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February 10, 2015 Vol. 30 • No. 12 ••• $1.25 inc. G.S.T.
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Residential reconciliation
Erin Haluschak Record Staff
St. Michael’s Residential School in Alert Bay, B.C. — one of five remaining residential schools in the province — is slated for demolition later this year. This is the first of a threepart February series looking further into the stories of the students, challenges faced by local First Nations in the Comox Valley today, and a special mid-month ceremony at the school to acknowledge the past and ignite hope for the future. Evelyn Voyageur remembers her mother coming home in tears. She was nine years old, living on Gilford Island when she was told she had to leave to Alert Bay to attend St. Michael’s Residential School. “You have to go to the school or you’ll be taken away from us forever,
I’tustolagalis – Rising Up, Together will bring former students to Alert Bay residential school before its demolition
or we’ll go to jail,” she recalls her mother saying. The next day, she was placed on a water taxi. Voyageur, who now lives in the Comox Valley, has gone on a healing journey, but says she has absolutely no recollection of the approximately 30-kilometre trip from her home to the school. “I try to bring it up in my memory, but it must have been so traumatic,” she says. “Ten of us were on that taxi.” Voyageur does, however, remember all of the six years she attended the school. “The very fabric of First Nations people is family. I was separated from my brother and my family. What they taught us is to not speak our lan-
Above, a single desk remains in a classroom in the dilapidated St. Michael’s Residential School. Right, Evelyn Voyageur shows a cut-out heart that will be part of the reconciliation ceremony later this month, which she will attend, along with other former students of the school. PHOTO SCOURTESY CTV VANCOUVER ISLAND
guage, to de-Indianize us.” While she admits there were some good people at the school, she describes days in the classrooms as emotionally degrading, filled with physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Her brother, whom she saw infrequently at St. Michael’s, ran away because he was starving, and made his way back to Gilford Island in a rowboat. Unlike many other residential schools, during Christmas, Easter and major holidays, students were able to go home and visit their parents. Voyageur considers herself very lucky. At home she was free. Her parents taught her skills such as fishing and berry picking. “Our parents were always so glad to see us. Our culture was so strong at home. Unfortunately, some other parents went to residential schools, and it was safer for the kids to stay in the school. That was not the case with us, and mom and dad.” For other students, Voyageur remembers there were no role models. She k n o w s m a n y people who were raised solely in residential schools, and learned everything from what happened both inside and outside the classroom.
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