Entering the Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School on the Kehewin Cree Nation near St. Paul, Alta., students, staff and faculty are greeted by the steady rhythm of powwow drums and the sweet scent of burning sage.
Everyone in this K-12 school gathers in a circular open-concept room which represents the sacred circle to say their morning prayer. Students lead their peers in a traditional ceremony in a place where they are not only allowed but encouraged to embrace their culture and identity through the use of their grandmother tongue. As the steady drums continue, the voices of students rise to carry traditional powwow songs.
The music continues as the Inclusive Education Coordinator walks around with an eager young student in tow, excited to play a vital role in this ceremony, stopping in front of students and faculty to allow them to smudge. With a blue iridescent bowl carrying burning sage, smoke floods the air as each participant in the ceremony reverently takes handfuls of the sacred smoke, lifting it in a cleansing motion over their heads and in their hands.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Article 1, a human rights magazine published by students in MRU’s school of Journalism & Digital Media. You can read more issues and articles at their website.
When the song ends, the students recite their morning Cree prayer. The traditional Catholic “Our Father” used to be integrated into the Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School’s morning ceremony, but after the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were implemented in 2015, the school decided to only recite the Cree prayer out of respect for the survivors of the residential school system.
One educator in particular, along with her team, is spearheading the spiritual side of education and cultural teachings at the school. Crystal Poitras John, the inclusive education coordinator, is responsible for helping students find support in the four quadrants of the sacred circle — the emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual. The sacred circle, previously referred to as the medicine wheel, represents the circle of life in Indigenous culture.
John says that when she first started working at the school, there wasn’t a lot of emphasis on traditional teachings or ceremonies. However, she always ensured that there was smudging in her room and encouraged the morning Cree prayer. Twenty years ago, John made a promise to the person who wrote the Cree prayer and that she would incorporate it into the school’s daily practices. Now, every morning, John prepares the smudge for the morning ceremony and students recite the Cree prayer.
“Students come and ask to participate,” said John. “I try to remember who asked the day before so I don’t forget anybody.”
The prayer essentially thanks the Creator for the day and acknowledges their humbleness, and that they are the children, men and boys, women and girls of the Creator. The prayer also asks to have a good day.
For John, it is the ceremonies and openness to tradition that have kept her at the school for so many years.
That’s the vision for Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School, where Cree culture, language, and traditions are celebrated and ingrained into student education and where staff can be seen wearing ribbon skirts and beaded jewelry most often made by their students. All this was unimaginable only a generation prior.
From residential school to Indigenous-run university
Just 55 kilometres from the Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School stands an institution where the Government of Canada did all it could do to force Indigenous peoples in the area to assimilate. It was known as the Blue Quills Indian Residential School. The school still stands, and paradoxically, a place once intended for the eradication of Indigenous language and identity is now being used to honour those who came before and is restoring the culture that was stolen.
Today it’s a post-secondary institution: University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills – locally referred to as Blue Quills or UnBQ near the town of St. Paul. The school was originally located about 150 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, on the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, but was later moved to St. Paul in 1931. In 1970, the Blue Quills Native Education Council was incorporated to take over operations of the former Blue Quills Indian Residential School, marking a historic moment as the school became the first Indigenous-owned and governed educational center in Canada. This transformation was driven by the Indigenous communities’ desire to reclaim control over their education and cultural preservation.
The takeover of Blue Quills by the Indigenous community was a dramatic and significant act of resistance and empowerment. The institution, now known as UnBQ, serves the academic and training needs of people of all cultures, encouraging everyone to experience studying in a unique socio-cultural and academic environment.
To advance her career and commitment to ensuring students embrace their cultural heritage, Crystal Poitras John is pursuing a master’s degree in Indigenous Education at UnBQ
Descendants of residential school survivors also walk the same corridors in Blue Quills as their ancestors — not in oppression, but in pursuit of knowledge and cultural restoration.
Reckoning with the past
Lillian Youngchief, an Elder and a residential school survivor, said, “It was supposed to do good, to the aid of people, but it didn’t. Instead, [it] abused us because we didn’t understand.”
Today, Youngchief works at Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School. Her relationship with Blue Quills is long and complex, a journey of resilience and success. Ties with Blue Quills both as a university and a residential school run deep through the staff.
Youngchief is a Cree instructor at Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik. She has been teaching Cree language and culture at the school for three years. However, her history runs deep with the school, and has been working there off and on since 1975 in various roles while taking breaks at times to pursue her own educational journey.
Youngchief recalled attending Blue Quills Indian Residential School when she was five or six years old. However, soon after arriving at the school, she became ill with tuberculosis and was sent for treatment at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton where Indigenous peoples from the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta were regularly sent to be treated for tuberculosis and other health concerns.
At that young age, Youngchief recalls being alone without her family, without her siblings and without her language.
“My family didn’t have vehicles. So I remember my mom coming to see me once,” said Youngchief. “I lost quite a bit of my family ties, my family bonds—I lost all that.”
Once she recovered, Youngchief was sent back to Blue Quills Indian Residential School where she was expected to keep up with her peers. When she returned, she had forgotten most of her Cree language and had picked up English from the hospital staff, but she never fully understood it.
When she returned to Blue Quills, this became a new problem. “This priest used to show us the Cree prayers, and I couldn’t say them,” said Youngchief. “He had a long stick, so he’d hit us. I had to learn it.”
From then on, Youngchief had a difficult time in school from reading and writing to “arithmetic.” A few years later, students were allowed to stay at home with their parents and would be bussed to school every day. Even with that change, Youngchief still struggled to keep up with her studies and eventually left school at the age of 16. However, she never stopped reading and practicing Cree and English and was able to have the confidence to go back to school.
After getting married and starting a family, Youngchief returned to Blue Quills when it was taken over by the Blue Quills Native Education Council in 1977 for an Aboriginal teacher training pilot program.
When she arrived on the property in 1977 as an adult, Youngchief was escorted on a tour of the campus that took her through the boiler room and the catacombs which she had never seen before.
“I couldn’t make it up to the dormitory where we slept,” recounted Youngchief. “It was the most loneliest place in the world.”
She also had to go to the laundry room where the students were expected to do their laundry when she attended residential school. She kept note of where the chapel was — where she and other students were expected to go pray every morning — and stayed away from those places on the grounds.
Reflecting on her experience at the school, Youngchief recalled being forbidden to speak to her sister or brother. There was no contact, no comfort, and no love.
“You have no voice. Even though you cry, you had nobody there to comfort you,” said Youngchief.
Youngchief believes she buried many memories and the associated trauma in her mind. While acknowledging that something significant occurred during that period, attempting to remember it only brings tears to her eyes.
“[The] loneliness, it’s a different kind of loneliness that hurts. You know, really painful.”
But despite all of this pain, she managed to push it aside and return to school in 2001 to complete her Bachelor of Education degree. When asked why she chose to go back to a place that caused so much pain, Youngchief said she went for her family. With eight kids at home at that time, she needed to attend a university where she could be home every night.
For Youngchief, having a university that is Indigenous-owned and governed means having the opportunity to have an open learning environment that allows for dispersing the oppression that once laid so heavy over the building.
“Today, I have two ways of looking at life. My native way and the mainstream,” said Youngchief. “We lost a lot, but we can get it back.”
Victory over revenge
Candace Houle, the principal at Kinokamasihk Kiskinohamatokamik School, traces her educational journey back to Blue Quills too. It’s a place deeply intertwined with her family’s history and the resilience of Indigenous education.
In the busyness of a lecture hall at Blue Quills, Houle sat solemnly in class, surrounded by the echoes of history. As she gazed around the room, her mind would often wander back to a time long before her own — a time when her ancestors walked those same halls, but under vastly different circumstances.
After initiating a search for unmarked graves in August of 2022, a team of forensic archaeologists, contracted by Blue Quills, discovered 19 anomalies on school grounds. This meant that the anomalies had traits consistent with burials.
The lead archaeologist on this case said that her team needed to study the characteristics to understand the anomalies before conclusions were drawn. The researchers required scans of known grave sites in the community to gather comparative data to finalize the analysis. The next steps will be guided by community elders, survivors and their families.
While investigations at UnBQ are still ongoing, other unmarked graves have been discovered on an earlier version of the residential school.
The Sacred Heart Indian Residential School, that operated between 1890 and 1931 on the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, was later renamed Blue Quills and was moved to St. Paul.
In October of 2023, the remains of a child were found at the former residential school site in Saddle Lake. Forensic investigators haven’t determined an identity but believe the child was five years old at the time of death.
From the 1870s to the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children across Canada were forced to attend residential schools. Among them, it is estimated that 4,100 children died while attending the institutions. However, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates the toll could be 6,000 or higher, with at least 821 of those deaths being in Alberta alone.
Reports reveal that the most common cause of death among residential school students was often tuberculosis which was linked to drinking unpasteurized cow’s milk from the livestock kept on site.
However, as surprising as it may sound, Houle cannot recall having a negative experience with Blue Quills — that is solely because of the role models and trailblazers that played a part in her educational upbringing.
In terms of formal education, Houle’s connection to Blue Quills began in 1996 with her first degree, a Bachelor of Arts. Following this, Houle pursued a degree in education at Concordia University in Edmonton before returning to Blue Quills to complete her master’s degree through a program affiliated with the University of Alberta. She is currently pursuing a doctoral program at the school.
However, her journey with Blue Quills started long before 1996. When she was a child, Houle’s grandmother was on the Indigenous council that took over the school in 1970 and reformations were already underway. She recalls going to the daycare at the school and being taken care of by “kookums” — grandmothers in Cree.
Her early experiences at the school, including attending the daycare, were enveloped with Indigenous teachings and caretakers who instilled a strong sense of identity and pride.
“I’ve never had a negative experience with Blue Quills because of those people who fought for us to be able to take over our education,” said Houle.
Because of the Indigenous council, the school has been transformed into a place of healing, ceremony and reclamation. But the question remains: What should be done with other residential school sites? Some have been turned into memorials, others, into country club resorts, educational institutions and some have even been demolished. But for Houle, she is grateful to see the changes and impact that Blue Quills has made since becoming an Indigenous-governed institution.
Houle shared a story from Chief Trevor John of the Kehewin Cree Nation, who said that if they were to remove those buildings, there would be no reminders to those who need reminding – the colonizers and the descendants of the colonizers. Houle says while those reminders may be hard for the survivors, Blue Quills has created a space for healing.
“I heard an Elder speak one time and he said ‘I’m glad to be here because I wasn’t supposed to be here,’” said Houle. “I think those spaces are evidence that we weren’t supposed to be here, that place was supposed to assimilate us.”
But, today, Houle can sit in a classroom at Blue Quills or walk the halls and although she still has a heavy heart when she acknowledges the traumas and pains of her people, her parents, her grandparents and her great grandparents, but she also has a feeling of victory.
“When I think about the University of Blue Quills [sic], I think if my grandmother were here today every time someone walks across that stage, that would be the victory,” said Houle. “That would be the revenge.”