Old Sun Indian Residential School had been in operation for more than 40 years by the time this photograph was taken in the 1930s. Established in 1886 by the Anglican Church on what was then the Blackfoot Reserve (Siksika Nation) within the Treaty 7 area, southeast of Calgary, near the town of Gleichen, Alberta, Old Sun lasted another four decades, finally closing in 1971, after 85 years. As the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation notes in its online registry of residential schools, a 1908 report on Old Sun described the school as “unsanitary,” its buildings “unsuitable in every way for such an institution.”
Setting hockey aside, recommended for your reading today is Andrew Nikiforuk’s feature from The Tyee this week on Dr. Peter Bryce, Canada’s first chief medical officer of health, who (more than a century ago and repeatedly) warned the government he worked for of the all too fatal flaws of their residential schools. He was ignored. That’s here.
Also: watch, if you would, this statement from former Senator Murray Sinclair, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
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