The painful reality of the remains of 215 children being found at a residential school in Kamloops is only made more painful by knowing this is only the beginning. The recordkeeping is its own scandal. We may never know all of the Indigenous children found on this and other sites.
These were human beings who suffered long before they died, children who couldn't understand a society that wanted to strip them of their language, culture, and being.
My limited education on the matter has been amplified by Canadian films on the subject. Since I write a lot about Canadian films, I thought sharing a couple of good examples might work people who know little to learn a bit more.
2017 WIFF Canadian films in review
2017 WIFF Canadian films in review: Documentaries
Birth of a Family focuses more on the Sixties Scoop than residential schools. Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie, and Ben are all siblings who were taken away from their home. The film explains that about 20,000 Indigenous children taken between 1955-1985 were adopted into white families or moved into foster care.
Tasha Hubbard (director and co-writer) and Betty Ann Adams (co-writer) share the joy of the reunion and puts them together in Banff National Park. They share the awful stories of what happened to them as kids. They are still struggling to live as adults as a result of the damage and pain.
I saw this film at the 2017 Windsor International Film Festival. I knew nothing about the Sixties Scoop before the film. From our original review:
There are moments when they are talking alone on camera, sharing moments that they really should be sharing with the other siblings. The idea that these people would learn these moments at the same time the audience does would be quite awkward.
The most powerful moment is when the 4 siblings learn about their culture through the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum in Banff. You get a good sense of what they have lost in that moment. This is the most impactful scene in the film and is worth seeing the film for this scene. There are lighter moments as well: you can see that they have a shared laughter.
As we noted in our review, you don't learn much about the actual Sixties Scoop. You see some of the damage down as a result.
Canadian film review: Indian Horse
I noted in our review that this film is hard to watch. That seems a bit childish in that the people who lived it had a life too brutal to imagine.
Indian Horse is an adaptation of the novel from Canadian writer Richard Wagamese. The story is about Saul Indian Horse, an Indigenous boy from Ontario who is taken from his family and put into the residential school system. Like Birth of a Family, we see the ramifications of the psychological and physical damage.
From our original review:
You get the desolate circumstances for Saul and other Indigenous children over multiple generations. If you know absolutely nothing on this topic, you will get a good sense of what really happened. Indian Horse is a pretty good film, just really difficult to watch. Some of that unpleasantness is the story and also how the story is told.
Indian Horse was actually the highest-grossing English Canadian film of 2018. That is meaningful.
Canadian film review: Rhymes for Young Ghouls
Jeff Barnaby's full-length feature debut Rhymes for Young Ghouls tells how residential schools make a multi-generational impact in a society. The story is also tragic but told so well.
The film is told from the perspective of Alia (Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs) in 1976.
From our original review:
Alia recognises from how the residential schools impacted her parents and uncle that she needs to avoid that world at all costs. Her world becomes a way to figure out who and how long she can trust people. The film shows us that survival is not easy.
There is a scene in the film where Alia's braids are cut off. This might seem like a minor detail. The punishment is symbolic since the braids are part of the culture. You sense how violated she is as a result of the scene.
The Secret Path film (2016) was the culmination of a 10-song album and a graphic novel from Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip. The story is about Chanie Wenjack, a young Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 while trying to walk 600 kilometres back home from a residential school.
The film starts out with Chanie’s sister Pearl Wenjack and other family members with Downie.
The Secret Path was followed by the Road to Reconciliation panel discussion.
CanadianCrossing.com film reviews
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
We Were Children tells the true story of Lyna Hart, sent to the Guy Hill Residential School in Manitoba at age 4; and Glen Anaquod, sent to the Lebret Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. The film features dramatic reenactments of what happened to them. We have not seen this film.
(Update: We have now seen this film. The sadistic torture of these children: beatings, rape, malnutrition, robbing of their culture.)
Look into the work of Alanis Obomsawin, who has done some amazing Indigenous documentaries over the years, including We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice (2016).
June is National Indigenous History Month. A good opportunity to learn something.
Many of the kids died from TB, malnutrition, and diseases caused by overcrowding of kids and poor health care. The Catholic Church and others who ran these schools didn't want to spend money on the care of these kids.
These films will give you an entrance in this world to give a slice of what this was like. This is certainly not a full list.
A new CBC podcast Telling Our Twisted Histories is the idea to "decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time." Kaniehtiio Horn is the host for the podcast. Worth the listen.
Birth of a Family is available through the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. Indian Horse is available on Netflix. Rhymes for Young Ghouls was available on Amazon Prime Video. You can watch The Secret Path online. We Were Children is available for rental via the NFB.
Can't help also thinking about the tragic death of Emerald MacDonald. You might have seen MacDonald in The Grizzlies. The RCMP has ruled the death of the 24-year-old actor as a homicide. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry speaks to the lives that were treated as less than human. These are all related.
CanadianCrossing.com Indigenous coverage
Canadian TV notebook: Trickster one and done, Nurses ends next week in U.S.
Canada election 2019: The impact of the official debates
We have noted some absolutely terrible Canadian senators appointed by Stephen Harper, who was prime minister from 2006-2015. Don Meredith (not that Don Meredith) was rather horrible. Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin are on the list. Lynn Beyak had a special place on the list in a sad way.
Lynn Beyak became a champion for the residential schools being not so bad. The Canadian Senate suspended Beyak twice: posting letters to her Senate Web site supporting her views and making horrible, untrue accusations. She fought hard to keep those letters up. As part of the protocol, Beyak was supposed to take anti-racism training. Beyak was suspended a second time for failing to undergo that training.
The Conservative Party did strip Beyak of her status within the party in 2017, a symbolic but virtually meaningless gesture.
Beyak served in the Senate from January 25, 2013 to January 25, 2021. Senators can't serve past the age of 75, as we noted with Mike Duffy finally leaving the Senate for that reason last month. Beyak resigned just before her 72th birthday.
A lot of settlers are ignorant on what happened in residential schools. Some knew and fought really hard to deny reality. Beyak falls in the latter category.
photo credits: The Secret Path film (photos 1,3-4); Birth of a Family film (photo 2)
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