Skip to content

Former Premier Kakfwi reflects on monumental sadness of residential schools

1410residential32
Photo courtesy of Tessa Macintosh. The monument displays the names of 300 who died at Fort Providence's Sacred Heart Mission school. Oct. 3, 2019.

Every September, former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi feels a profound sense of longing and loneliness.

Paul Andrew, left, and Stephen Kakfwi, stand with drums in hand while in Fort Providence.
photos courtesy of Tessa Macintosh

It's a memory triggered by the change of seasons, but it's rooted in his residential school experience, when he was taken away from his family repeatedly for seven years.

That anguish returns again in late December, even many decades later.

"Long after I was married and had kids... no matter where I was during Christmas, there was always a deep sense of emptiness and sadness – whether I was with my wife or friends and family it didn't matter and these feelings always crept in," says Kakfwi, who grew up in Fort Good Hope.

Orange Shirt Day and recognition of Sept. 30 as a time to observe residential school survivors is important, he says. Indigenous people in the NWT have been heavily impacted and the broader Canadian public ought to understand how survivors experience the negative memories, says Kakfwi.

Coping with these intense emotions is an ongoing process. One important event that he was involved in was a pilgrimage to Fort Providence in October 2019. Kakfwi, his family and various community leaders were involved in the dedication of a monument that lists the names of children who died at the hamlet's Sacred Heart Mission School. The school is one of the oldest in the NWT, stretching back to the 19th century. Only in recent years, Kakfwi found out that three relatives from his mother's side were buried in the area during the 1800s.

Kakfwi, who served as premier from 2000-2003, joined in a ceremony calling out of the names of the children who perished.

Asked about the importance of that trip, Kakfwi says it was one of self-discovery. He was able to reconnect with relatives as well as absorb the impact of residential schools more generally.

"All of us called out their names even though nobody has probably said their names for 100 years because everybody has forgotten," he says. "We are fortunate to know who they were and to be able to go and call their names."

As many of the young students were from his home community of Fort Good Hope, the event also involved sacrificing foods from the Sahtu, including berries and moose meat, during a fire-feeding ceremony. The smoke, it is said, delivers nourishment to the deceased.

Kakfwi encourages other groups to do similar exercises to recognize the impact of residential schools.

It was a sunny but sombre day at the monument site in Fort Providence.
Stephen Kakfwi and grandson Ryden place their hands under Helen Laporte's engraved name on a monument in Fort Providence in October 2019.

"I think I would like to see the Dene Nation, the Metis, the Native Women as well as the United church, Catholic Church, Anglican Church and their congregations make a pilgrimage to Fort Providence," he says. "You can go and see the monument to one of the first residential schools built in the 1860s, where many young children died and were buried in that field. Their names, though not all of them, were written on a monument in Fort Providence.

"It is not much as a church to ask your congregation, 'You've been living here and raising children here. Do you know what happened in Fort Providence? There are children buried in unmarked graves and there is a monument. There are children and family names who are also still alive today. There are some that don't exist anymore.'"