Ontario Northland locomotive gets new look to honour residential school survivors
CBC
An Ontario Northland locomotive has been given a new orange paint job to commemorate residential school survivors.
The company unveiled the locomotive, which also has "Every child matters" painted on its side, in North Bay on Monday.
"This locomotive will now go into service," Ontario Northland said in a Facebook post about the new look.
"Be sure to keep an eye out for it as it travels from North Bay to Moosonee over the next few weeks."
Nipissing First Nation Chief Scott McLeod was invited to the big reveal and said he was happy to see Ontario Northland showing corporate responsibility in that way.
"When it rolled out, it was very impactful to show how much effort the team at Ontario Northland went to create such a beautiful honour to our residential school survivors and the ones that passed on during that era," he said.
Nipissing First Nation Coun. June Commanda, a residential school survivor, accompanied McLeod to the event.
McLeod said the locomotive's new look had a dramatic effect on Commanda.
"When she was a little girl, it was the train that picked her up and brought her to this place and, you know, it triggered these anxieties within her. And she carried those," he said.
"But when that train came out it changed things for her. And she said to me that she just wanted to go up there and blow the horn of that train and she was totally blown away by it."
McLeod said a video of the event that he posted to social media got 50,000 views in a day.
"This meant a lot to not just June, but to our community," he said.
"And just judging by the outpouring of support on social media regarding this, it resonated right across Canada with a lot of First Nations."
