Residential School Survivors" Monument Unveiled

By Laura Jean Grant
Cape Breton Post
July 12, 2013

http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2013-07-12/article-3313418/Residential-school-survivors-monument-unveiled/1

Residential school survivors like Lottie Johnson will be remembered and honoured for generations to come in the form of a monument located in the heart of the community.

The 68-year-old resident of Eskasoni is a traditional teacher with the aboriginal program Journey of Healing, a certified addictions counsellor, and a local member of a survivors committee of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"What survivors have always wanted here in our community was a monument so we had meetings with survivors trying to decided what we wanted," said Johnson.

The end result was unveiled Friday outside the Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselling Association of Nova Scotia office in Eskasoni, near the church. The monument features a special dedication "to the Eskasoni survivors who attended the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School as well as their families and our community who have endured the intergenerational impacts." A poem, titled "I Lost My Talk" by celebrated Mi'kmaq poet Rita Joe is engraved on the monument alongside the dedication.

"It was really emotional. We had Rita Joe's daughter read the poem and we had another survivor read the (dedication)," she said. "The survivors are just so proud to have something like that in our community."

The monument's unveiling comes five years after Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a formal apology on behalf of the Canadian government to former residential school students, their families, and communities for Canada's role in the operation of the residential schools. Students in residential schools suffered abuse and were deprived of their culture and isolated from their families and communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2008 and is due to complete its work this year.

Johnson said she hopes the monument, which overlooks the Bras d'Or Lakes, provides comfort and a place of reflection for community members and visitors for many years.

"People will see it long after all the survivors have gone," she said. "Holding this commemorative event with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to bring education, to bring understanding and to pay honour and respect to survivors, but it's also for the non-native community to bring awareness so that they'll know what happened to our people."

She also hopes people can continue to heal.

"You can't change what happened but we can learn from these things and move forward," she said. "If we dwell on the negative we won't get too far, we have to let go of that part and move ahead."

Many residential school survivors and their family members from across the region attended Friday's ceremony, as did Eskasoni Chief Leroy Denny, Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking, Cape Breton Regional Municipality councillor Mae Rowe, and many community members.