Last week 215 bodies were discovered in a mass grave on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Ground penetrating radar located the remains of these 215 First Nations children who were victims of Canada’s colonial attempt to obliterate the culture, history, language of the First Peoples and remove them from future consideration. The residential school was designed “to kill the Indian in the child” and too often killed the child.
Canadian headlines have awakened many to the horrors of the past and to the on-going ripple effects that are still impacting Indigenous families all across this land we call Canada.
In Fenelon Falls, the passage under the bridge is used by locals and visitors alike to get across the busy thoroughfare from the upper locks to the lower lock area and the falls. People like to leave their mark on the walls of this passage way to show that they have been here. Some young leaders in the community have memorialized these 215 lives taken by this brutal system by making 215 marks – one for each child – in this spot under the bridge.
We need these reminders until we have all acknowledged the truth of this very real and raw history and until we have addressed the on-going destruction that colonialism is still exerting through our policies and judicial systems.
A shout out to the young people of Fenelon Falls for this poignant response.