CANADA
Our Windosr
OurWindsor.Ca
By Joanna Smith
OTTAWA — The red-brick façade and towering spire of the building remain, but the feelings they evoke in Shirley Horn has changed over the nearly seven decades she has been connected to the place.
Horn, a great-grandmother from Missanabie Cree First Nation, was 7 years old when she first entered the building as a student at the Shingwauk Residential School in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Now, Shingwauk Hall is one of the oldest buildings on the campus of Algoma University and Horn, who had already gone back to earn a fine arts degree there in 2005, has been named its first chancellor.
“I’m 74 years old now and I’m looking at it through a different lens than when I first walked up those steps at the age of 7, that same building, and what I’m asking myself at this time of my life is: what is my responsibility in this? How am I going to make the change?” says Horn, who will be sworn in as the titular head of the post-secondary institution at a convocation ceremony June 13.
Prior to that, Horn will attend the closing events as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prepares to release its findings Tuesday in Ottawa.
Horn was sent to St. Johns Indian Residential School, near her home in Chapleau, Ont., when she was 5 years old and then, two years later, she was transferred to Shingwauk, where she stayed for six years.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.