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February 24, 2015 Vol. 30 • No. 16 ••• $1.25 inc. G.S.T.
COMOX VALLEY
RECORD
A time to heal: Erin Haluschak Record Staff
I’tustolagalis – Rising Up, Together: 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 third part of a three-part February series looking further into the stories of the students, challenges faced by local First Nations in the Comox Valley today, and a special midmonth ceremony at the school to acknowledge the past and ignite hope for the future. For this final instalment, Record reporter Erin Haluschak attended the reconciliation ceremony Feb. 18 at St. Michael's Residential School.
••• “I have seen my fair share of abuse. I have seen my fair share of addiction. And it is a direct effect of all of this.” With a small white piece of paper in her hand for reference, Carla Voyageur gestures towards St. Michael's Residential School, while her voice confidently addresses the hundreds of people in front of her, only wavering slightly to fight a handful of tears. “The time is now to reclaim our children, to reclaim ourselves,” she says. “As a mother, but also as a child, a by-product of this residential school, I plead to you we uphold our children and return to a child-centred way of raising our children.” Voyageur is the daughter of Comox Valley elder Evelyn Voyageur, one of many students from the area who attended the residential school and returned to the small community of Alert Bay on Cormorant Island Wednesday one final time to see the ominous schoolhouse prior to its destruction. The large crowd stood in the shadow of the imposing red brick building as part of a healing ceremony — I'tustolagalis: “Rising Up, Together“ — for students, family members and the community to help let go of some of the sexual, physical and emotional abuse and create means
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Former students of St. Michael's gather prior to school's demolition
of hope through continued healthe front entrance of ing and potential reconciliation. the 86-year-old Using the day as a chance to building, with come to terms with his younger an equal mix self, former student Jimmy of cheers Quatell describes his four years and sobbing spent at the school as nothing drowning but hell, recalling his only goal out the was to survive. sound of “One of the biggest things falling bricks I ever carried from here was and wood that I would never amount to beams. anything. I'm just a stupid little Indian,” he notes. “And I left here with that mentality … it ... see SCHOOL■ 29 was really hard because that stuck in my brain. Everything I was supposed to learn, they kept saying 'are you stupid?' I might as well be, you know.” He looks over his shoulder at the school, noting he's not going to let the school take any more away from him — he's here to take back his childhood. “Today I'm going to take my name Jimmy, and I'm going to grab that little boy and I'm going to take him away. He doesn't belong here now. (We) come from more than this. This place is a black cloud; today, the sun is going to shine.” ••• “Close that door... close that door... close that door.” The chant begins with a small group of people and quickly grows, spreading throughout the crowd as the engine of an excavator grumbles to a start in front of the school. Less than a minute later, opening its bucket like a pair of jaws, the excavator rips into
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