The temporary Indian Residential School memorial at City Hall will be moving to a permanent home. Photo by Stephen Strand
The temporary Indian Residential School memorial at City Hall will be moving to a permanent home.
In September 2021, Calgary’s Indigenous community created a temporary Indian Residential School memorial at City Hall to help honour the 215 children discovered at Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Residential School in Kamloops, B.C.
Today (Friday, March 20), the new, permanent home for this memorial was announced, which was accompanied by a ceremonial walk from City Hall to the permanent location at the Confluence Historic Site & Parkland.
As part of the walk, the spirit of the memorial was transferred to The Wandering Spirit Memorial, the permanent memorial at the Confluence.
This permanent memorial will honour all Residential School Survivors, as well as remember the truth and legacy of residential schools and provide a gathering place for reflection, culture, and community.
Lorelei Higgins, the Team Lead for the City of Calgary’s Indigenous Relations Office, says this move to a permanent home means everything.
The new home for this memorial sits on a site that has held significance for Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years.
But, this location was also the site of colonization in the area, as it was also the site of Fort Calgary, the North-West Mounted Police outpost, which was built in 1875.
Official North-West Mounted Police records state that members of the North-West Mounted Police at Fort Calgary were involved in helping to capture, jail, and return children who ran away from residential schools.
Higgins says that the transformation of this land, with all its history, into a permanent memorial site is beautiful.
Work on the new site will begin in spring of 2027, but today, Higgins says they have transferred the spirit of the memorial.
As part of this memorial transfer and walk, Mayor Farkas was in attendance and spoke about the memorial, and Higgins said he spoke from his heart.
He goes on to add that he is angry about the amount on misinformation that exists around residential schools.
Jen Thompson, the President of the Confluence Historic & Parkland, says this is a significant moment for them.
Thompson adds that this project helps to reconcile what happened to Indigenous people in the area.
Marina Crane, from Tsuut’ina, was in attendance and said that it is important that people showed up to this walk.
As part of this walk and memorial transfer, 215 tobacco ties were handed out, which Crane goes on to explain.
To learn more about this walk and the new memorial site, click here.
Comments