The shíshálh Nation marked Orange Shirt Day on Sept. 30 with a ceremony at the residential school monument attended by a handful of survivors and their supporters.
Howard Paull (left) opened with a prayer and a Chief Dan George song, followed by remarks from Chief Calvin Craigan and council.
Pictured from left are Paull, Coun. Robert Joe, Coun. Chris August, Chief Craigan, Coun. Randy Joe and Dionne Paul, who organized the event.
The band purchased 150 orange T-shirts with the slogan “Every Child Matters” for the occasion, and Paul said they would be given to high school students and residential school survivors. August called the orange shirts “a small token of remembrance” of the era. “Don’t look at this as the day we get to honour those who went to residential school,” August said. “Honour them every day. I think about my grandfather every day.”
Started in 2013 in Williams Lake, Orange Shirt Day was inspired by the writings of Phyllis Jack Webstad, a Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation woman, who had picked out an orange shirt to wear on her first day at residential school in 1973, when she was six, only to have it permanently taken from her once she arrived at the school.
