Residential Schools: Inuit Experiences
Over a decade after residential schools were recommended to be closed, two new ones opened in Inuvik, N.W.T: Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall. Discover why the government opened them and what impacts they had in the final episode of our podcast.
In the late 1940s, a Special Joint Committee created by the Government of Canada found that Indian Residential Schools weren’t working. Residential schools across the country were ordered to be closed and their students be transferred to provincial schools. But then, over a decade later, two new residential schools opened in Inuvik, Northwest Territories: Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall.
In this episode, Dinjii Zhuh historian Dr. Crystal Gail Fraser, an assistant professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies, explains why the government ignored those recommendations, and what that meant for institutionalized students. Survivors Piita Irniq and Abraham Anghik Ruben give first-hand accounts of life in Northern residential schools. Hosted by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais, this is “Residential Schools: Inuit Experiences.”
Special thanks to Survivors Piita Irniq and Abraham Anghik Ruben. Survivor testimony for this episode provided by the Legacy of Hope Foundation. Additional resources include University of Regina’s Shattering Silence and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future.
Thanks to our consultant, Inuit writer, researcher, and scholar Norma Dunning.
Illustrations by Halie Finney.