September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It is a day to remember survivors and those who did not make it home from these Indian Residential Schools. I want to let everyone know that what I say will be hard, especially for our survivors.
The Residential School History is Canada’s dirty secret. Its mandate was to kill the Indian in the child. They stole children from the loving arms of parents and families. This led to the breakdown of families and emptied our communities of children. The impact of this genocide is still felt today.
My mother, Lillian Nooski, attended Lejac Residential School from the age of 6. She never talked about what happened there, only that it was bad. She didn't teach us our language because she was punished for speaking it. After suffering abuses at Lejac, she turned to alcohol, which brought hardship and violence into our homes. It took me years to understand why. I loved my mom dearly, and as I got older and learned of the abuses that happened in these schools, I understood her anger. She passed away at the young age of 53.
Being taken from your family, community, culture, language, and traditions leaves you empty. Your identity is taken away, and so are your loved ones.
Sept.30 is all about the Indian Residential School survivors. Survivors of Lejac. Survivors from the 131 other Indian Residential Schools spread across Canada. It’s also about the children of survivors and their children. Because what happened at Lejac has rippled out across many generations. These intergenerational survivors carry a part of the burden of trauma experienced by their loved ones at Lejac.
At least 7850 children were taken from their families and forced to attend Lejac between 1922 and 1976. They came from 70 nations scattered over the northern half of British Columbia. We use the term survivor because across the country, and across the decades that they were in operation, there were thousands of children who experienced untold violence. Not to mention there were those who never came home from these places.
There are people out there who question this reality. I simply ask them: Did you have a graveyard in the backyard of your school? Because Lejac has one. Even before 2021, when Kamloops announced their discovery of unmarked graves, we knew that children had died at Lejac.
And now we are doing the hard work of finding the rest of the children who did not come home from Lejac. This is the work of finding the truth. We cannot have Reconciliation without first having the Truth. And the truth is hard. Our non-indigenous neighbours think it is hard to have to learn these truths. Your education system fed you falsehoods about First Nations people and never told you of the crimes Canada and these churches committed against us. The impacts are felt in our communities today through addiction and abuse.
Please now that it is much harder for us and for our survivors to do this work. How do you forget the gruesome assaults, hunger, and desperation? The impacts of this violence continues today. But we are doing the work, we are healing, and we continue because the truth must be told.
We ask our neighbours to take the time to understand the truth. Wear orange shirts to show your support. We also ask that you take the time to truly understand the struggles our people have faced. Then, we ask you to work with us to create a future where we can build a future together in a good way. This involves forging strong relationships with local communities, such as Fraser Lake, through understanding our history and actively working towards change. This is the challenging work of reconciliation.
Today, we also celebrate our resilience, strength, wellness, traditions. We are still here.
Beverly Ketlo is the chief of Nadleh Whut'en First Nation near Fort Fraser
