OUTLOOK - A project created by Grade 12 students at LCBI High School in Outlook is putting a powerful spotlight on the atrocities that took place as a result of the residential school system in our country.
The ELA A30 class, taught by Rick Delainey, gave a special presentation of their project on Monday morning, January 15, extending an invite to The Outlook to document and capture the proceedings. After a brief video introduction, students and faculty were ushered down the hall to take in what students had created, and what everyone saw shouted an eye-grabbing message on its own.
The life story of Chanie Wenjack, an Ojibwe First Nations boy, was the focal point of what the LCBI students had produced. Wenjack was 12 years old when he ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario in October of 1966, where he had boarded for three years. Unfortunately, Chanie quickly succumbed to hunger and exposure after only a few days, dying while he was trying to walk 600 km back to his home, the Ogoki Post on the Marten Falls Reserve.
Wenjack's ordeal and death brought attention to the treatment of children in Canada's residential school system, as an inquest into the matter was ordered by the federal government.
The story of Chanie Wenjack hasn't gone unnoticed, as a concept album, 'Secret Path', based on his escape was written by the late Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip. Released in October 2016 along with a graphic novel of Wenjack's story, an animated film also aired on CBC television.
Showcasing what students such as Wenjack were subjected to, chalk drawings on a canvas that adorned the wall at LCBI depicted a priest, a student laying in bed and sadly looking upward, perhaps fantasizing about escape, and an adult forcefully cutting a student's hair as other First Nations children painfully watch. Outside of this powerful imagery, a lineup featuring the 'Spirits of Wenjack' showed a number of animals whose spirits, as legend goes, may have aided Chanie on his journey.
In addition, a path down one of the hallways shows a railroad track and two swings, depicting what Wenjack would have seen and traveled on during his brief journey after escaping, as well as the ways in which swing sets were used to aid First Nations students in escaping the schools.
Utilizing music to help convey Chanie's life, pain and escape, teacher Delainey's remarks about the presentation directly hit home as he pointed out that it was Christian schools - much like LCBI - that committed such atrocities against First Nations youth. Becoming emotional in his remarks, he said he didn't even want to think about a reality in which he wasn't there to help his own children when they needed him the most.
"I went through high school without it being referenced once," said Rick, touching on the subject of residential schools. "I have three sons, and I can't imagine not being there for them."
Today, the story of Chanie Wenjack has been seen as something of a symbol of resistance against Canada's residential school system. Students at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario lobbied for a building to be named after him in 1973, and 45 years later on March 9, 2018, the university officially launched the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies.
