Speakers came together at the College of New Caledonia’s Gather Place in Prince George to talk about the history of Orange Shirt Day and relay personal experiences at residential schools.
Orange Shirt Day honours the story of Phyllis Webstad having her new orange shirt taken away on her first day at residential school. Since 2013, Webstad’s story has encouraged Canadians to wear orange on September 30th to bring awareness and educate people about the residential school system and its impact.
A moment of silence is held @cnc_bc_ca recognizing those affected by the residential school system #CityofPG #OrangeShirtDay @mypgnow pic.twitter.com/Y2RWoTMBeh
— Matt Fetinko (@mattfetinko) September 28, 2018
One speaker at CNC is Bruce Allan, a first-hand and generational survivor of the Lejac Residential School, who is with the Stellat’en First Nation. Without discounting the traumatic experiences, he considers himself lucky because he was able to bus home every day.
“That posed different problems for us because other students at the school couldn’t go home every day. They came from all these different places so my experience was way different but that’s not to say that there wasn’t any physical abuse or sexual abuse with these students because there was.”
One of the greatest impacts on Allan’s life is the same as that of multiple First Nations, being the loss of language. In Allan’s case, it is the Dakelh Carrier language.
“Both my parents were fluent but both didn’t teach us our language. For my children, because I am not a fluent speaker, my children didn’t learn the language and I think we have just a two percent fluency in our population.”
The Khast’an Drummers will be in front of the courthouse in Prince George on Sunday, September 30th, from 2pm to 4pm to honour Orange Shirt Day.
A board is put up in The Gathering Place @cnc_bc_ca for people’s stories and positive words to those affected by residential schools #CityofPG #OrangeShirtDay @mypgnow pic.twitter.com/Aw45phgTwY
— Matt Fetinko (@mattfetinko) September 28, 2018
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