First Nations communities have begun to recommend the Remembering Project to residential school survivors to aid in their search process.

Ben had the opportunity to present the Remembering Project in Thunder Bay to the Anishnabek Nation, the body that governs 39 First Nations communities throughout Ontario and Manitoba

To honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a group of Remembering Project volunteers travelled to the site of the former Spanish Indian Residential Schools on the north shore of Lake Huron.

Volunteer Elinor Mueller reflects on the impact visiting the site and meeting the survivors had on her.

As we confront the harms Canada committed through the residential school system, it opens eyes more fully to the present.

Not only did residential schools fail to erase this and the many other First Nations in this country.  The people of Wiikwemikoong are driving a dramatic resurgence of their nation.

Alive and kicking! Loud, colourful, flourishing. And inclusive! The first peoples of North America make it clear to everyone willing to open their hearts and all of their senses. The grand entry of the annual Wikwemikong pow wow on Manitoulin Island reverberated along the northern shores of Lake Huron, as it has been for centuries, bringing together First Nations bands and communities from across the continent.

I think that this strength and the concept of the “Everyone Spirit Mind” is what makes Scarborough unique. As it is home to many cultures where the community acknowledges the Indigenous history of the land and aids these Indigenous communities whose land in which we reside to advance their interests.

By 1867 we had accomplished 250 years of living together in the land we all call home. The British North America Act united four colonies into a Confederation, but it was one in a long series of negotiated agreements. And it only included a minority of the people that call this land home.

Denialism—the refusal to acknowledge historical facts – is an issue that undermines justice and healing for victims worldwide. In Canada, denialism minimizes the horrors faced by Indigenous children in residential schools, who were forcibly removed from their families and often never returned.

In an age of polarization and disinformation, one measure of democracy’s health is a shared commitment to truth. Perhaps the best test of a country’s commitment to the truth comes when that truth makes us uncomfortable.

At a memorial next to the Mohawk Institute, a circle of children’s shoes and toys commemorated the young lives lost and disrupted by residential schools. Each item stood as a silent testament to their suffering. Tobacco and blueberries were placed in remembrance, symbolizing respect and acknowledgement of the pain these innocent children endured. This humbling moment highlighted the profound grief that shadows Canada's history.

As members of the society created residential schools, it will be difficult to confront the harm done in the school we will visit this week. The Mohawk Institute was designed to take members of proud nations, like the Hodinohsho:ni, and turn them into us. The harm done there was done in our name – to create a nation in our image, not theirs.

Ever since the evidence of children’s graves discovered in Kamloops BC shocked the nation, survivors from residential schools from coast to coast to coast have been gathering to support one another and settle on a course of action. An Independent Special Interlocutor named Kimberly Murray has convened these gatherings.

Starting out on this path, I’m not sure I realized just how much of the national discussion of reconciliation has been driven by survivors themselves.

As a proud Canadian, it has been painful to learn how leaders of my country made deliberate decisions to eliminate First Nations through policies of family separation. But as we begin to learn more about the story of Canada, it creates space to learn the story of other nations that have lived on this same land throughout.

How did Canada set up a system of schools that caused the deaths of so many thousands of children? It’s a question that has haunted me since the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation demonstrated conclusively that the intent behind our system of residential schools met the internationally accepted definition of genocide.

Our research has uncovered two remarkable documents, both from 1906. One is an Annual Report by the Principal of the Shingwauk Institute which sheds light on the thinking that went into the attempt to eliminate First Nations. The other is a transcription of the oral traditions by which Anishnaabe culture did survive. Deprived of the children to whom to recount the rich and intricate Creation myths in which parables and other lessons for new generations are related, elders related their stories to an American ethnographer. These records are now the basis for cultural revitalization efforts across Northern Ontario.

Chief Deskaheh laid the wampum belt across the lectern. "We are a nation in the world" he told the audience gathered at the grand hall on Sussex Drive. This past July, on behalf of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy he represents, "we presented a belt similar to this in Geneva to seek ... relationship with other countries."

L'auteur célèbre voulait souligner que la période de ces terribles écoles résidentielle est limitée, ce n’est pas toute l’histoire du Canada. Dans les 400 ans depuis la première colonie permanente établie par les Européens, il y a aussi eu de la coopération et de la tolérance. Nous sommes dans un processus continu de compromis et d’adaptation des uns envers les autres.

In the Anishinaabe creation story, the figure of Nanabozhoo plays a major role. As I understand it he is the first being in human form to walk the Earth. Since we are the last species to be created, he walks the land and learns from other species. They teach him -and us - the way humans should live.

The memorial of the 27 children who died while attending residential school in Chapleau moved me deeply. The country that I love tried to erase these children. We tried to erase the languages they spoke and the cultures they belonged to. How do we even start trying to make things right?

What can non-indigenous Canadians do to address the depths of damage our society inflicted on generations of children in residential schools? To find out I attended the National Gathering on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites. The fifth such National Gathering since the discovery of the 215 unmarked graves of children in Kamloops in 2021, these are hosted by the Special Interlocutor appointed to help communities now running searches at dozens of residential school sites across the country.