ManitobaAfter months of back and forth between protesters and Circle of Life Thunderbird House’s board of directors, the Indigenous cultural hub in Winnipeg’s core area is getting its roof fixed.Community members say they were denied access to site, which board says was due to safety concernsMike Arsenault · CBC News · Posted: Nov 19, 2025 7:12 AM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Circle of Life Thunderbird House, at Higgins Avenue and Main Street, is slated to get long-awaited repairs to its roof starting next week. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)An Indigenous cultural hub in Winnipeg’s core area is getting much-needed repairs following a months-long protest. The push for repairs at Circle of Life Thunderbird House came after community members said they were being denied access to the space, which the Thunderbird House board of directors said was due to safety concerns. But that didn’t sit well with Meagan Salwan, who, along with others, has been occupying Thunderbird House in protest since March. She used the space, at the intersection of Higgins Avenue and Main Street, for years to practise with her drumming group.”I noticed people were working out of here, renting offices, and I said, ‘OK, well, if it’s unsafe for us, why is it not unsafe for people to work in there?'” she said.”I noticed it was only [the community] that were pushed out.”The roof of Thunderbird House has long been in rough shape, with the copper that lines the roof coming off.Inside, Thunderbird House’s plumbing, ventilation and smoke alarms need to be fixed. Salwan wanted the space to be restored to its former glory. After consulting with community members, she decided to organize an occupation protest in an effort to pressure the board to start the repairs.Meagan Salwan, who has been protesting inside Thunderbird House for months, says it was ‘a sigh of relief’ to learn the roof repairs will soon begin. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)”I just said, ‘Screw it, I’m going to come in and plop down here and see what happens,'” she said.”Once I had community on board, I just came and I sat in the middle of the floor and said, ‘Call who you need to call, ’cause I’m not going anywhere.'”Finally, after her eight-month protest, she’s learned the repairs are happening, after an architecture company took to social media to say it has been chosen to fix the roof of the building.”It’s a sigh of relief,” said Salwan.”I feel like us being here, like community actually using this space, got [the board] to be, like, ‘Hey, there’s people who actually love this place. Let’s get it done.'”Roof fix a priority: board chairThunderbird House’s board of directors said they share the goal of seeing the building restored. Coleen Rajotte joined the board in 2024, and became its chair shortly after the protesters occupied the space.”When I was a young woman in my 20s, I went to Thunderbird House for help and support, which is one of the reasons I joined the board,” said Rajotte.Coleen Rajotte is the board chair at Circle of Life Thunderbird House. (Gary Solilak/CBC)Thunderbird House doesn’t have any staff, she said. All the work at the centre is being done by a volunteer board of directors, and their first priority is getting the roof fixed.”That’s taken a lot of work and a lot of focus over the summer to get this underway,” said Rajotte. “We understand [the protesters’] concerns that the building has fallen into disrepair, and I can understand that they think this is taking too long,” she said.”But behind the scenes there’s been a lot of work going on, and we are moving forward in a good way.”In 2023, Circle of Life Thunderbird House was allocated nearly $2.8 million for repair work through the Indigenous community infrastructure fund, a federal program.Rajotte said the roof repairs will be funded with that money, but there’s more work to be done.”The windows, the doors, the kitchen inside, the plumbing needs to be repaired. We recently had the sprinkler system fixed,” she said.”There’s all sorts of things that building requires, and all of that money is going towards fixing it.”In 2015, Thunderbird House’s charitable status was revoked because of a failure to file the necessary reports to maintain it. Rajotte said the board is working on getting that back, so Thunderbird House can apply for funding to staff the building and hire an executive director who can manage the space.Roof work starting soonPeter Parkman, the co-owner of Arrow Commercial Exteriors, which has been hired to fix the roof, says the work is going to start next week.Parkman said Arrow is 50 per cent Indigenous-owned. Indigenous culture is embedded in his company, he said, and Arrow wanted to see Thunderbird House restored because it understands the role the space plays in the community.”Right now, it’s pretty open to the elements. You can see plywood on the exterior,” he said.”So we’re going to be going in there, we’re going to be ripping off all of the metal and all the membrane, and then from there we’re going to assess exactly what needs to be replaced.”Some of the copper has fallen off Thunderbird House’s roof, exposing the wood underneath. ‘Right now, it’s pretty open to the elements,’ says Arrow Commercial Exteriors co-owner Peter Parkman. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)He expects the work to take about three months after that.”[We’re] hoping to finish around March,” he said. “It will happen quite quickly.”The board hopes the repairs will appease the protesters, and that an amicable agreement can be reached once the building is fixed so they won’t have to occupy the space anymore. Protesters, meanwhile, say they want to see an elders council put back in place for Thunderbird House to provide spiritual guidance for the organization.
Thunderbird House getting long-awaited repairs after months-long protest
