‘I’m speaking for you now’: Haisla residential school survivors march for their ancestors
Global News
At the Haisla Nation in Kitimaat, B.C., four residential school survivors share their stories of hurt, love and healing from trauma.
Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
Darleen Wilson vividly remembers the day she was taken from her family and shipped to St. George’s Residential School in Lytton. It was more than 1,000 kilometres away from her home in the Haisla Nation on the north coast of British Columbia.
“I remember them taking us off the train and putting us in boxcars, and telling us we were nothing but a heard of cattle,” she said, standing by a memorial for Haisla children who attended institutions of assimilation across the province.
“The first thing they did was undress us, took all our clothes, cut off all our hair and poured white stuff all over us. That’s my memory of my first time going to residential school.”
The Haisla Nation, as it’s known today, is an amalgamation of two bands that have occupied the land since time immemorial, the Kitimaat and the Kitlope. Its primary village of Kitimaat — Cʼimaucʼa in Haisla — sits at the head of the Douglas Channel.
Its citizens marched for residential school survivors long before the federal government declared Sept. 30 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in 2021. On Saturday, dozens donned orange shirts once more, held hands, drummed and sang in a walk around the village.
“For me, it’s honouring our grandparents and our parents, our aunts and uncles. Every year, we do these walks and we do it for them, because they were never able to,” said Ramona Adams, who survived St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay, B.C.
“That’s my way of honouring them and letting them know, I’m speaking for you now.”
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