National Day for Truth and Reconciliation marked with “mixed emotions”

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION – Participants in events marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in the Thunder Bay area called it a much-needed chance to acknowledge historic wrongs, while also celebrating Indigenous resilience and committing to reconciliation.

Local events included a pow wow hosted by Fort William First Nation, a reconciliation run, and a flag-raising ceremony at Hillcrest Park, in which an orange flag commemorating residential school victims and survivors was raised at half mast.

The flag will become a permanent fixture in the park, with a seating area to be installed in the spring, the city said – a place to reflect while taking in a view of both Anemki Wajew and Nanabijou.

The site is planned as the first of four to eventually be established representing the four directions around the city.

Looking out at a sea of orange shirts at Hillcrest Park on Friday morning, Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Derek Fox said the open discussions of the trauma of residential schools showed things have come a long way within his lifetime.

“No one wanted to talk about it, including my own family,” he said. “It was good to share a little bit today. We’re on this path of truth and reconciliation – I believe we’re just beginning.”

Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Patty Hajdu, speaking at the flag-raising, said it was no secret the federal government’s approach to Indigenous peoples – which she now has a large hand in shaping as Minister of Indigenous Services – had included explicit attempts to control First Nations communities and destroy Indigenous cultures.

“The federal government has had a long and colonial history of essentially oppressing Indigenous peoples,” she said.

Hajdu said it was up to non-Indigenous Canadians to fully understand that colonial history and renew relations.

At the fall pow wow held on Anemki Wajew, also known as Mount McKay, Friday afternoon, Fort William First Nation councillor Michele Solomon agreed the discussions were a positive step.

“There’s no erasure of it any longer – we’re talking about it openly,” she said. “It’s being acknowledged in symbolic ways, like at the flag-raising this morning.”

For Solomon, the occasion was one for both grief and celebration.

“This day definitely brings a mix of emotions,” she said. “This pow wow is everybody coming together and acknowledging the survivors of the residential school [and] those people who are not able to be here with us.

“But of course, when we come together for pow wow, it is a ceremony. It’s an opportunity for us to be together in a good way, and as much as there’s sadness that needs to be acknowledged, there’s also a lot of gratitude and happiness in our ability to come together.”

Myria Esquega, who served as elder for the pow wow, and Sandy Johnston, both of Fort William First Nation, called the event a welcome celebration of culture and resilience.

“It has made me come alive,” Johnston said. “I feel like this is a place I belong.”

That culture is increasingly being embraced and passed on to the youngest generation, something Solomon called a repudiation of the aims of the residential school system.

“It’s really beautiful that we have more and more children joining the circle every year at pow wows,” she said. “Today there are a lot of little children.”

She also welcomed the closure of local schools for PA days, allowing more children to participate in events like the pow wow.

Nine-year-old Will Guthrie, a Grade 4 student at Nor’wester View Public School, was among that number.

Guthrie last year provided the winning entry in a Lakehead Public Schools contest to design an Every Child Matters shirt for Orange Shirt Day, he said. He called it a thrill to see his design, featuring an image of a feather and the words “Every Child Matters” in his handwriting, worn by hundreds of people at the pow wow Friday.

He said the activity had been accompanied by a discussion about the history of residential schools and how students were impacted.

It’s one example of a much-needed change, said Solomon.

“This wasn’t in the school system, and a lot of people had no idea anything about residential schools,” she said. “It’s really unfortunate that it took the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and honestly, Gord Downie, rest his soul, getting that into the living rooms of the average Canadian citizen.”

The mass participation in the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation would have been difficult to imagine until very recently, said James Wilkinson, Indigenous relations liaison with the City of Thunder Bay.

At Friday's flag-raising ceremony, he recalled participating in an early recognition of Orange Shirt Day over a decade ago with an elder and residential school survivor at Pope John Paul II school.

“It was just him and I,” he said. “We did a ceremony, and he said, ‘I really hope this takes off.’”

“To be able to stand here and see [this] and know… there’s all these different things going on – it’s like what he was hoping would happen has happened.”

With files from Leigh Nunan, TBT News