September 30 marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, acknowledging the effects of Canada’s residential school system.
Saint John is collaborating with Indigenous leaders for a Healing Walk at 1:00 p.m. on the Great Canadian Trail in Rockwood Park.
Participants are encouraged to wear orange and bring a hand drum if they have one.
Double Curve Media, an Indigenous media company, will document the event.
In July 2021, Indigenous community members living in Saint John organized the first Healing Walk in Rockwood Park, with speakers offering details of the impact of residential schools at each provincial marker along The Great Canadian Trail.
An estimated 1,500 residents joined the march in Orange Shirts to honour the children who were taken from their families and forced to attend residential schools.
The location of where the healing walk will start.
The Residential School System was founded by the Canadian government and operated from the late 1800s to the early 1990s.
Around 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed into 1 of the 130 schools operated across Canada.
The purpose of residential schools was to educate and convert Indigenous youth and assimilate them into Canadian society.
The legacy of the system have been linked to an increased prevalence of post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, substance abuse, suicide, and intergenerational trauma within Indigenous communities today.
The holiday was first introduced in 2013 as Orange Shirt Day, inspired by the story of survivor Phyllis Jack Webstad.
On her first day at a residential school, school staff removed Webstad’s clothes, including an orange shirt her grandmother gifted her, which was never returned.
On May 28, 2021, the Federal Government renamed the holiday the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
This decision was made following the discovery of 215 remains in an unmarked cemetery at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.
Today, the orange shirt serves as a poignant reminder of how the residential school system stripped away the indigenous identities of its students.
The colour orange has long been associated with First Nations, symbolizing sunshine, truth, health, renewal, strength, and power.
