Weblog (Module 2 – WL 1)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/24/bc-st-josepho-memorial.html

This website is from the CBC and discusses the reunion of survivors of the St. Joseph’s residential school (also known as Williams Lake Indian Residential School and Williams Lake Industrial School).  Closed in 1981, the school was one of the last operating residential schools in BC.  The article calls for plans for a monument for survivors in the spot of the school, which has been torn down and a monument in a Williams Lake park to honour the children that died at this school.

However, there is also a link on the page to a 8 and a half minute radio interview with Andy Brice, who is the great grandson of Peter Henderson Brice, who was hired to be a health official for a smallpox outbreak.  He did a 3 year study and found that Residential schools in Ontario were so bad that tuberculosis was found in up to 75% of students.  Other suggestions included better nutrition, heating and ventilation.

1922 – ‘Story of a National Crime’ published.  It discussed deplorable conditions in Residential Schools that Brice had seen.  The pamphlet by Brice, was less than stellarly received.

This story links the deplorable conditions in BC to the deplorable conditions in Ontario and show Residential schools to be a national problem at the turn of the century.

I will use the information in my paper on Residential schools, with a focus on St. Joseph’s , to demonstrate what the city is doing as reparations.

Moore