Theresa Inscho and her family visited the Remembering our Friends photo exhibit to learn more about her community's experience with the residential school system.
From Tl'esqox First Nation (or Toosey), Inscho said the exhibit, which was at the city's library from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1, has helped her.
“We never got to learn about this until recently,” Inscho said about Canada's residential school system and how it affected her community. As she flipped through the photos, Inscho spotted names and faces she recognized.
The St. Joseph Mission (SJM) residential school, run by Catholic Oblates, opened in the late 1800s and operated until 1981.
Today, the site of the former SJM is owned by Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) which is investigating deaths and disappearances of children who attended the school. The photo exhibit featured class photos, portraits and candid images of students who attended SJM. Some photos identify the subject, while others are left blank or have had names scrawled in by a knowing visitor. A scanned letter was also included in the exhibit, written in 1920 by Paul Stanislaus requesting his son no longer attend after his other son died at the school.
While Canada’s last federally run residential school closed in the late 1990s, Inscho said today’s school system continues to be difficult for Indigenous students, including for her younger sibling who was never able to complete school.
At a Sept. 27 Truth and Reconciliation event organized for students from District 27, Grant Alphonse, who is a survivor of SJM, said western education hasn’t changed, when he addressed the crowd.
“It is not designed for us as Indigenous people, as First Nations,” he said. “For you teachers out there teaching our First Nation children, be aware of that, change it up, be the best you can.”
This was the second exhibition of photos put together by the WLFN team investigating the SJM residential school's impacts.
"They had all these photos, great historical photos from basically since photography was created as a medium," said Brandon Hoffman, manager of marketing and communications for WLFN. He said the exhibit was an opportunity for friends and families to see the pictures, and help fill in the blanks.