Inuit Experiences Residential Schools

In the late 1940s, a Special Joint Committee created by the Government of Canada found that Indian Residential Schools weren’t working. Residential schools across the country were ordered to be closed and their students be transferred to provincial schools. But then, over a decade later, two new residential schools opened in Inuvik, Northwest Territories: Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall. In this episode, Dinjii Zhuh historian Dr. Crystal Gail Fraser, an assistant professor in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies, explains why the government ignored those recommendations, and what that meant for institutionalized students. Survivors Piita Irniq and Abraham Anghik Ruben give first-hand accounts of life in Northern residential schools. Hosted by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais, this is “Residential Schools: Inuit Experiences.”