One man is continuing his quest to preserve the stories of First Nations, Métis and Inuit elders.
A visual poet, historian and writer, Gerald Kuehl combines pencil-drawn portraits with his subjects' stories, careful never to sugarcoat the horrors of residential schools or forced relocation of communities.
"My job is to tell the truth... in this case the truth hurts," Kuehl says, adding however the recurring theme throughout isn't despair, but the resilience of his subjects.
"There's still a sense of celebration because they survived," he says.
From his photographs, he carefully brings the portrait to life with only his pencil. Each drawings takes anywhere from 70 to 100 hours to complete.
The stories and images have been collected in his new book, 'Portraits of the North'.
While he says it's his most challenging endeavour, Kuehl says his passion is to share the stories around the world in hopes of moving people towards reconciliation and understanding.
"There are people who sadly don’t want to know these stories, they are willfully ignorant," Kuehl says, adding education is always the first step on the spectrum of reconciliation.
"I’m trying to open peoples eyes, we all want our children to be safe and reach their potential," he says. " It feeds my soul, but it's also my way of making the world a better place."
And the book is changing people, parents at a recent reading in Morden said they wish they would've read it earlier.
"I believe you’ve chronicled a very important chapter in Manitoba's history," the attendee said, adding they wished the book had been in their school library growing up.
Kuehl has recently been invited to Norway to help chronicle the stories and history of the country's own Indigenous people.