Our Brand
Thank you for visiting our new website. We are extremely grateful to our talented media partners at Spruce Creative, namely Paul Marconi for his poignant and elegant design, Cindy MacBride for her outstanding editing and project management and Rose Seto for her seamless development.
Our flying goose logo honours a Hoselton figurine that Guy Freedman, one of our Principal’s mother, had in her collection. When we designed the logo all those years ago, people wondered what kind of goose it was. Guy was fond of saying if it was flying over First Nations territory it was a First Nations goose; it was a Métis goose over Métis communities and an Inuit goose if flying over Inuit Nunangat. And everywhere else it’s a Canada Goose. We think it’s now the perfect metaphor for our big idea of building a stronger, better, more inclusive Canada that we call [Re]Confederation.
Special shout out to three of our team for providing photos. Heather Watts, one of our Principals, took the beautiful photo of Crawford Lake while on a family hike to showcase her INSIGHTS piece on the continued encroachment on Indigenous lands. The magnificent photo of Chief Louis Espagnol in front of the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in Biscotasing is from the collection of our Senior Advisor Ray Hatfield. Ray is Chief Espangnol’s great, great grandson. Our newest associate Augatnaaq Eccles kindly shared her stunning pic of two qamutiiks during one of her family’s trips on the land.
Vern Rutley from Flin Flon, Manitoba is the magician behind the camera for the purple sunrise from the About page, the train trestle pic from our Meet the Team section, the ghost like pic of train tracks over a frosty lake in the Contact Us page and his much-celebrated Common Loon pic on the INSIGHTS page. As a side note, Vern and Guy have been and continue to remain best friends since they were babies growing up in Flin Flon where Vern still resides.
Artwork that anchors our Services section is archival beadwork and hide patterns done in gauche by the esteemed First Nations artist and beader Sherry Farrell Racette. It honours four nations; Mohawk (learning icon), Algonquin, acknowledging our head office located on Algonquin territory (engagement icon), Inuit, (planning icon) and Métis (research, policy and advisory services icon).
And last but not least, thanks to team members, Heather, Cassidy, Diane, Danielle, Ally, Janna and Bob for breathing life into the writing and editing of the site and their dedication to building a better Canada for all.
