As Truth and Reconciliation Commission events are held across the country, traumatic stories and new evidence about abuse at residential schools is being made public. Two upcoming seminars aim to seek clarity and support for those affected.
A group of Island First Nations wants answers about the long-term effects of nutritional experiments on children in residential schools, documented in shocking research discovered by a historian this year.
Tseshaht First Nation and the Nuu Chah Nulth Tribal Council will host a forum on Dec. 11 near Port Alberni for former residential school students, family members, counsellors and the public.
The forum will hear from food historian Ian Mosby, who discovered documents detailing Canadian government experiments on aboriginal children in the 1940s and ’50s at residential schools, including the Alberni Indian Residential School in Port Alberni.
The experiments involved at least 1,300 people, most of them children, in six communities. They included controlled malnutrition, calcium and dental-care deprivation. Survivors have shared memories of sneaking out at night to steal milk from cows and eat raw potatoes from the ground because they were starving.
“We’ve had a few dozen people come forward, wondering if the calcium experiments have anything to do with their arthritis issues or their teeth falling out,” said Hugh Braker, chief councillor of the Tseshaht First Nation.
Former students also want to know what their rights and what recourse they have, Braker said.
He hopes some of these questions will be answered at the one-day forum. A doctor and a lawyer will be available for survivors and their families to consult.
“The difference between this and the horrific stories that have already come out about sexual abuse at residential schools is that these experiments were sanctioned by the government,” Braker said.
“It’s important for all Canadians to know what happened and to own up to our past so we can understand the issues of today.”
To register for the forum, go to surveymonkey.com/ s/B2J65CS
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Patricia Vickers is a Victoria psychotherapist and artist of First Nations and British descent. She has studied the effects of collective suffering and was inspired to host a series of talks after being approached by local clergy and counsellors who wanted to know what they could do in response to reconciliation events.
“This has come out of a need of people in the community feeling helpless and wanting to respond,” said Vickers. The four-part series of seminars addresses the topic from a spiritual point of view, inviting native and non-native participants to reconcile with their own feelings as the first step to supporting First Nations people.
“My goal is to create an environment similar to a feast hall or a sweat lodge, to allow people to feel welcome and unguarded,” Vickers said. “If they are feeling uncomfortable or blamed, then that’s where they are at. That’s the beginning where you start to become informed.”
Presenters include: Vickers; Martin Brokenleg, a Lakota minister, retired professor of theology and Native Studies who works with youth; Murray Groom, a United Church minister; and Fred Roland, a sweat lodge keeper from Cowichan Tribes. Topics range from the conditioned mind and memory, to trauma, history and wisdom from the Dalai Lama.
“We’re all in the same canoe and we need to be moving in the same direction,” Vickers said. “What I’ve been told by many people is that we need this.”
The first seminar in the series has already taken place, but the remaining are on consecutive Fridays: Nov. 8, 15 and 22. They take place at 7 p.m. at the Lutheran Church of the Cross, 3787 Cedar Hill Rd. For more information, email: [email protected].
