The memorial on the steps of Peterborough City Hall, which honours the 215 Indigenous children whose remains were discovered in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, has a new home.
A ceremony was held on Sunday (June 13) to move the memorial — which includes children’s shoes, stuffed animals, and medicines — to a new wooden platform installed right beside the concrete steps where the memorial was originally located.
On Sunday morning, the local Indigenous women who had initiated the memorial and volunteers were planning a “closing ceremony” to remove the items from the city hall steps, prior to the reopening of city hall to the public.
They intended to remove the items in a respectful way consistent with their original intentions and with Indigenous teachings, including by creating chalk outlines of the shoes on the steps and then cleaning the shoes and preparing them for donation.
However, when they arrived at city hall, they discovered two city workers were busy building a set of wooden steps right beside where the memorial was originally located.
Organizers contacted Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien to find out why the platform was being built, and she told them it was intended as a new location for the memorial.
Mayor Therrien told organizers that having the items remain on the city hall steps creates a legal liability and access issue.
However, since she was not comfortable having the memorial removed, and not knowing who had organized the memorial and was responsible for its caretaking, she had reached out earlier in the week to both Chief Laurie Carr of Hiawatha First Nation and Chief Emily Whetung of Curve Lake First Nation for their advice.
Both Chiefs felt the memorial should remain at Peterborough City Hall. As a result, Mayor Therrien directed city staff to quickly build a wooden platform, so the city could offer it as a new location for the memorial.
After hearing from the mayor, organizers accepted the offer and Sunday’s closing ceremony instead became one for moving the items to their new home.
The ceremony included drumming, song, prayer, and a talking circle. Participants took turns choosing a pair of shoes and cleansing them with a smudge, and then placing them with care on the new wooden platform. Medicines from the steps were placed in a basket to be burned offsite and new medicines were placed with the shoes on the new platform.
Attendees included both Indigenous people and settlers, children and Elders, both urban and rural. One Elder shared his experiences of being taken from his family as a toddler. A young Indigenous woman attended with her non-Indigenous adoptive family. A settler brought her three children who devotedly moved shoes.
“My heart was deeply touched by this offer from our mayor and her actions,” writes Kerry Bebee in a Facebook post. “She quickly mobilized and had a very nice wooden platform created so that our Memorial could continue.”
“Instead of asking us to take away the items, she took action and demonstrated her support and caring about what has happened, this unspeakable tragedy for Indigenous people, by having this wooden platform created for this community memorial. This is the spirit with which we need to move forward together. My heart is lifted.”
The organizers for the memorial will be meeting with Chief Carr and Chief Whetung to discuss longer-term plans for the memorial.
In the interim, everyone is invited to continue to visit the memorial and add shoes, medicines, and other offerings to honour all Indigenous children who have lost their culture, their families, and their lives to Canada’s residential school system.
kawarthaNOW thanks Ziysah von Bieberstein for providing the text and photos for this story.
