Graham Mastersmith is the Senior Visual Arts and Photography Teacher at All Saints Catholic High School in Kanata, and for the second year in a row his art students have teamed with Project of Heart — this time by remembering the students from Fort Smith IRS (Breyant Hall) in Nunavut, Chesterfield Inlet IRS in the North West Territories, and the Covenant of Holy Angels IRS in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.

Graham’s students put their hearts and spirits into decorating tiles in the most innovative and creative ways. Archival photos of children and text from various historical documents were minimized and placed on the tiles, bringing to life the memories from the past.

Students at All Saints Catholic were also living the reality of incursions of development on the natural environment and sacred lands of the Algonquin people. The South March Highlands and Beaver Pond are treasured places for many of the students at All Saints. They allied themselves with the resistance shown by Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists to stop the decimation of these sanctuaries of biodiversity.

Below is Mastersmith’s letter to the The Nature Conservancy of Canada in support of the preservation of Beaver Pond and the South March Highlands in Kanata:

I am writing to the Nature Conservancy of Canada for help and as a final hope. I am a high school teacher in Kanata, Ontario. One of the courses I have the honour of teaching is Aboriginal Art and Culture. Through the contacts I’ve made in the course and the media, I have learned of the conflict over the development of the South March Highlands and an area known as the “Beaver Pond” which is quite close to our school. A Google search of this area will result in multiple articles and videos on this topic. My students have watched many of these videos and were greatly disturbed as was I, about the total lack of respect this developer has for the environment and the First Nations people of Canada.

The South March Highlands are comprised of 10 distinctive habitats similar to the Algonquin Park region. It is home to seventy-five different species of mammals, fish, amphibians and reptiles, including the endangered Blanding’s turtle; one hundred and sixty-four species of birds; and six hundred and seventy-nine species of native plants, some extremely rare.

More importantly this land is considered to be sacred by the Algonquin people of the region. Aboriginal artifacts and stone medicine wheels have been found here that show evidence of pre-contact civilization. Grandfather William Commanda, the most senior Algonquin Elder, has stated that the area is sacred to his people, and has written letters to all levels of government urging protection of the land. Four First Nations groups, Chiefs, and Elders have also written similar letters of concern. Natives and non-Natives alike have called for a comprehensive archaeological assessment and meaningful consultations with Aboriginal peoples before any development proceeded.

Sadly this never happened and the First Nations people were ignored, as were the protests and petitions of the local community and several environmental groups. A sacred fire was lit in January of this year and a number of first Nations people chained themselves to trees in hopes of preventing the clear cutting. They were arrested and cutting has begun.

At this point there is a large swath of forest gone, with much more of the ridge slated for development. A new 4 lane road “The Terry Fox Extension” has also been created and it is only a matter of time before Kanata spreads all the way to the village of Carp and the Carp Ridge. My students have created artworks and taken photographs to document the plight of this forest. Some of these images have been attached.

I realize at this point it may be too late to save the Beaver Pond forest, but as a member of the Nature Conservancy of Canada I know it is your mandate to protect and preserve ecologically significant land for future generations. I have read about the thousands of acres of land you have saved and all the great work you have done in the past and continue to do. It is my hope that you might intervene and change the the fate of rest the South March Highlands and the Carp Ridge by buying and protecting whatever land you can, by whatever means possible, not only for the wildlife of this region but to honour the fact that this land is sacred to the First Nations people of Canada.

I have also attached some information regarding an event that is being held on September 10, 2011 to increase awareness of the immediate need to take action to save the rest of the South March Highlands. It would be a perfect time to introduce representatives from your organization to the leaders of the movement against further development of these lands.

I thank you in advance for your urgent attention to this matter. I have copied several people on this letter as that may provide better First Nations contacts.

 

Sincerely,

 

Graham Mastersmith

Teacher Tanya Rafuse’s Grade 12 ‘Challenge and Change’ students chose to commemorate the deaths of the children at the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School in Manitoba. Students applied not only their talent, but their hearts and spirits as they created tiny masterpieces — painted tiles that will one day be offered to former students who were victimized by that IRS. Elder and Indian Residential School survivor, Terry McKay, spoke bluntly about the inter-generational trauma resulting from the Residential school experience that has affected so many communities, yet he also gave voice to the beauty of his people, the contributions to Canada that they made and are making, and the land that he still calls “home” (coastal British Columbia).

Most of Ms. Rafuse’s students chose social justice actions that involved signing petitions and/or writing letters to members of parliament regarding human rights issues: access to clean drinking water, Shannen’s Dream (safe, clean, and comfortable schools), and missing and/or murdered Indigenous women.

Meegwetch to Tanya for a job really well done!

Aboriginal students who lost their lives while attending the Alexandra Industrial School for Girls in Toronto are not lost to memory any longer, thanks to the efforts of Toronto District School Board Native Studies teacher Amanda Conkie.

Conkie was determined to insure that her students were made aware of the IRS history in  their own city. Alexandra Industrial School had such poor records kept, that the Department of Indian Affairs doesn’t even know what year the school closed its doors!

A huge ‘meegwetch’ goes out to Amanda, who worked through the Project of Heart module until its conclusion. Elder and Indian Residential School survivor Cliff Standingready was invited to the school to conduct the ceremony to cleanse the 316 tiles, and insure that the memory of these girls was not lost to time.

Well done students of Sir Robert L. Borden B.T. I. – and Amanda Conkie!

The SUNTEP students brought extremely compelling imagery to the exercise which commemorated the students who died at the Lebret Indian Residential School at Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. Click on the adjacent photo to see more examples of her class’s work.

Russell Fayant of the SUNTEP program and Christina herself have also responded through verse to the ongoing colonial project of cultural extinction, as experienced by their Métis community. Christina’s poem can be read here and Russell’s here.

We are a family of four, including two children aged 14 and 12, and in August 2008 we set out from Ottawa on a year-long round-the-world back packing adventure.  Before leaving, we decided to participate in Project of Heart.  We received the wooden tiles and agreed to keep in contact with the Project of Heart team in Ottawa.

POH would send us, via email, several names of children who had died while attending Indian Residential Schools in Canada and we would choose an appropriate location in the world to dedicate and decorate these blocks in those children’s memory.
Days before embarking on our trip we met with local Indigenous teacher and cultural worker, grandmother Greta Neepin who cleansed the commemorative wooden tiles by performing a smudging ceremony.  Grandmother Greta welcomed us into a journey which would see us safely through many experiences.

At several locations on our travels we took out the blocks and introduced the story of Indian Residential Schools in Canada to other world travelers.  At an Indigenous Akha village in northern Thailand overlooking a beautiful valley we explained to others the tragedy of tens of thousands of Indigenous children losing their lives as a result of the Indian Residential School experience.  In the City of Udaipur, Rajasthan we met  Sophie Staughten, an Australian woman doing research with local Indigenous people there.  She was shocked at learning about the number of Indigenous children in Canada dying while in the “care” of the Residential School administrators.

• Maisie Shaw, 14 years old, died at Port Alberni Residential School.
• Albert Gray, died at Ahousat Residential School.
• Maggie Seward, only 6 years old, died at Kuper Island Residential School.
• Carolyn Joseph, died at Kuper Island Residential School.

These are just four names of the young people who died in the Indian Residential Schools, the names that we traveled with.
In northern Argentina there  is a beautiful little town close to where that country meets with Paraguay and Brazil.

The town is named Puerto Iguazú, named for its location near the amazing Iguazú waterfalls, and it was in it that we decided to dedicate and decorate our Project of Heart wooden tiles to honour the above mentioned children.

“What would we put on the tiles?” we asked ourselves.  We had been carrying them for almost eleven months. They had covered the distance of 40,000 kilometers, once around the globe.  They had entered and left sixteen different countries and they needed the correct decoration to suit our long “lost” Indian Residential School children.

The Guarani people are the Indigenous people of the Iguazu area, and we decided to explore the town to discover art from which we could gain inspiration. We found Guarani  designs on belts, purses, and beautiful fabrics. Spurred on by this rich legacy, we knew we finally had a visual language with which to decorate our much-travelled tiles.

We completed our Project of Heart tiles and then photographed them.

We hope our story and photographs do justice to these children, children who had families and were loved by their communities–children who died because of inhumane treatment at the hands of the church officials with funding provided by the Canadian government, my (our) government.

Our thanks go to Sylvia Smith for providing us with the information, and the opportunity to participate in Project of Heart, and also to Greta Neepin for helping keep us safe during our long journey.
-Warren McBride

So says Winnipeg educator Angela Busch in this special report filed earlier this week by CBC reporter Karen Paul for the Stolen Children series on Radio One; it’s an interview with students from Project of Heart partner school Southeast Collegiate in Winnipeg and was recorded with teacher Angela’s history class.

The audio was originally aired on World Report on Sunday, June 8.

As part of Aboriginal Awareness Week, Project of Heart held a workshop for employees at Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (IRSRC) and representatives from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Embracing the POH initiative, participants had positive comments on the workshop experience: “I learned that Canadians do care about history and how it informs the present” and “it would be great to see this in my son’s school” were typical of the responses the demonstration elicited.