Lost amongst dozens of islets in Johnstone Strait between Vancouver Island and British Columbia’s mainland lies a special place:
Cormorant Island and its village, Alert Bay.
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This is home to the Namgis First Nation within the larger Kwakwaka’wakw band, who built an astonishingly rich, creative culture as amply demonstrated today in Alert Bay by the U’mista Cultural Centre, the Big House and a flowering community of artists and carvers. Towering totems with real and mythical creatures abound. Enormous canoes were built from single old-growth cedar trees. Glorious masks representing eagles, thunderbirds, orcas and mythical creatures are used in dances acting out traditional stories and legends. The Namgis, and all First Nations, have a generous, sharing philosophy; the real wealth for Natives is not money, but knowledge of dances and songs.
A thriving waterfront at Alert Bay, circa 1910 – Photo courtesy of BC Archives, Royal British Columbia Museum
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But the white men came, and in their colonial lust for land, they trampled on those who have lived on it for millennia. As laid bare by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Natives were shoved aside and treated despicably. Cultural genocide, the Commission called it. Canada, a democratic country that prides itself in freedom and liberty, bears a dark stain from those actions.
The worst insult, the cruelest blow, was the establishing of residential schools, which Native children were forced to attend so their Native culture and language could be expunged, beaten out of them if necessary.
St. Michaels Residential School from the waterfront in 2009 – note U’mista Cultural Centre to left.
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About 130 residential schools were set up in Canada and about 150,000 aboriginal children were forced to attend them. Of the 29 schools in British Columbia, one was in Alert Bay on the peaceful, beautiful Cormorant Island. St. Michaels Residential School operated from 1894 to 1974, at first in two wooden buildings, one for girls and one for boys. In 1929, they were replaced by a large, three-storey brick building.
The original wooden buildings were replaced by a brick one in 1929.
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Children were forcibly torn from families and placed into a foreign environment where they were not allowed to speak their language or practice their traditional pastimes. Nor could they visit their families, except fleetingly.
St. Michaels Residential School – View from behind
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Although there must have been many instances of proper and loving care, somehow the system came unglued and the brick schoolhouse here and others throughout the country became houses of horror. Given the residential schools were operated by the Anglican, United and Catholic churches, it’s not easy to understand why things went wrong. Abuse of a sexual, physical and psychological nature, even torture, became prevalent. There are numerous documented cases of beatings that resulted in broken limbs, children placed in isolation in black closets often for days, needles pushed through a tongue because the Native language had been spoken, and more, and worse.
Although the school was derelict for many years carvers used a basement room as a studio (2009).
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An estimated 6,000 students died while at residential schools, an astonishingly high number. The risk of an aboriginal child dying at residential school was higher than for a Canadian serving in World War II! When a study showed many of these deaths were caused by tuberculosis, which could be largely avoided, the federal government rejected the results and buried the report. Thus, it contributed to the deaths of many more children.
Interior of basement ‘studio’ used by carvers; they did magnificent work.
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Defying credulity, it appears that during the time these schools operated (more than a century) very few, if any, people were charged with criminal offenses for any of these heinous abuses. During my (brief) research I did not find a single case of a person spending a day in court nor being charged, nor paying a fine, nor spending any time in jail. The most that happened was that a few people were forced to resign. The immensity of the cover-up by the federal government is staggering. Thank goodness for the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Pity it didn’t come decades earlier.
Behind the old school with two canoes made by carvers
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In February 2015, St. Michael’s Indian Residential School was torn down, no doubt with the hope that its painful memories would disappear with it. The photos here show the school as it was a few years ago.
St. Michaels Residential School is a reminder of how easily the thin varnish of civilization can rub off. Now is not the time for forgetting. But it is a time for healing.
Hans, thank you for this succinct comment on a dark part of Canadian history, thankfully no longer hidden from public scrutiny. May the First Nations people continue to heal, to strengthen, to rise up… so that they will never again be ignored or hurt.
Im curious who took the nice photo of the school with the close up of the totem pole in the beginning of this article? I’m from Alert Bay and work at the U’mista Cultural Centre next to where the St. Mike’s Residential School once stood.
Trevor,
Hans Tammemagi, the author of the post took that picture.
Please tell us more about Alert Bay and your work at the U’mista Cultural Centre. I’d love to know more about what’s going on there now.
Glenn
I would like to contact Hans to ask permission to use his photo of the decaying residential school in a book to be published by Ronsdale Press, Vancouver.
Thank you fir your help!
I’m curious to know more about the book in-question. My Great Aunt worked at St. Michael’s as Teacher for about 20 years, until 1948.
My great aunt did as well. Her name was Blanche Lambert
Hi Karen. My Great Aunt was named Florence Bell.
You have the list of the students of that Day School? My memory isn’t there anymore. My eras was running real bad and drained my mind out to be forgetful.Thank you.
North Island College used to have a learning centre in that building. Given that 99% of the students were First Nations I could never understand why that location, with all its terrible memories , was thought to be an appropriate centre for learning.
If you wish for untainted locations to educate a new generation then entire countries would not make the cut, Germany as well as many others come to mind. What is taught is far more important than where it is taught. The wrongs that were inflicted at that location and importantly the reasoning behind those decisions need to be discussed and lessons learned. It is not ok to simply say in hindsight that this was wrong without an understanding of the politics that were in play at the time.
Richard Hall. I agree with you.
So sad, I feel bad for the Survivors – haunting memories- but happy they survived!
Thank you for your Informative article and photos, It added to my reading of NAMWAYUT, Chief Robert Joseph,
Grateful
I visited Alert Bay and the field where the school used to be. It felt haunted. I will never forget my conversation with Alert Bay resident and filmmaker Barb Cramner. While she passed away a few years ago she has left a legacy- including films documenting St Michael’s and the day demolition started.
A legacy indeed. Thanks for sharing this Beverley.
Do you have a list of the teachers of the school in the latter years?
Hello, I’m looking for a list of teachers (female) from 1966/67/68 … anyone know where I could find that? Students in high school grades as well. Thank you so much dryan@postmedia.com
Where can i find a lost of teachers who taught at this school from 1950 to the time it closed? Thank you
I lived in Alert Bay from 1956 to 1964 and then moved to Campbell River and have lived on Vancouver Island most of my life. You know it’s really unfortunate that folks like Tammemagi write exaggerated sensationlist articles to sell books and photos etc. What he says is not accurate. I lived in Alert Bay while St. Michaels was still operational. And isn’t it odd that if the native people who say they had such horrible experiences there and such bad energies supposedly still exist and the “feelings of it being haunted” that after the school closed in the 1970’s that the Namgis used it as their administration office. Odd hey? Plus modern naive readers who never were alive in the past, who read a couple of lines of some article and think they know the whole story then go “oh my gosh, how horrible” start to believe these exaggerated stories. My mother taught at both the Indian Day School and the Alert Bay High School. I could write a book on how inaccurate these untruths are. Sure he shows pictures of a delapidated old unused structure. But in it’s day it would have been one of the most modern and well built structures outside of perhaps Victoria or Nanaimo or Vancouver, hundreds of miles far to the south. What people forget or do not know or choose not to acknowledge is that native people had no written language. They could not read or write. Not even in their own language. They never even “invented the wheel”, had little or no metalurgy ability and were basically hunter/gatherers and relative to rest of the world quite primitive. These boarding schools were not built to torture or irradicate native people. It was built as a boarding school to bring children in from remote villages to help educate them so that they could participate in the modern world of the day. Had the government of the day simply wished to eradicate native people they could have easily done that without going to the great expense of building well built brick multi storied buildings across the country. Why not try writing about the real truth about certain native folks like the Haida’s who were quite proud of the fact that they would hop in their war canoes and raid native villages up and down the coast and slaughter as many as they could and steal their stuff and most importantly take slaves. Yah thats right slaves. Most if not all native cultures in North America slaughtered other tribes to aquire territory and resources and took slaves. When Lincoln freed the slaves, the Tlinget people in Alaska, said that they could not include there slaves. Here’s something else to ponder. Recently one of the Campbell River native bands has been argueing with the Komox band as to who has rights to certain territories and guess what the CR band used as their reason why it should be their territory? It should be theirs based on “the right of conquest” Interesting that the right of conquest doesn’t include the rights of the British Empire’s conquests, only the native’s rights of conquest. One last thought, how is it that not one bone, not one tooth, no actual phsycal evidence of any kind whatsoever has been produced as proof that there are actual bodies buried out back at various residential schools across Canada. None. And yet that fool Trudeau stood up and without any actual proof whatsoever, stated to the world that Canadians were commiting genocide and had murdered children and buried them out back in unmarked graves like in some Stephen King horror novel. Oh, here’s one more interesting piece of science about intentially exposing natives to smallpox. Guess what? Smallpox cannot exist outside of a host body for much more than 24 hours. Plus it killed millions around the world, not just natives. So the idea that smallpox could survive on a blanket for much more than a day and long enough to be transported to infect certain populations is quite frankly impossible. No airlines back then. Took months to travel by ship or land. Plus smallpox doesn’t see race or colour when it infected someone and no captain of any ship would want smallpox on their ship, because guess what, it killed Europeans too. So please take a little time to investigate history and the real truth before believing what you read in a couple of lines from sensationalist activist types who are in it simply for the money.
Because my Great Aunt, Florence Bell, worked at St. Michael’s Residential School from 1930 ca. to 1945 (about 15 years); I was hoping to hear some “good stories” from students who attended. Her family was from England and her brothers fought against Germany in W.W.I. Here’s a quote from Florence that she wrote in a letter to her mother in 1916. The context involves retreating German soldiers, whom she feels sorry for: “Poor creatures, it must be awful for them mustn’t it Mum. They have their families & feelings just as we have, & they have to fight for their Country just as our men are doing. I do feel sorry for them, it is the ones who are responsible for all the trouble & misery who will not feel it so much, it will lower their dignity somewhat but that is all. They have their comforts one may be sure, whilst the peasants are being starved & slain wholesale.” *Sept. 26, 1916)
As I see it, she was a compassionate soul; and I believe would have the best intentions when teaching native children.