Education about that difficult history is a key component to the work being done by Ahze-mino-gahbewewin, or Reconciliation Kenora.

The non-profit was created by Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members last year to support initiatives promoting reconciliation.

“If there was any place we felt needed action, it is Kenora,” said co-chair Elaine Bright, a non-Indigenous lawyer who represented people at residential school hearings and has lived in Kenora for about five years.

The group has done a few projects so far, including a powwow in June and a traditional medicine garden. Its members include a retired Ontario Superior Court judge, a councillor with the Métis Nation of Ontario and a member of city council, among others.

The group itself is a microcosm of the challenges with reconciliation in the larger community, said Kathleen Skead, the director of the group.

At a meeting there was discussion about showing the film about Chanie Wenjack at an event, but Skead said another member was worried it would just “shame” Kenora. You can’t even start talking about reconciliation if you are unwilling to face the wrongs in the past, she added.

“I did tell everybody, ‘OK, this is the elephant now in the room. It's been said, it's right here,’ and I gave everybody a chance to give their opinions ... So even within a group this is such a big issue, this is such a big topic that it's hard to really say where we are going to start, how we are going to start,” she said.

However, it’s important the group’s members are seen to be trying, she said. That’s not always the case in the larger community.

Back at the coffee shop, Yerxa and Kakeeway talk about how the responsibility of reconciliation is somehow falling on First Nations. It’s becoming exhausting.

Elder chimes in that she’ll listen to all the apologies, but until there’s an emergency shelter downtown and kids aren’t being taken into care, it won’t mean anything.

“People say they want reconciliation, but they want absolution. They want forgiveness and they want to say, ‘OK we are starting from fresh.’ But until you stop the whole system, the big things, colonization, how can you start from fresh?”

What does reconciliation look like in small communities? It’s a question that reporters for Discourse Media and CBC Indigenous have been trying to get answers to.

Follow the project here.