Category Archives: Indigenous Nations History

U’mista Cultural Centre

North Island Gazette, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The scent is unmistakable. Warm, dry cedar stills the air in the potlach room that’s full of Kwakwaka’wakw masks and regalia. If it weren’t for electric lights and the hum of climate control, it would feel like time didn’t exist.

The potlach room at U’mista Cultural Centre on Cormorant Island (home of the ‘Namgis First Nation) is designed somewhat like a big house. Museum-goers enter from the back and work around the room counter-clockwise, like a dancer would at a potlach ceremony.

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Indigenous history with Canada

By Kelsie Kilawna, The Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

IndigiNews investigates the complex problems facing Indigenous Peoples. Our journalists intend to set the table for honest conversation between people who have never walked in each other’s moccasins. We believe that journalism is a tool that can build bridges.

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Bringing Klahoose ancestors home

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Klahoose Nation’s traditional winter village lies at the head of Toba Inlet on B.C.’s west coast along the southernmost flank of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Nearby, alongside the Tahumming River, is an old cemetery sparsely covered with wooden or stone markers, mainly active while the Klahoose still lived in the Toba.

But some markers sit at the head of holed out graves, fenced off with care despite being empty.

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These Are My Words

As an immigrant to Canada, I was shocked to learn about the Canadian legacy of residential schools. I had no idea growing up in the U.S. that such things were happened and had happened just north of the border. The indigenous residential schools operated in Canada starting in the 1870s with the last one not closing until1996. Children as young as four were taken—often against the will of their families or with coercive techniques such as threatening jail time—and it is estimated that over 150,000 Indian, Inuit, and Métis children attended residential school. I was reminded that it is a  legacy that continues to shade aspects of Canadian culture and identity for all Canadians this year when I became a citizen. At the ceremony, the judge encouraged all of us new Canadians to make the act of reconciliation personal and spoke about how she was doing that in her life. 

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