To Remember and Honour....

This morning I went up to the library to tie a ribbon on the railing. It is an initiative, as the sign says, to remember and honour the children lost to National Indian Residential Schools. It is a shameful part of our Canadian history and recently in the news because of the discovery of 215 children buried in unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops British Columbia. I visited that school about 30 or so years ago when doing research on residential schools for TVOntario's  teacher guide and resource list for the video series  Where The Spirit Lives . It was a visual novel we provided to schools and it was my job to help design support materials and inservice workshops to help teachers utilize the series in their classrooms.  I mention this as that was the first time I was really introduced to the concept of residential schools and that infuriates me still. How could I go through school and take Canadian history but never hear about residential schools? I grew up next door to an Indian Reservation and had native classmates. How could this topic never arise? The more I read, the more angry I became. I still have vivid memories of visiting that Kamloops school and hearing of  "children who never returned home". I could go on and on but will stop here; if you have never heard of those schools either, it is worth looking them up to see how we  treated our indigenous population. I did not expect that tying that ribbon - the blue one up on the top left - would be an emotional experience, but it was and the tears came. It still hits me in the gut.