Portage College is committed to reconciliation and will observe National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Friday, September 29th. This day will allow students, staff, faculty, and community to learn more about residential schools' history and ongoing consequences.
It's important to remember and honour those who never returned home after attending residential schools and the survivors and their families who carry the burden of this painful part of our shared history.
We encourage people to review the many resources on this web page.
Join us this year for a Sunrise Ceremony at the Lac La Biche campus on the soccer field.
Schedule:
- 7:00 am Sunrise Ceremony
- 9:00 am Hot Cereal Breakfast
- 11:00 am Indigenous Resiliency Speaker Series
Public Legal Education (PLE) along with the National Centre for Truth and Reconcilliation is hosting a series of FREE virtual adult education lunch and learns from September 25 to 29.
Link to PLE Lunch and Learn Series.
We encourage everyone to wear orange to honour the thousands of Survivors of residential schools.
Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day intended to raise awareness of the individual, family and community inter-generational impacts of residential schools, and to promote the concept of “Every Child Matters”. The orange shirt is a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.
Watch the ceremony online:
Sunrise Ceremony 2022
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH, 2022
@ 7:25 AM
Sunrise Ceremony- 2021
It's important to remember and honour those who never returned home after attending residential school and the survivors and their families who carry the burden of this painful part of our shared history.
Please read the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at Portage College press release.
Additional Resources
Books:
- Phil Fontaine, AiméeCraft. A Knock at the Door: The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015.
- R. Miller. Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
- John Milloy. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879-1896. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
- Elizabeth Graham. The Mush Hole: Life at Two Indian Residential Schools. HefflePublishing, 1997.
For more book options, visit:
Memoirs:
- Arthur Bear Chief. My Decade at Old Sun, My Lifetime of Hell. https://www.aupress.ca/books/120260-my-decade-at-old-sun-my-lifetime-of-hell/
- Edmund Metatawabin. Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through The Turbulent Waters
- Basil Johnston. Indian School Days
- WabKinew. The Reason We Walk
- Joseph Merasty. The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir
- Bev Sellars. They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
- Theodore Fontaine. Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools: A Memoir
- Russell Moses, Columnist for Ottawa Citizen. “Moses: In residential school, we were treated as sub-human, and hunger was never absent.”
- We Were Children (2012)
- Where the Spirit Lives (1989)
- Christmas at Moose Factory (1971)
- The Secret Path (2016)
- Wawahte: Stories of Residential School Survivors (2016)
- Indian Horse (2018) Available on Netflix
- The Chanie Wenjack Heritage Minute
- For more films and documentaries please go to:
National Film Board Residential Schools Video List
Vimeo Residential Schools Video List - CBC's Radio-Canada CURIO.ca Resources:
https://curio.ca/en/collection/beyond-94-truth-and-reconciliation-in-canada-2586/
https://curio.ca/en/collection/residential-schools-a-sad-chapter-in-canadian-history-2027/
https://curio.ca/en/collection/aboriginal-education-then-and-now-issues-controversies-and-concerns-1737/
We acknowledge that Portage College’s service region is on the traditional lands of First Nation Peoples, the owners of Treaty 6, 8 and 10, which are also homelands to the Métis people. We honour the history and culture of all people who first lived and gathered in these lands.