Residential school, Sixties Scoop survivors reflect on National Truth and Reconciliation Day

The sound of drums rang out in St. Jonh’s Park Saturday afternoon as survivors of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop took the time to reflect.

On National Truth and Reconciliation Day, they looked back on their own stories of survival, and gave thought to the children who never came back home.

Survivor Hilda Bighetty says she came to the park not only to be with other survivors, but to be near her tree – where she’s prayed to her ancestors for decades.

Bighetty lost her brother Peter Joseph Bighetty at a residential school was he was 16.

“Praying together is powerful,” Bighetty told CityNews. “It’s a comfort to see all these orange shirts and see people come together, that they’re with me in spirit, right? Even though none of them know my brother.”

Eva Wilson-Fontaine called Sept. 30 a day of victory for her. As the days go by, she says she sees Indigenous People making strides in reconnecting with their roots.

“It’s a day of remembering how resilient our people are, that they tried to break our spirit, but they didn’t do a good enough job at it because we’re still here,” said Wilson-Fontaine, the executive director of Anish Corporation.

“A lot of survivors are claiming their voices, even. They were once compliant. ‘Say nothing.’ And now they’re using their voices and that means that there’s healing happening.”

Katherine Strongwind, the director for the 60s Scoop Legacy of Canada, says it’s powerful to see people who came to pay their respects.

“For me it’s also important to include the Sixties Scoop in that because many of us had… parents who were residential school survivors and so we were taken as a result of some of the legacy of residential schools,” she said.

Strongwind adds there’s still a long road ahead for Sixties Scoop survivors.

“We haven’t really been recognized by our governments and we’re still fighting for some of that acknowledgement and the validation that we have as survivors,” she said.

Strongwind says many are still looking for family scattered across the United States and overseas, and little has been done to help them access birth and adoption records.

“There’s many of us who are now aging and really want to have our families be able to access help and heal.”

Strongwind says conversations about the Sixties Scoop and its survivors have been changing, and she hopes next year brings official government recognition for the group so healing can continue.