Help and support for survivors and their families can be found through the Hope for Wellness Help Line at 1-855-242-3310 or hopeforwellness.ca. A crisis line is also available through Indian Residential School Survivors and Family at 1-866-925-4419.
The fourth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in the shíshálh swiya drew in more than 500 people wanting to show their support and stand with residential school survivors.
shíshálh Nation members, Elders, and residential school survivors were joined by invited guests and people from the public of all ages who gathered at the residential school monument on Sept. 30.
As the crowd continued to grow leading up to the ceremony, xwash Steven Feschuk, protector of culture for shíshálh Nation welcomed everyone and said Cedar bow brushings were available for anyone throughout the day.
The ceremony was filled with songs, performed by Nation members and guests ranging from youth to adults.
hihewus (councillor) Raquel Joe welcomed attendees, remarking how the event has grown yearly, asking everyone to, “Please absorb everything that you hear and everything that you see and you share that with your friends and family.”
Early in the ceremony, a blanketing, blessing and cleansing of the residential school monument was done. “Every year we step forward and do a blessing for the monument space, we have a blanket that we blanket the residential school monument,” xwash explained to the crowd. “We also have two stools there that are representative for the spirits of all the children that passed away in residential school … Those stools were provided to allow them to come to our ceremonies, for their spirits to come and witness the work that we're doing here today.”
As drummers and singers played, shíshálh Nation Elders and residential school survivors came forward to blanket the monument and the seats designated for the children.
“This monument was carved based off of the stories of our survivors, the constant stories of survivors, telling of them being taken from their families, taken from their grandparents, their parents, being dragged away to residential school, and that's what you see, is the mother and the child being torn apart,” said xwash. “This is a story that has been constant throughout our residential school survivors' descendants, and this is important that we're providing this work here today.”
A prayer song was performed before the moment of silence was recognized.
“This moment of silence is our opportunity to think and pray for the children who did not survive the residential school system, this is our moment to think about the residential school survivors and share a collective prayer for them,” xwash said.
Youth dancers drummers and singers performed five different songs for some of the stutula family clans of the shíshálh Nation including stalashen (Orca), huham (Frog), mayukw (Bear), weweḵw’nach em (Wolf) and ḵ’aykw (Eagle).
hiwus Garry Feschuk, whose ancestral name is ?akista xaxanak also shared words with the audience.
Prefacing that he was touched seeing so many people dressed in orange, Feschuk encouraged those taking part in the walk to take a moment to recognize the Reconciliation Pole which was unveiled earlier this year. Feschuk shared that his cousin ?antuni Tony Paul started the pole and encouraged the public to take part before he and his wife passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The pole and the tent was right on the grounds where the building is now, and he had over 1,400 people go through his tent and put a notch in that pole.” said Feschuk. “To me, that's true reconciliation.”
Speaking about recent events, Feschuk said, “Denial is not an option,” and encouraged attendees to share the message.
Feschuk also announced a new syiyaya Reconciliation Movement project. He said the Sechelt Hospital has commissioned a reconciliation blanket that will be hung up in the hospital. Feschuk said local artist Jessica Silvey will make the blanket and work with doctors, nurses and staff, helping them add a weave to it.
“We bring awareness up, we don't do it with shame, blame or pointing fingers,” said Feschuk. “We just want you to be aware this actually happened in those schools, and that's why I wanted to say that from today on, share the message, denial is over.”
“I want to commend our young councillors, our first female chief, for bringing us together and moving us forward,” said hiwus Calvin Craigan. “When I see the young ones dancing and singing, when I see our young people working hard building new homes. Our people are beginning to thrive. Our people are beginning to walk with pride and dignity once again and that lifts my spirit, it lifts my heart.”
Artist Manuela Salinas shared about her design on the orange shirts this year. Explaining her design “piggybacks” off the design from last year she said, “I really wanted to show how much of an impact we're all making. To remember those who suffered and who didn't make it home,” Salinas said. “The Every Child Matters sun represents them, finding light, being guided home, being free, finding freedom, not being trapped anymore, and being heard.”
The team conducting the ground penetrating radar (GPR) were also invited to share about their ongoing work. As xwash welcomed them to the stage he reminded attendees that the ground where the ceremony took place is also where St. Augustine’s residential school once stood.
“We still have scanning to do. There is no blueprint, there is no boundary to where these children may lay still. They are here with us. They're always here with us,” said xwash. “Our community, being a host community, has a responsibility to outreach to other Nations, the 51 plus Nations that attended the Sechelt residential school, we are always here and ready when other nations are ready to start their healing and wellness journey.”
Archaeologist Micaela Champagne introduced her team who have worked in every province and territory across Canada and explained how GPR creates images of what's beneath the surface.
“Every survivor that has talked to us, every intergenerational survivor that has carried these truths from those survivors and their families, they all tell us the same story of how children have gone missing. They remember their classmates disappearing,” said Champagne. “And as a scientist, this tells me that this was a planned and total eradication for our people, and yet here we are standing here September 30, and I see my relatives. I may be Cree, but you're still my relatives. We're here, and they did not get rid of us.”
hihewus Rochelle Jones said, “It is hurtful and harmful to our community when people of speak of the tragedies and traumas of residential school as a conspiracy theory, as something to debunk or something to question in the same light as people question If the Earth is round.”
Deputy Mayor of Sechelt, Brenda Rowe said, “I encourage each of us to reflect on our personal commitments to this journey. Reconciliation is not just merely a word. It's an ongoing process. It calls us to educate ourselves and to confront the uncomfortable truths of our history. Reconciliation requires all of us to take meaningful action.”
Gibsons Mayor, Silas White said, “There has been a lot to reflect upon in recent days as a local leader in this community … I've learned, especially from the shíshálh people, that in the spirit of reconciliation, our commonalities, what we share together, is more important than differences.”
“I have learned as a community leader that engaging in ‘what about ism’ is the opposite of leadership,” White said. “To support reconciliation, our community needs our political leaders to accept the broad truth that our colonial governments and churches instituted a nationwide strategy of cultural genocide. This truth is an unwieldy emotional burden of intergenerational trauma on our Indigenous peoples, and it's also a significant burden on the rest of us to reconcile.
“At the leadership level, on the path to reconciliation, bringing up ‘what about this,’ or ‘what about that’ promotes division and is not supportive of this journey that we're on together,” White said. “We don't need our leaders in Canada to be counting each unmarked grave and questioning or deciding how each one got there. That is a job for our scientists, for archeologists and for credible historians. Our job as leaders is to understand and recognize what those graves represent.”
After the speeches, the ceremony the Walk for Reconciliation began, led by shíshálh councillors, starting at the residential school monument.
xwash explained the significant areas the walk would pass, starting with Memmiman Street where the Nation’s first preschool was established. The walking route also passed be the seashore Cemetary, where xwash said many of the Nation’s ancestors are buried. The walk then passed the totem poles alone Sinku Drive, where xwash said their ancestors first established what is now the town of Sechelt.
The route then passed Friendship Park, near where the Union Steamship Company would bring children who were forced to attend the residential school.
“The Union Steamship is where most of the residential school children would first ever step a foot on shíshálh lands,” said xwash. “You are going to be walking in the steps where these residential school children walked their walk from the Union Steamship up to the residential school. This is a really important part of the walk, and I really ask you to open your hearts on that part of the journey.”
The route also passed the carved hearts attached to the fence alongside mem7iman Child Development Centre and Friendship Park in Friendship park, done through syiyaya Reconciliation Movement last year.
Before the walk concluded back by the residential school monument, it passed the recently unveiled Reconciliation Pole once again. Participants were encouraged to take a moment to reflect on the story of the Nation’s journey through residential schools carved on the pole as they completed the walk.
“I thank you, my hands go up to you, ?ul nu msh chalap [Thank you, said to a group] thank you everybody for your support here today,” xwash said as the ceremony transitioned to beginning the walk.
Jordan Copp is the Coast Reporter’s civic and Indigenous affairs reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
