WARNING: This story contains harrowing details.
Dozens of people commemorated the anniversary Saturday of the display of shoes on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, placed there after alleged unmarked graves were discovered last year on the grounds of a former boarding school in Kamloops.
On Saturday, Haida artist Tamara Bell, along with others, held a ceremony to reflect on the year since she arranged 215 pairs of shoes on the steps of the art gallery, a former provincial courthouse.
She placed the shoes to represent the more than 200 children whose unmarked graves are believed to have been discovered with ground-penetrating radar in early May 2021 by the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation at the former site of the Kamloops Indian Residential College.
“A reminder of the number of children who have been discovered at sites across the country at residential schools,” Bell said. “We have to get to the truth before we can get to reconciliation and without the truth, reconciliation is impossible.”
After Bell installed the 215 shoes on May 28, 2021, many people in the city gathered at the site to reflect on the discovery and added other shoes, stuffed animals, toys and artwork as a way to cope with the discovery in Kamloops.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) has said that about 4,100 children died in Canada’s residential schools, but that the actual total is much higher.
A large number of indigenous children who were forcibly sent to residential schools never returned home.
The discovery in Kamloops in May 2021 began a nationwide reckoning about Canada’s past and its treatment of Indigenous people. Since then, many other nations have made other discoveries of alleged unmarked graves across the country.
Other memorials, similar to the one in Vancouver, were installed in other cities across Canada.
On Monday, the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation held a large ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the discovery in Kamloops, attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General of Canada Mary Simon.
“People don’t really understand or comprehend the significance of the 500-plus years of trauma that Indigenous peoples have endured,” Bell said Saturday on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
He hopes the memorial will help foster the change needed on the part of Canadians to acknowledge the country’s colonial past and bring about reconciliation, as set out by the NCTR.
William Nahanee, a boarding school survivor, was at the art gallery on Saturday.
“We have a better chance, I think as a survivor, that First Nations people, if given the right opportunity, can become a proper part of this growing Canadian society that we all want,” he said.
The Kamloops Indian Residential School operated from 1890 until 1969, when the federal government took over administration from the Catholic Church to run it as a residence for a day school, until it closed in 1978.
According to the NCTR, as many as 500 children from First Nations communities throughout British Columbia and elsewhere were enrolled at the school at one time.
Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at the residential schools or by recent reports.
A national Indian residential schools crisis line has been established to offer support to alumni and those affected. Individuals can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
Do you have information about unmarked graves, children who never came home, or boarding school staff and operations? Email your details to CBC’s new Indigenous team investigating residential schools: [email protected].
Reference-www.cbc.ca