By Breanne Massey
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Our team began this project to raise awareness about the longstanding effects of systemic racism that have occurred on Canadian soil as a result of the Indian Residential School System that hosted the apprehension of ~150,000 children in 150 years.
While the doors of residential schools may have closed in the 1990s, the trauma of experiencing residential school and surviving has not escaped the memories of Indigenous elders that were ripped away from loving families and communities for “education.”
Neither the closing of the residential schools, nor the deaths of countless children who were apprehended, could remove the scars that continue to linger on several generations of Indigenous lives, families and communities throughout Canada. Common experiences reported at residential schools included physical, psychological and sexual abuse of First Nations children who were forced to assimilate.
Our team wishes to open the circle, where we live and work, for all nations to acknowledge the original peoples on the lands and pay our respects to ancestors, elders, traditional knowledge-keepers, chiefs and councils, band members and to the future generations of children from the Columbia Valley.
Our goal is to share stories that reflect the truth about Indigenous communities in the East Kootenay region of B.C., as well as to recognize the traditional territories of the Ktunaxa and the Sécwepemc supersede any current political boundaries within the area.
The Kootenay Indian Residential School, also commonly referred to as the St. Eugene’s Mission, operated between 1912 and closed its doors on June 26, 1970.
The Ktunaxa Nation Council had planned a commemorative ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the closure of the school to take place near Cranbrook between Sept. 18 and 20, 2020, at what is now known as the St. Eugene’s Golf Resort and Casino, but was forced to cancel the event due to the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Chiefs and councils remain optimistic about hosting a commemorative event this year, in 2021, if the public health officer’s safety guidelines for COVID-19 permit the community to do so.
In an effort to honour some of the stories shared with our team through the Local Journalism Initiative, we would like to pay our respects to survivors, both alive and bereaved, and commemorate that it’s been 50 years since the St. Eugene’s Mission near Cranbrook, B.C. has been closed with the stories shared within this project.
