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Legacy of Indian Residential School in focus for annual memorial walk

October 6, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

As communities across Canada held events for Orange Shirt Day, a memorial walk for victims and survivors of Indian Residential School took place locally.

In its second year, the Dufferin County Cultural Resource Circle (DCCRC) organized a walk for survivors of residential school on Oct. 1, from the entrance of the Alder Street Recreation Centre, where the DCCRC flag flies, to the Medicine Wheel Garden.

It was well attended, and once walkers arrived at the Medicine Wheel Garden, people smudged, drummed, and shared their stories.

Community elder for the DCCRC, Karen Vandenberg, spoke about her family being victims of residential school and taken in the Sixties Scoop, where Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and put into foster care.

“Between the late 1800s and ‘96, more than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children attended residential school,” she said.

Vandenberg also spoke about the Seven Grandfather Teachings, the Medicine Wheel Garden’s four herbs, and building positive relationships.

“Grandfather help us heal our relationships. We call on you so that we may see the way forward more clearly as we seek to bring good relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples,” she said. “Refresh our spirits with the rain, flood us with the smoke of the medicines that are sacred, the tobacco, the cedar, the sage and the sweet grass. Inspire us and sustain us so that we strive for [the Seven Grandfather Teachings:] love, respect, courage, honesty, humility, truth and wisdom.”

Indigenous women, Charity Fleming, said in her culture the truth part of the Seven Grandfather Teachings is represented by a turtle, which has 13 main sections on its back and 28 tiny sections for most species in North America. The 13 represents the amount of moon cycles per year and the 28 represent the number of days between each moon cycle.

Speaking to the importance of truth, Fleming said, “We are on a mortal journey, we have limited time here, and we need to walk uprightly in truth. And honour one another’s truths, our own truths, and make time to share and listen to the truths of others.”

Fleming added that she encourages everyone to listen and learn about the truths of First Nation communities, which can be difficult for them to share and difficult to hear.

“Our country has been impacted by genocide and it’s an ugly past,” she said. “It hurts… especially for us as indigenous people, but also allies. I think it hurts for all of us to know that there was this ugly legacy and history that we all have inherited.”

Some of the truths that Fleming carries on both sides of her family, she shared with attendees of the memorial walk.

“I’ve learned and made space in my life to hear the history of my ancestors and my living relatives who attended residential school,” Fleming said. “I told the story last year, my great uncle, escaped residential school with two of his younger brothers, one of whom died after. And as much work that needs to be done in looking to the gravesite discoveries, there’s so many children that died trying to escape residential schools. For us in the north [of Ontario], along the trails home, bodies were found in the springtime.”

Fleming’s grandfather was a bush plane pilot and would see the bodies along trails in the springtime when the snow melted, she said.

Fleming also noted that many of the bodies, the unmarked graves of Indigenous children who attended residential school, will never be found.

“But it’s important to honour these truths and it’s important to recognize the role each of them has in reconciliation,” said Fleming.

Earlier this year she went to her home community for a memorial powwow for healing on the grounds of the former McIntosh Residential School, located 30 kilometres northwest of Vermillion Bay in northwestern Ontario.

On the grounds there is a large memorial sign that marks the site, and Fleming said she noticed during the powwow that there were holes in it.

After asking a relative about it, she learned that they were bullet holes, and it’s the second year in a row it has been shot at, showing that there’s still a long way to go in the road to reconciliation.

Fleming said listen to the elders, listen to people’s truths, and listen to the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Report, which were created by survivors of residential school and elders.

She asked that everyone walk in this journey together.

Indigenous women, Sharon Rigby also shared some comments at the Medicine Wheel Garden following the memorial walk.

She said her family also has residential school and Sixties Scoop survivors in it, and shared a similar sentiment as Fleming about truth and being a part of reconciliation.

“On this day, please take a moment to reflect, to learn, and most importantly, to share,” she said. “Together we can make a change and together we can make a difference. And you know what, each and every one of you already are.”

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