Relics of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Jean de Brébeuf tour northern Ontario

The Relics of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous saint in North America, and of St. Jean de Brébeuf are travelling across northern Ontario.

The relics of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous saint in North America, and St. Jean de Brébeuf are currently travelling across northern Ontario.

Officials with the pilgrimage tour said the focus is on prayer, healing and reconciliation.

Led by the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre in Espanola and Fr. John O’Brien of the Martyrs Shrine in Midland, the relics are making stops in nine communities across the North, before wrapping up this weekend.

“People generally are very grateful,” O’Brien said.

“They’re just happy to have the chance to encounter these relics, which are, of course, the bone fragments of these great figures -- kind of our spiritual ancestors who walked the ground in Canada 400 years ago.”

From Moosonee to Sudbury and everywhere in between, each community event includes a mass and time for personal prayer.

“The opportunity for us to accompany the relics, especially St. Kateri, to remote Indigenous churches would be very important,” said Edwina Macdonald, executive director of the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre.

“And churches in general, of course. It would give us an opportunity because we are a training centre for, lay ministry, especially Catholic, Indigenous ministry. So it was an opportunity to meet these other churches, to be able to … support to them.”

Cross-Canada tour

O’Brien said this is the end of what has been a cross-Canada tour as the Martyrs Shine marks its 100th anniversary in 2026.

“There’s a lot of centennial celebrations happening this year,” he said.

“We extend an open invitation to all Canadians and Ontarians to visit this summer. It’s also the 400th anniversary of those first encounters with the Jesuit missionaries and the Wendat (Huron) people. So it’s kind of a big anniversary year, a good year to make a pilgrimage or a visit to the national shrine.”

For those who can’t make it to Midland, there are still stops left on the tour. They will be in Kapuskasing Jan. 23, North Bay on Jan. 24 and Sudbury on Jan. 25, with the relics returning to the shrine on Jan. 26.