Latest news with #MohawkInstitute
CBC
28-07-2025
- General
- CBC
Virtual tour of former residential school captures the spirit of place
An immersive experience will take people through creaking doors and behind walls covered with peeling paint to learn about the Mohawk Institute, the longest-running residential school in Canada, prior to its restoration. Now the Woodland Cultural Centre — the former residential school site — which has been closed to the general public for renovations since 2019, is slated to reopen as a museum space on Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The residential school in Brantford, Ont., about 100 kilometres southwest of Toronto, opened in 1828 and closed in 1970 after about 15,000 children from more than 60 communities across Canada had been forced to attend it. The virtual tour, a 50-minute immersive experience, shows the Mohawk institute in its rawest form just as renovations were beginning. Evidence of the children's scribbles, their names next to their Indian Residential School numbers, which were found behind the asbestos-laden tile and mouldy walls can be seen as the video takes viewers through the building. The tour also features testimonies from five of the residential school's survivors and archival images. Virtual tour guide Lorrie Gallant, Cayuga Nation from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, ON, said the renovated building probably appears how it was when it first opened in 1828. "What we didn't realize is that we captured something in that building that will never be there again. It'll never look that way ever again," she said. "It's like stories were trapped inside the building. And I think when they renovated it, some of those stories disappeared." The virtual tour was initially released as a resource for continuing education while the building was closed to the public in 2019 for renovations and the COVID-19 pandemic. It's since been updated with behind-the-scenes footage and a 15 to 20 minute introductory video in time for the Mohawk Institute's opening. Refuge for children When Gallant worked at the Woodland Cultural Centre as Museum Education Coordinator from 2008 to 2019, her office was on the third floor, where her grandfather would have slept when he was a student there around 1890. Those ties drove her to try and understand the impact it had on her own family. The third floor is where they found quilts inside the wall of a closet; a refuge for children hiding from their teachers, Gallant said. Tearing down walls revealed little notes, bottle caps and toys, evidence of "kids being kids" she said, in the midst of their horrible experiences. Retracing survivors' journeys for the virtual tour, Gallant said, was an emotional experience but a necessary one to reconcile with intergenerational traumas. "If you don't have the story about all of those little spaces in the building, then it's just an old building that something terrible happened in," Gallant said. One of the most significant stories she recalled is from survivor John Elliott who passed away this January. Elliot told her every time he ran away from school he would be punished and locked in a closet with only water and a pail to go to the bathroom and he recalled his friend receiving the same punishment. The closet was on the way to the cafeteria. Gallant said Elliot would save the bread from his meal, and "pound it down really thin, like paper, and he would slide it under the door on his way by" to give to his friend. She said it's this compassion students had for each that helped them survive. These stories have inspired people to create a better future not just for survivors but also for non-Indigenous people because their stories are intrinsically connected, she said. 'Save the Evidence' Shane Powless, a video specialist for Thru the RedDoor, an independent Indigenous production studio based at Six Nations of the Grand River, helped create the virtual tour. He said there were elements of filming the project that were terrifying and changed his perspective from shooter to student. "When I closed the door, I actually felt like I was him," he said, recalling Elliot's testimony. "It was really sad because I can imagine, I could almost hear the kids walking by or the people yelling at him, or they slid slices of bread [to] him underneath the little crack in the door." Powless said he learned much of the history of the former residential school while he was filming the virtual tour, despite growing up there where his father worked and often brought him as a boy. Jake Jamieson, the Woodland Cultural Centre's artistic and programming director, said the new video content will reveal the progress on the restoration of the Mohawk Institute and the history of the institution over 140 years. In addition to the virtual tour other educational programming will be available including in-person tours and a public screening of the tour will be available on Aug. 20, Jamieson said. He said back in 2014, when the building was so structurally damaged many wanted it torn down, a survivor said the evidence and legacy needed to be saved so those stories could be shared. That's when Woodland Cultural Centre launched the 'Save the Evidence' fundraising campaign a decade ago, to help restore the building. Minor renovations were done until the building was closed for more work in 2019. Throughout the renovations survivors were consulted, Jamieson said, because they wanted to ensure that visitors were seeing the authentic residential experience they had. Sherlene Bomberry, Cayuga from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, ON, is a survivor featured in the virtual tour, and was a student from 1966 to 1970 when the school closed. Her grandmother also attended the Mohawk Institute in 1917. She said she's done a lot of healing work and that these shared stories have helped her reconciliation with her family's history too. For a quarter of a century, she never spoke about her experience. She said the virtual tour helps people understand what happened.
CBC
18-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Survivors' Secretariat denied funding to continue search for missing children, unmarked graves
Social Sharing WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools. An organization leading efforts to investigate Canada's oldest and longest-running residential school fear they've been denied federal funding as punishment for criticizing the Liberal government, putting their search for missing children and unmarked burials in jeopardy. Laura Arndt, lead at the Survivors' Secretariat, a non-profit investigating the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ont., warned in December that her organization was in dire financial straits, verging on total shutdown, while awaiting a funding decision. That decision, a denial, eventually landed in Arndt's email inbox at 12:16 a.m. on Jan. 23, 2025, she says, noting it's an odd time for the Canadian government to send out an official communiqué, particularly to trauma-bearing survivors. The email contained a letter that was digitally signed just six hours earlier, yet was dated Dec. 20, 2024: the day after CBC Indigenous reported on the situation. And stranger still, the letter explained, as far Canada is concerned the secretariat isn't financially pinched at all. Rather, it has $4.2 million in "unspent funds." "The saddest part of it is, I actually read the email at 12:16 in the morning because my phone woke me up," Arndt said. "And I couldn't sleep because all I kept thinking about was: How am I going to explain this to the survivors when I don't even understand what I'm being told?" Puzzled, noting her own audits contradict Canada's accounting, she wrote back on Feb. 4. She's still awaiting answers. Between 2021-22 and 2023-24, the secretariat received about $10.3 million from the $320-million Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund. Dubbed the Mush Hole for its malnourishing food, the Mohawk Institute was run by the Anglican Church and federal government from 1828 to 1970, taking children mainly from nearby Six Nations of the Grand River. The secretariat has documented 101 deaths there. A review of relevant financial records and correspondence shows Canada and the secretariat roughly agree on the group's revenues, but not expenses. Canada says the group has spent $6.1 million over three years, while the secretariat's audits record $8.5 million in spending. Arndt said they had a surplus of $2.5 million to start this fiscal year, which Ottawa previously let them carry forward, not $4.2 million. Since the fiscal year is now almost done, they've used the carryover, leaving them with no unspent cash, she said. The records suggest Canada may be refusing to recognize some of the secretariat's expenditures as legitimate, or "eligible" under the program's conditions, setting the stage for a possible clawback. Roberta Hill, a Mohawk Institute survivor, Six Nations member and secretariat board member, feels Canada is implicitly accusing them of misusing money. "I think it's pretty shocking, actually, because it's basically saying that we're incompetent, and that's not the truth," she said. "We've been accountable all along for all the money that's been spent. So I don't know where they've come up with this figure." 'A normal part' of the process Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree wasn't made available for an interview, and his department didn't directly address those concerns. "It is a normal part of the verification process for officials to ensure that funds have been spent in accordance with the terms and conditions of funding agreements," wrote spokesperson Jacinthe Goulet. The department will continue to work with recipients "to address any concerns and questions they may have about eligible activities and other conditions under which the program operates," she added in a statement. Arndt said they secured some money from the Ontario government to keep operating until the end of February, meaning they're now back where they were in December. The Trudeau government established the support fund in 2022 with a commitment to finding the children, and in December, Arndt accused the government of breaking that promise. She is doubling down on those comments now. "The question I'm asking in my head is, is this retribution for not doing and playing by their rules?" she said, adding that her other question is whether Canada simply wants to block the work. In three years, the secretariat has submitted 12 reports and three audits that were never questioned by any official, said Arndt. She feels the timing of the concerns point to "petty politics" around the group speaking out. "I think Canada's message is: 'Don't bite the hand that feeds you, because we can cut the funding off.'" The Mohawk Institute is notorious for the abuse children have reported, including allegations of beatings, whippings and solitary confinement in a makeshift jail. Survivors have reported seeing children's faces being rubbed in urine or excrement, and being fed wormy oatmeal and spoiled meat, according to federal records. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported a parent successfully sued the principal for imprisoning a young girl on a water-only diet and whipping her with a strap in 1914, and that in 1907 the institute had two prison cells where supervisors locked up runaways for a week upon capture. Hill said Ottawa made a commitment to stand with survivors, calling the process "a farce" if that doesn't happen. "All we're asking for is the truth. Is that so hard? Just tell us where the children are." A national 24-hour Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419 for emotional and crisis referral services for survivors and those affected.
