Indian residential school survivors in northern Ontario share stories, hopes for next generations

Victor Chapis says his experience at St. Joseph's Indian Residential School in Thunder Bay, Ont., destroyed his self confidence — but he's starting to see a shift in the next generation as more people in his community embrace their Indigenous culture.

"My own trauma of being in residential school is coming out of there and feeling empty inside, feeling not good enough," said Chapis, an elder from Ginoogaming First Nation in northern Ontario. "Not knowing if I'm welcomed in any store or in the hospital or in the school or any institution."

Chapis turned to alcohol to cope with his experiences at St. Joseph's. He received support through Alcoholics Anonymous, but even in recovery, he said he still struggles with self-doubt.

"It's always inside of me that I'm not good enough because of [residential] school. If you get a 98 per cent on your test, they don't concentrate on what you did right, they concentrate on what you did wrong," he said.

"They don't make you feel like you are worth anything or you're a human being."

It's estimated that more than 150,000 Indigenous, Métis and Inuit children in Canada were taken to Indian residential schools between the 1870s and the 1990s. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada found that these schools were "a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples."

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The TRC's 94 calls to action, which were made in 2015, aim to address the ongoing challenges experienced by Indigenous people as a result of the Indian residential school system, and prevent anything similar from happening again. According to the Yellowhead Institute's 2023 report, "Calls to Action Accountability," 13 of these calls have been completed.

Chapis sits on a committee with Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 First Nations across Treaties 9 and 5, that is developing a protocol to repatriate the remains of those who never made it home from Indian residential school.

"There's many across Turtle Island that are in unmarked graves," he said. "Every time I smoke my pipe, I put an extra pinch of tobacco in my pipe and pray for those people."

'The loneliness is what gets you'

Elder Veronica Waboose, former chief of Long Lake #58 First Nation, was sent to St. Joseph's Indian Residential School as a teenager.

"The loneliness is what gets you," she said of her experience there. "You miss your family and you've never been away from them before."

One night, she and her friend, Genevieve, decided to leave. They made their way from Thunder Bay to Nipigon, where they stayed with Genevieve's uncle until their parents brought them back to Long Lake #58, Waboose said.

Two weeks later, an RCMP officer came to Waboose's house and threatened to take her back to St. Joseph's, but her mother wouldn't let him.

'"Where were you when they were wandering the streets of Thunder Bay?' she told them. 'Where were you? How come you weren't there? They could have froze,'" Waboose recalls her mother telling the officer.

"So, he went away and never came back."

Waboose said it was years before she brought her children out on the land and taught them traditional practices, because of the racism she experienced being Indigenous.

"I damaged my children for doing that because we are not anything else but native. I found that out myself. Even though I'm 81, I'm still learning to go back to my Indian way — the way I was before," she said.

Now, she sees young people in her community learning the Ojibway language, but said it will take time to restore the cultural knowledge lost among the generations that attended residential school.

Being a survivor

For Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa, the concept of being an Indian residential school survivor is complicated. Mamakwa is from Kingfisher Lake First Nation and was sent to Stirland Lake Residential School as a young teenager.

"A survivor can mean a person that actually lived through it, that is alive, but there are others that could not live through it — whether it's addictions, mental health, whether it's death by suicide," he said.

Earlier this year, Mamakwa became the first MPP to ask a question in Anishininiimowin, known in English as Oji-Cree, in the Ontario Legislature. He was not allowed to speak his language at Indian residential school.

"I'm able to speak the language still. I'm able to practise the ways of life, and in that way I survived," he said. "But even me, the traditional practices like the pow-wow and stuff, those were the [things] I missed.

"I'm a survivor, but in that way I'm not."

Mamakwa said he wants to see funding for healing lodges, where people can come to terms with the trauma they have experienced through the Indian residential school system.

But he also wants to see both the provincial and federal governments step up with more consistent funding for First Nations infrastructure — everything from water to housing and health care. 

"We need to get the government to stop doing incremental changes to funding. Incremental change perpetuates the crisis in our communities," Mamakwa said.

"We need to be able to provide full funding for these programs, for these services and this infrastructure that we need in these First Nations for families."

Back in Ginoogaming First Nation, Chapis is working on practising self-confidence. His biggest motivator is the children in his life.

"My great-granddaughters feel they belong anywhere they wanna go. They're happy. They're not afraid. They come into a building and they run just like they belong," Chapis said. "I never felt that."

"Those are the kind of healings that I see that are happening within my family."

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour service at 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24/7 through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.