CANADA
Comox Valley Record

Erin Haluschak
Record Staff

St. Michael’s Residential School in Alert Bay, B.C. — one of five remaining residential schools in the province — is slated for demolition later this year. This is the first of a three-part February series looking further into the stories of the students, challenges faced by local First Nations in the Comox Valley today, and a special mid-month ceremony at the school to acknowledge the past and ignite hope for the future.

Evelyn Voyageur remembers her mother coming home in tears.

She was nine years old, living on Gilford Island when she was told she had to leave to Alert Bay to attend St. Michael’s Residential School.

“You have to go to the school or you’ll be taken away from us forever, or we’ll go to jail,” she recalls her mother saying.

The next day, she was placed on a…