The Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary is featured in the Autumn 2026 issue of Canada’s History magazine, in a powerful article by Gabrielle McMann on the history and impact of Indigenous friendship centres across the country.
The story opens right here in Calgary with Elder Geraldine “Gerry” Larose, a Sixties Scoop survivor who moved into the AFCC Elders’ Lodge shortly after it opened in late 2023. She describes the lodge as the first place she has ever truly felt at home. Speaking about the community there, she says: “We’re family.”
The article credits the lodge to a vision AFCC CEO Shane Gauthier has held since joining the centre eight years ago. It beautifully traces the AFCC’s growth from a single small space in an industrial-area garage to eight locations, two of them being affordable community housing. Today, the AFCC runs roughly three dozen programs providing social services, cultural resources, and access to ceremony.
The piece also features beautiful photography from the centre, including Elder Betty Delorme receiving a blanket at the Elders’ drop-in centre and a Generations of Healing Sacred Circle gathering.
McMann then widens the lens to the friendship centre movement as a whole, from its grassroots beginnings in the 1950s to the funding realities centres are navigating today. She closes on what this work is really all about: lifting people up, and then holding them up.
Read the full article: The Story Behind Indigenous Friendship Centres, Canada’s History, July 31, 2026.
(Note: The article is also available in the Autumn 2026 print issue under the title “Blanket Support.”)