Tag Archives: Sechelt Residential School

Schools of Squirrel Cove

This is the first audio recording of the article below, and may have sufficient additional details to be called the most recent version. The text was originally published in the booklet Squirrel Cove (Cortes Island Museum & Archives Society)

At the beginning of the 1900s, Squirrel Cove on the east side of Cortes Island was a hub of activity for homesteaders, loggers, fishermen, miners and trappers. They came from all the surrounding islands for supplies, groceries, mail, repairs, radios and dances in the hall. There were two stores, a post office, church, hall, two machine shops, a boatworks, a marine ways, and a big dock where the Union Steamships stopped regularly. Jim Spilsbury also stopped frequently to install or repair his radios in boats and homes.

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The shadow of residential schools ‘gets longer and longer’

Warning: This story contains details that may provoke distress or trauma in some readers.

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Homalco Chief Darren Blaney has the tragic distinction of being a third-generation residential school survivor.

Like his father, and grandfather before him, Blaney was forced from his home, family, and culture in the small community of Church House in Bute Inlet along B.C.’s remote central coast.

“My great-grandfather was the first one from Homalco to go to residential school in 1875,” said Blaney.

Continue reading The shadow of residential schools ‘gets longer and longer’