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As Fort Qu鈥橝ppelle鈥檚 Bert Fox high school recently opened its Indigenous cultural room, principal Julie Stiglitz was honest in tracing the educational history of the area.
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鈥淛ust down the road in Lebret, a residential school was torn down and it closed in the 鈥�90s. Many of the parents of the students we educate now went to school in Lebret and went through the residential school system,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat's a very real, everyday reality.鈥�
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She and knowledge carrier Phillip Brass spoke with the Leader-Post about the circular, four-door cultural room and what it means for the school鈥檚 kids.
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鈥淔or the Indigenous plains cultures, everything was done in a circle,鈥� said Brass, who鈥檚 a member of the Peepeekisis Cree Nation east of Fort Qu鈥橝ppelle. 鈥淲hen you sit on the ground in a circle, it鈥檚 a structure that鈥檚 conducive to communication and consensus-making.鈥�
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Brass was a consultant and ceremony helper in designing the room, which can hold 35 to 40 people at full capacity. As a designer, he made sure the space would function to teach First Nations teens about their communities鈥� cultural and spiritual ceremonies.
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Some of the areas covered are to be medicine, food, crafts and language. Daily ceremonies are to include talking circles and smudges.
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Bert Fox is 鈥�70 per cent Indigenous population,鈥� Stiglitz said. 鈥淭he Truth and Reconciliation Commission asks us to put back what the education system took out as a part of colonization, (and) directly through residential schools.鈥�
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The Encyclopaedia of Saskatchewan states there were 20 residential schools in Saskatchewan. Across Canada residential schools left a legacy of physically and sexually abused students, while stamping out their cultures and languages.
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Lebret鈥檚 Industrial School (also called Indian Residential School) closed in June 1998, though by that time the Star Blanket Cree Nation operated it under the name White Calf Industrial School.
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Brass said the Treaty 4 area around the Qu鈥橝ppelle Valley encompasses different linguistic groups, hence the need to build four doors facing four directions 鈥� north, east, south and west 鈥� into the room. Those groups are Cree, Dakota, Nakota and Saulteaux, he said.
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The room鈥檚 design mimics traditional ceremonial lodges made of poplar trees by lining its walls with poplar wood.
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Brass also acknowledged Fort Qu鈥橝ppelle鈥檚 immigrant community, how Filipino kids at Bert Fox are eager to learn about First Nations topics.
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鈥淚 find most of them really enter into the conversation with a lot of curiosity,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey don't have any prior history, that tension of that very difficult relationship between settler Canadians and Indigenous peoples.鈥�
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He said Filipino students are more open to having 鈥渄ifficult conversations sometimes. And they do also have their own colonial history in the Philippines, with brutal treatments under the Americans in the 1890s.鈥�
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