FORT FRANCES—Nearly three-quarters of a century’s history will be on display at the Fort Frances Museum with the opening Thursday of its newest exhibit: “Ontario Residential Schools: Our Story.”
The exhibit, which will be on display until Oct. 14, features photographs, interviews, and stories about the two residential schools that existed in Fort Frances: St. Marguerite’s Residential School (open from 1906-62) and the Fort Frances Indian Residential School (1962-74).
“What we’ve done is we’ve been collaborating with the Seven Generations Education Institute and the Couchiching First Nation to put together a part of the exhibit that is focused on Fort Frances,” museum assistant Katie Urban noted.
Explaining to the people of Canada why residential schools existed is an important reason for this exhibit, said Glenn Jourdain, a community history researcher for the Couchiching band who helped the museum with the project.
Jourdain attended the residential schools himself from 1948-55.
“That school had probably the biggest impact to change the people of Couchiching,” he said. “I don’t know of anything that had a bigger impact on the people of Couchiching that could change our way.
“Like, we don’t speak the language today and it’s all because of the school,” Jourdain charged. “My dad spoke it fluently. He went into that school in 1906 when it first opened, but never taught his nine children how to speak the language.”
One of the oldest pieces that will be on display is the original enrolment book from St. Marguerite’s. Dated April, 1906, the book has the names of about 759 students from 30 different First Nations.
The book and other pieces, mainly from the first school, have been on display up until now at Our Lady of Lourdes Church at Couchiching.
Despite being newer, there’s very little information available about the second residential school, noted Jourdain.
“The way I understand it is that when that school closed in ’74, we were told by a man in Winnipeg who was working there at the time as one of the staff that supervised the boys, he said the order at that time was just throw everything in the trailer and haul it to the dump,” he remarked.
Alongside the exhibits on Fort Frances’ residential schools, the museum also is hosting a traveling exhibit about the residential schools in Red Lake and Pelican Lake from the Red Lake Museum.
An opening ceremony, including prayer, will be held Thursday (July 31) at 10 a.m. Then at 2 p.m. the museum will host a public viewing of a film about the Mikinaak school in Onigaming.
“It’s looking at the development of that school and its concept on the whole,” said Urban.
“The idea of it is that it’s sort of the new generation and a good example of what can be done with First Nations, to have their own schools and run their own schools, and to have them work with the curriculum, but also with their own First Nations’ education that they want to pass on,” she added.
“I learned a long time ago that there’s two teachers, and those two teachers were your community and the white man’s education, as it’s called,” said Jourdain.
“Well, we got the one, but we were denied the other for quite a few years, and that was the community to teach you not only the language, but the ways of the Indian people, the way they were before that school opened.
“We did get an education, people will tell you a lot of positive stories,” added Jourdain, noting some photos in the exhibit show good parts of the schools, like the boys’ hockey teams and girls’ baseball teams.
“There was good . . . there were three boys that I played hockey with,” recalled Jourdain. “One of them went and tried out for the Chicago Blackhawks and the other two went and tried out for the Detroit Red Wings.
“Like any other institution, or whatever, I suppose there’s lots of good but those schools never should have been,” he stressed.
“The reason for those schools was to get rid of the Indians and you can’t get rid of them physically. So [the government] removed any of their ways from them,” argued Jourdain.
“And the best way to do that was to remove them from their homes, from their families, from their parents.”
Even though the school was just half-a-mile away from his home, Jourdain only was able to see his family once a week in the afternoon on Sundays, unlike others who were from even further away.
“When you gather [with] the Indian Residential School survivors, as they call themselves, you’re going to hear pretty much the same thing,” said Jourdain. “What they missed the most was being away from home, removed from their home forcibly.
“That’s what most of them will talk to you about.”
Jourdain still refers back to what he wrote 10 years ago when asked by the Couchiching Social Services Committee to record his memories of being in the residential school system:
“I’m not asking for an apology. I’m not asking for any money, but if you want to apologize or you want to give me some money, be my guest,” he said.
“What I wouldn’t mind: explain to the people of Canada why those schools existed in the first place.
“If this exhibit is going to help with this explanation, I’ll do everything I can do to get that explanation out,” Jourdain pledged.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
