The Project Heart Canoe, a canoe of student created artwork that honours residential school survivors and expresses a message of healing, is now at the Silver Creek Elementary School (SCES).
Taking place on Monday morning (Sept. 25), a ceremony was held for the arrival of the “extraordinary commemorative piece,” which marks the beginning of the SCES’s week long tribute to residential school survivors and the memories of the children who never returned home. Alongside staff, a 140 students actively participated in the ceremony which was witnessed by local chiefs and band members who attended SCES, as well as members of School District 78.
The canoe, which was carried into the school and now rests in the gymnasium, will reside at SCES for an unspecified time as part of it’s provincial tour.
First started in 2012, the project is a collaboration between teachers and students, from over 270 B.C. schools, who worked with Indigenous artists Derrick George and Una Ann Moyer, to create the canoe. This collaboration came about after Project Heart (an initiative/group that, through art, seeks to examine the history of residential schools and demand social justice for survivors and those who died) selected the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) to host the Truth and Reconciliation Commission National Commemoration Project for Indian residential school survivors in B.C.
During the canoe’s creation, residential school survivors shared their stories with classrooms and students throughout the province (whose teachers had signed up for the project). After hearing their stories, students were then tasked with creating artwork on wooden tiles in order to pay tribute to children who died in residential schools, to honour survivors, and to help raise awareness about the residential schools.
George, a Tsleil-Waututh First Nation carver whose father went to a residential school, carved the canoe with his sons, and then donated it to BCTF. His canoe was then taken by Moyer, who is a member of the Tahltan Indian Band and an Indigenous support worker for the Langley School District, who then wove it together with the stories of survivors and “the tiles from participating schools to create a powerful healing piece.”
READ MORE: Stó:lō Nation residential school probe finds 158 child deaths, potential unmarked graves
@KemoneMoodley
kemone.moodley@hopestandard.com
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