I was sure I could hear the echoes of children’s voices, of all the children who, like Alsena, had prayed and dreamed of being able to escape. It was physically hard, too – I wanted to run away. I thought of those children’s parents, whose instincts must have been to protect and fight for their children, but who had been rendered powerless by the authorities. I thought of my own children and how gut-wrenching it would be if they were stolen from me and raised by strangers who tried to teach them to hate who they are. I thought of Alsena and the courage it had taken for her to return to a place she described as a prison, to a place where she was molested, demeaned and torn away from her family, her culture and her identity.
On them were lists of names – the names of the thousands of Indigenous children across Canada who never made it out of their residential schools, who died in them – of neglect, abuse, disease. Then, I noticed sheets of paper taped around a couple of the beams that held up the ceiling. It was quiet and dark, with just the glare of the mid-winter sun lighting the room. I needed to get outside, to take a breath. It was once a student dining hall.Īgain, I felt as though the smell was smothering me. I walked across the hallway into a larger room where tables and chairs were stacked. Did it feel more intense because I am Indigenous or because my own grandmother attended a residential school? Does it feel that way for others who have no personal connection to it? To be there in a space that held memories of such tragedy, sadness, abuse, genocide. Because, Alsena answered, she used to do just that as a child who dreamed of being out there, of escaping, instead of being trapped in here. My colleague, photojournalist Amber Bracken, asked her why she preferred to have her photo taken looking out of the window.
Number 39, her number – the number she was given in place of her name – was still there, above the space where she once brushed her teeth and washed her face.Īs she prepared to pose for a photo in front of it, her gaze drifted out of the dirty window. Alsena made her way through the rubble and found a memento from a nightmare she has never forgotten. Tiny green tiles were still visible on the walls. It was where she had once kept her belongings.Īround the corner was a small, crumbling room with rubbish strewn across the floor, pipes open and moulding. She stopped at one of the cubbies attached to the wall. The first room she took us to was partially covered in beautiful art painted by students in recent years after the former residential school was transformed into a First Nations university. There was a strong, musty smell that overwhelmed my senses and seemed to follow me the whole time we were inside. Maybe it felt more so because I was with a former student who had just shared with me some of the details of her horrifying experiences there as a child.Īlsena White led us to the basement of the large, cathedral-like brick building that once housed the area’s First Nations children, operating with the government-mandated goal to “kill the Indian in the child”. For more information on program availability and upcoming programs, please visit our support website.When I walked into the old Blue Quills Indian Residential School in St Paul, Alberta, it was like being transported back in time. This is a list of all the programs currently available to watch on ABC iview.
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