Sunday, September 20, 2020

The colour orange is often attributed to October, when leaves turn that vibrant shade of rust and pumpkins are seen adorning steps in anticipation of trick-or-treaters knocking on doors in search of candy. At TMC, orange is also one of our school colours, brightening the background of our Titan's "T" in our school logo.

However, for a simple, spicy hue, the colour orange has come to mean so much more: a symbol for residential-school survivors, remembrance, acceptance, change. So many feelings from one pumpkin-skinned colour, and it all began with a little girl and a newly purchased, highly prized T-shirt.

On Sept. 30, TMC students and staff will join thousands of other schools in Canada in wearing orange to show solidarity to the Orange Shirt Day movement. 

Last year, our Learning Commons purchased The Orange Shirt Story by Phyllis Webstad, chronicling an eight-year-old's 12 months at the Mission residential school in British Columbia, and the significance of the Orange Shirt movement.

Phyllis (Jack) Webstad's Orange Shirt Story


Follow on Twitter: #OrangeShirtDay
Click to Learn more about Orange Shirt Day

When Phyllis Jack was only six years old, she lived with her grandmother on the Dog Creek Reserve in British Columbia until she, like many other indigenous children in Canada, was shipped off to residential school. It was 1973/74, and her grandmother decided to scrape together whatever money she could find to buy Phyllis a bright orange shirt to take with her to the Mission school.

What was little Phyllis thinking as she waved goodbye to her granny, and the only family she knew? Was she scared? Excited? Nervous?

If she was like many children her age, she was all three. As a six-year-old, these new and strange experiences would have thundered in her heart as she made the journey; they would have caused her breath to catch and her eyes to water. Her mind would have raced at the thoughts of the unknowns but then be comforted that she had a piece of home with her to keep her connected to the family she left behind — a simple, colourful orange shirt.

Oh, how in shock she would have been when upon her arrival, she was stripped of her clothes and the one possession that tied her to her granny. Oh, how devastated she would have felt to see all the things that came with her, linking her to her heritage, her home, gone like garbage — thrown out, never to be seen again — even her identity and self-worth.

Phyllis wasn't the only child ripped from the only home she knew to be raised by strangers in a foreign environment. In fact, her own mother and grandmother had endured the same; each generation leaving the one to come without the loving support of an elder to guide the way.

So it was, when she became a mother before the age of 14, Phyllis had no idea how to be a parent to her son, Jeremy. It was only through the help of her Auntie that this teen mom learned how to show love to another, but it wasn't easy and she eventually sought healing at 27.

It was because of her struggles that she wrote The Orange Shirt Story, telling the sad tale of her first year at the Mission school and the importance one piece of clothing had to identity.

Today, Phyllis Jack (now Webstad) is a Northern Secwpemc (Schuswap) elder from the Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation (Canoe Creek Indian Band). She lives in Williams Lake, B.C., with her husband, son, step-son, and five grandchildren. She tours the country, telling The Orange Shirt Story, as the executive director of the Orange Shirt Society. The society's goal is to create awareness of individual, family and community intergenerational impacts of Indian residential schools through Orange Shirt Day activities, and to promote the mantra that "every child matters."

The Orange Shirt Society began commemorating Sept. 30 as Orange Shirt Day in 2013 in Williams Lake, B.C., which has since spread throughout school districts across the country.
Secret Path Week: Oct. 17 - 22, 2020


Secret Path Week is a national movement which occurs annually from Oct. 17-22. The week was inspired by Chanie Wenjack, a victim of the residential school system.

Residential School Books at TMC:

Over the past few years, we have steadily accumulated a growing collection of books and audio/visual resources focusing on the residential schools, and their survivors, including:

Non-Fiction:

Title

RealFiction:


Digital Resources:

Residential Schools in Canada: A Timeline by Historica Canada



Namwayut: We Are All One: Chief Robert Joseph shares his experience as a residential school survivor and the importance of truth and reconciliation in Canada



Fatty Legs: A True Story author Christy Jordan-Fenton reads Chapter 1 from her book, which was co-authored by Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton 




In this CBC Arts Live documentary, the late Canadian Tragically Hip frontman, Gord Downie, explains the journey he took to recounting the true story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack, who ran away from the Cecelia Jeffery Residential School in Kenora, ON, in 1966. In his graphic novel, The Secret Path, illustrated by Jeff Lemire, Downie sings his song of the same name, delivering a haunting musical commemoration of Chanie's life and his fatal trek to return home to Ogoki Post, some 600 kilometres away. The. documentary also includes conversations with Chanie Wenjack's family and the impact his tragic death, as well as the residential schools' impact on their community, their culture, their families.
This documentary includes a panel discussion on The Road to Reconciliation




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