What we learned: Two Generations Reflect on Tsimshian Education and the Day Schools

The legacy of residential schools has haunted Canadians, yet little is known about the day and public schools where most Indigenous children were sent to be educated. In What We Learned, two generations of Tsimshian students – elders born in the 1930s and 1940s and middle-aged adults born in the 1950s and 1960s – add […]

Wawahte Indian Residential Schools

“Wawahte: Indian Residential Schools recounts the life experiences of three Indian residential school survivors, as told to Kingston author Robert Wells, a retired Ontario Conservation Officer. Robert Wells made a promise to an Elder in his childhood that one day he would tell the stories of his three friends Esther Faries, Bunny Galvin and Stanley […]

Valley of the Birdtail : An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation

“A heart-rending true story about racial injustice, residential schools and a path forward. Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the Waywayseecappo reserve and the town of Rossburn have been neighbours for nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong in relations […]

Up Ghost River: A Chief’s Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History

“After being separated from his family at age seven, Metatawabin was assigned a number and stripped of his Cree identity. At his residential school, St. Anne’s in northern Ontario—one of the worst in Canada—he was physically and emotionally abused, and was sexually abused by one of the staff. Leaving high school, he turned to alcohol […]

Two Plays about Residential School

“Two Plays About Residential School (Indigenous Education Press) honours the fearless voices of residential school survivor Larry Loyie (Cree, 1933-2016) and intergenerational survivor Vera Manuel (Secwepemc / Ktunaxa, 1949-2010).  In the early 1990s, these award-winning authors wrote about their individual experiences of residential schools. The plays were staged a decade before Canada apologized for the […]

Tsquelmucwilc : The Kamloops Indian Residential School – Resistance and a Reckoning 

“In May 2021, the world was shocked by news of the detection of 215 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) in British Columbia, Canada. Ground-penetrating radar confirmed the deaths of students as young as three in the infamous residential school system, which systematically removed children from their families […]

Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Schools

In this book, author Pamela Rose Toulouse provides current information, personal insights, authentic resources, interactive strategies and lesson plans that support Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners in the classroom. This book is for all teachers that are looking for ways to respectfully infuse residential school history, treaty education, Indigenous contributions, First Nation/Métis/Inuit perspectives and sacred circle […]

Thou Shalt not be an Indian

“Robert Kakakaway is from White Bear First Nations in SK. He lives on Whitecap Dakota First Nation near Saskatoon, SK. He is the founder of Kakakaway & Associates Consulting, an Indigenous organization that offers ceremonial teachings. He completed his B.G.S. degree at UBC in 1992. He also completed several post-secondary diploma programs.He attended Marieval Indian […]

They Came for the Children

“For over a century, generations of Aboriginal children were separated from their parents and raised in overcrowded, underfunded, and often unhealthy residential schools across Canada. They were commonly denied the right to speak their language and told their cultural beliefs were sinful. Some students did not see their parents for years. Others, the victims of […]

They Called me Number One: Secrets and Survival at Residential School

“Xat’sull Chief Bev Sellars spent her childhood in a church-run residential school whose aim it was to “civilize” Native children through Christian teachings, forced separation from family and culture, and discipline. In addition, beginning at the age of five, Sellars was isolated for two years at Coqualeetza Indian Tuberculosis Hospital in Sardis, British Columbia, nearly […]