Drummers led the walk for Orange Shirt Day and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
Fort Macleod residents gathered Thursday to mark Orange Shirt Day and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
Led by drummers and wearing orange T-shirts, about 40 people walked from Kids First Family Centre to Centennial Park.
At Centennial Park participants heard from residential school survivor and Blackfoot elder Peter Strikes With A Gun.
They also listened as the drummers played a song welcoming people home, and then took part in a celebratory round dance.
The event was organized by Kids First Family Centre, Family and Community Support Services and Alberta Health Services, with support from White Eagle Wellness.
Strikes With A Gun, who offered a Blackfoot prayer before the walk started, said children in residential schools had just one wish.
“The only wish that we had was to be home with our loving parents,” Strikes With A Gun said.
The federal government designated Sept. 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation — a day for solemn remembrance and reflection.
Commemorating the history and impact of residential schools is part of the healing and reconciliation process.
Oct. 30 is also Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day is part of an ongoing conversation about residential schools, their impact on Indigenous people and the legacy they have left behind.
Sept. 30 was chosen for Orange Shirt Day because it is the time of year in which Indigenous children were taken from their homes to residential schools.
“Our journey must continue to understand that every child today matters,” Strikes With A Gun said.
Strikes With A Gun prayed for children, their parents and care-givers.
Orange Shirt Day was first established as an observance in 2013.
The use of an orange shirt as a symbol was inspired by the accounts of Phyllis Jack Webstad, whose personal clothing — including a new orange shirt — was taken from her during her first day of residential schooling, and never returned.
The orange shirt is thus used as a symbol of the forced assimilation of Indigenous children that the residential school system enforced.
“I’m very honoured to be a survivor of many difficult tests,” Strikes With A Gun said.
Strikes With A Gun said he was blessed with a spiritual upbringing but given the responsibility to survive.
Strikes With A Gun said his community referred to him as “little brother,” and it wasn’t until he went to residential school that he was called Peter.
At residential school, Strikes With A Gun lost his identity, including his language and culture.
He was eventually conditioned to be ashamed of his mother for her adherence to traditional ways.
“That is what I felt, I lived through — the crisis, the trauma — through my adult life,” Strikes With A Gun said. “I had resentment.”
“I lost my identity. I was ashamed of who I really was.”
Residential school was a time without caring, filled with loneliness and rejection.
Indigenous youth turned to alcohol and drugs to try and kill the sorrow.
Strikes With A Gun said the Bible tells people to love God, as well as one another.
People must purify their hearts and put away grudges and anger in order to build a better world.
“If we don’t it’s going to continue — the storm,” Strikes With A Gun said.
Strikes With A Gun urged people to remember the children who didn’t come home from residential school.
“These children who never came home, only one thing they wanted — love.”
