Residential school survivor calls for a historical site in the North

A residential school survivor in the Northwest Territories is welcoming a decision to designate two residential schools as national historic sites and hopes similar action will be taken for one in the North.

Paul Andrew went to Grollier Hall in Inuvik, one of nearly three dozen residential schools in the three territories.

"The impact of residential schools is deeply rooted in the North," he said.

"We in the North have to be vigilant in our efforts never to forget that and one of the ways to do that would have one of the historical sites designated in the North."

This week, the federal government announced that it would be marking the history of residential schools, in part by designating two former schools as national historic sites: Portage La Prairie Residential School in Manitoba and Shubenacadie Residential School in Nova Scotia.

Andrew said having a site "reminds us, that yes, this is part of my history, this is part of Canada's history, [and] we can never, ever forget.

"If we forget, we might do it again," he said. "And there's nobody in the right mind I believe would want to see these things happen again."

Designating former residential schools was one of the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

"The killer in all of this is silence. No one talks about these things, which was the case in Canada for more than a century, as if it didn't happen," said Marie Wilson, one of the TRC's three commissioners and a Yellowknife resident.

She says the designation, and the recognition of residential schools as an event of national significance, has been a long time coming.

"I have no reason to believe and it's not my understanding that that is the end of it. It's the beginning of what hopefully will be a continuing exercise of commemorating certain school sites," she said.

Wilson also points to several other calls to action around commemorating residential schools, including installing a national monument in Ottawa and every provincial and territorial capital. 

"We should by now have one here in Yellowknife where in this territory, we had the highest per capita number of residential school survivors in the country," she said.