When can we go home?

The question rumbles through your mind faster than the ever-changing landscape. Only this morning, you were running through the pine trees trying to catch squirrels, and now, the jagged brick building stares you down like a monster, its mouth agape to swallow you whole as you are fed through
the entrance.

You tell your six-year-old brother, “Follow the people in black. I’ll find you later,” before kissing his soft cheeks. Fear fogs his cedar eyes, but he nods and follows the trail of young boys. You can still see his braids bouncing against his buckskin jacket, the red beads from your si’lu catching the sunlight. Something in your heart and spirit feels severed—separated.

A woman shrouded in black yells at you, clutching a silver chain in her hand. The chain has blue beads, but not like the beads from home, and a small statue of a man at the end. Are his eyes following you? Is this their Creator?

Cold air slashes the back of your neck and a knife catches the light. There’s an absence, and you reach behind you. The woman is holding a knife, and in her other hand, a thick, long braid hangs limp. Strands of brown hair fall into
the mud.

The realization catches you too slowly because the woman in black is still screaming at you, but her words don’t make sense.

Savage? 39?

Too soon will these words make sense to you as you lie asleep at night; as you whisper your name in your language into cold sheets, so you don’t forget it—forget you and where you came from.

Your heritage is gripped in this mean woman’s hands as it begins to unravel and fray. Your lhi’um braided your hair this morning with tears in her eyes.

Who are these people? Why did they cut my hair? Where is my brother?

~

September 30 is Orange Shirt Day—or Truth and Reconciliation Day— and by wearing an orange shirt, you commit to honouring the truth and working towards a reconciled future. It’s a commemoration and a recognition of the history of Canada’s residential school system for Indigenous children, honouring the healing journey of the survivors and their families.

In May of 2015, Phyllis Webstad and her story spearheaded the Orange Shirt Society and Orange Shirt Day.

Webstad was six years old when she lived with her grandmother on the Dog Creek reservation in the Cariboo Regional District of BC. Her grandmother bought her a new outfit before she went to the Mission Residential School. Webstad remembers choosing a shiny orange shirt.

She felt so bright and so excited.

When she got to the Mission school, she was stripped of her clothing—her orange shirt.

From that moment, the colour orange reminded Webstad that her feelings didn’t matter, no one cared, and that she was worthless.

~

Residential schools were created to separate Indigenous children from their families, to fracture and strip any link to their identity and culture.

Rose Dorothy Charlie spoke of her experiences at the Baptist school in Whitehorse, YT.

This idea of residential schools came from Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, whose ruthless political and racial views set fire to treaties and any relationships built between European settlers and Indigenous peoples across Canada.

“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, training, and mode of thought are Indian.

“He is simply a savage who can read and write,”

MacDonald said as he spoke to the House of Commons in 1883.

“Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

Residential schools were in existence for over 100 years, with the last one closing in 1997, Grollier Hall in Inuvik, NT. The central goals of these residential schools were to eliminate Indigenous culture and to indoctrinate children into the “new” culture of the legally dominant Euro-Christian Canadian society.

Though there is no definitive number, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found a confirmed list of 4118 children who died while attending residential schools. Murray Sinclair, Chairman of TRC, has stated that the actual number could be higher.

The scars might not be visible, but they remain in the living and breathing residential school survivors who come forward to share their stories. As the seasons pass, these experiences and their wounds are like roots in the land, intertwining themselves with the generations growing.

When trauma is passed down from one generation to the next, it is called “Intergenerational Trauma.” It is the “effect of a previous unresolved trauma passed on to subsequent generations of an individual’s family, community,
and culture.”

Intergenerational trauma was first studied in the 1960s with Holocaust survivors and their children (victims). These studies found that children felt a responsibility to take on their parents’ pain, to include the nightmares of the Holocaust, without experiencing it firsthand.

Trauma that lives in the passing of generations has many embodiments, and it can look like abuse, anxiety, neglect, distress, homelessness, low self-esteem, depression, addictions, shame, and suicide.

The manifestation of trauma looks, feels, and reacts differently in everyone, and it can affect a parent’s ability to care for their child, which in turn can traumatize that child. Continuing research in epigenetics suggests that trauma can lead to genetic changes in the human body due to prolonged exposure to stress.

A residential school survivor, continuously punished for speaking their language, conforming to colonial ways through harsh discipline and abuse, will develop unhealthy coping mechanisms as well. As adults, these unhealthy strategies will manifest in different ways, and survivors often turn to substances, such as alcohol, to numb their feelings. Their children often repeat the cycle and become the victims of residential school survivors.

A force that is equally as resilient and enduring as trauma, if not stronger, is healing. As trauma ripples through the generations, so can reconciliation, cultural values, and language reclamation.

Truth and reconciliation are not solely an Indigenous Peoples’ duty; it is a Canadian one.

The first seed we can cultivate is acknowledging the truth shared—Canada’s legacy of residential schools and its goal of systematically dismantling Indigenous culture, language, and identity.

To move forward with reconciliation, we must be mindful and intentional. Imagine reconciliation as a paved path through a forest. To walk it, we have to leave behind the old system that created residential schools. In its place, we take steps to build new ways of relating and interacting with one another. This applies to everyone, from the government, businesses, to you, and me.

In 2007, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was implemented, which was the largest class-action settlement in Canada’s history. From this agreement, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created. The TRC was mandated to inform all Canadians about the residential school system and its legacy.

The following year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a formal apology on behalf of the Government of Canada to all residential school survivors and former students. This apology was a nationwide recognition of Canada’s history and the truths of the survivors.

Between 2007 and 2015, the TRC heard from more than 6500 survivors. (The document summarizing these accounts can be found at the end of this article.) These stories were gathered in either local hearings or private statement gatherings. This approach was created to be as respectful, comprehensive, and accessible as possible.

These interviews and discussions were an act of healing, as well as a collective act of truth-telling, courage, and resilience.

At the same time, the TRC engaged in national events to educate Canadians on the history and legacy of the residential school systems. They worked closely with educators from a variety of sectors, from primary school to post-secondary institutions, to make resources and learning readily accessible.

“When the plane took off, there’s about six or five older ones, didn’t cry, but I saw tears come right out of their eyes. Everybody else was crying. There’s a whole plane crying. I wanted to cry, too, ‘cause my brother was crying, but I held my tears back and held him,” Florence Horassi said, who was taken from her home and was transported to the school in Fort Providence, NT, in a
small airplane.

When they reached the school, she and her brother were separated.

Nellie Ningewance of Hudson, ON, went to the Sioux Lookout Residential School in Ontario. Upon arrival, Ningewance was registered with a number, “…then they took us to cut our hair.”

“That number was tied in all our clothes; our garments, our jackets. Everything was numbered,” Ningewance said.

Campbell Papequash was taken to a residential school when his grandfather died. “I was stripped of my clothes, the clothes that I came to residential school with, you know, my moccasins,” he said. “I had nice, beautiful long hair and they were neatly braided by my mother before I went to [the] residential school.”

“I saw violence for the first time,” Rachel Chakasim said of her time at the Fort Albany, ON, school. “I would see kids getting hit. Sometimes in the classrooms, a yardstick was being used to hit. A nun would hit us. Even though our hair was short as it is, the nuns would grab us by the hair, and throw us on the floor of the classroom… We never knew such fear before.”

Frances Tait shared her experiences of sexual abuse from students and staff at the Alberni school in Port Alberni, BC. “I was taken out night after night after night. And that went on until I was about twelve years old. It was several of the male supervisors, plus a female.”

Richard Hall’s experience of abuse at the Port Alberni school changed his life. “I was twelve years old. At twelve years old, I began drinking alcohol to forget.”

A month after Phyllis Webstad’s Orange Shirt Day movement in 2015, the TRC, with its statements and stories, presented a final report that contained 94 “Calls to Action,” or recommendations, for how all individuals, alongside the government of Canada as a whole, can move towards reconciliation.

Orange Shirt Day is Call to Action number 80. It is the day to recognize Canada’s history and the long-lasting effects of intergenerational trauma. The call to action for Orange Shirt Day is “Every Child Matters.”

To honour the truth and begin walking the path of reconciliation, you must understand which land you walk upon, and more importantly, that you do not walk alone.

Acknowledging the legacy of the residential schooling system in Canada can feel like gazing upon the barren lands. It’s vast, endless, and can feel overwhelming, but we must learn the history to walk the path that’s been set out for us, one step at a time.

Taking steps forward doesn’t require action; it can be a quiet personal choice to acknowledge our history, an inner self-reflection. The acknowledgment can also take a tangible form, perhaps an orange shirt.

Orange Shirt Day and Phyllis Webstad’s story, as well as the thousands of other accounts by elders and survivors today, are an acknowledgment of the past to ensure that every story of survival and resilience lives on.

Webstad once shared: “Every child that went to residential school, well, they all matter. Even the ones that didn’t come home, they matter. And it wasn’t until after we were using that slogan that I realized that it fits the past, the present and the future. It fits reconciliation—it’s one of those divine things that fits in this day of reconciliation.”

Even taking a moment to reflect on the experiences of the survivors and putting yourself in their shoes. Imagine what it would be like to be taken from your home, stripped of your heritage, and punished for speaking your language. How would you feel if your name were erased?

That’s where the first seed is planted, in self-reflection and acknowledgment. Reconciliation means taking action and that act can be as monumental as listening to a survivor’s story or wearing an orange shirt.

All recounted memories of the Residential Schools by survivors can be found in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s documented summary online. I encourage you to look through the document for your own journey.

To start taking your own steps toward Truth and Reconciliation, the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s website is a wonderful source with thorough documentation of survivor stories from 2015. You can also find more information about Orange Shirt Day here.

Listen to a heartbreaking, but incredibly informative podcast series on CBC about the Kuper Island Indian Residential School on Penelakut Island called “Kuper Island,” which shares the stories of four students: three who survived and one who didn’t.

The annual Orange Shirt Day is an opportunity to start and create conversations about residential schools, its effects, and its legacy left behind. Reconciliation comes from within. It’s a day for survivors to be reaffirmed that they matter, that every child matters.