Golden Gate Bridge is too woke, its CEO warns, as the agency fears Trump will cut hundreds of millions in federal funds if DEI policies stay in place.

• RIP to the books that walked so AI could run: Court documents reveal Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to train its AI. 

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