School division repatriating documents
Frontier hopes to get former day school collections to First Nations communities, families
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/07/2023 (820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Frontier School Division is searching for the rightful owners of hundreds of photographs and other artifacts that have sat in dusty boxes for decades — ever since the district was established in 1965, and took over former day school sites across northern Manitoba.
It was about five years ago researchers in the Frontier office dedicated to Indigenizing education began to sort and make sense of all the documents in its possession. Since then, staffers have undertaken a massive repatriation project.
There are about 10,300 pages, 831 photographs, 1,452 slides, 27 maps and charts, six film strips and one video cassette.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES
Frontier School Division chief superintendent Reg Klassen: ‘delicate situation’
“We’re trying really hard to put it into the right hands, whether it be families or communities or museums that have a clear sensitivity of what it means, culturally and historically, to telling the truth,” said Reg Klassen, chief superintendent of the largest geographical district in the province.
When the division came into being with a mandate to improve graduation rates in northern Manitoba, it became responsible for delivering public school programming in 43 boreal and remote communities.
Berens River, Norway House, Cross Lake, Grand Rapids and Wanipigow were among those previously home to church-run, government-funded day schools.
Some children suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of school staff, not unlike their peers at residential schools.
Klassen said documents were left in brick-and-mortar facilities transferred to Frontier because nobody knew what to do with them 60 years ago.
Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action and related guidance on how to undertake repatriation work, Frontier administration has made it a priority to catalogue everything, he said.
Call to action No. 69 appeals to archives to ensure Indigenous people know the truth about what happened at residential schools, make all records publicly accessible and increase materials about the federal government’s attempts to assimilate First Nations, Métis and Inuit children.
Some of Frontier’s collection has been successfully returned already. Other artifacts are in the process of being repatriated.
“This is a delicate situation. It’s difficult because it’s a complex issue that means understanding that cultural property may have either been taken, appropriated, stolen or sold,” Klassen said, noting COVID-19 pandemic disruptions have lengthened the time-intensive process.
Frontier partners with First Nations via education agreements and focuses on local community involvement in delivering lessons.
Few former day schools are still standing, owing to fires and demolitions. Cross Lake is an outlier, as one former facility is now operating as an administrative office.
Chief David Monias applauded Frontier’s efforts to return items, although he said these exchanges can be deeply emotional for recipients.
“It’s opening up wounds,” said the leader of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, located 520 kilometres north of Winnipeg. “It retraumatizes some when they come across certain things they were not prepared for.”
The process can also empower people with knowledge, provide an opportunity for healing, bring about closure, reconnect friends and reunite families, Monias said.
“We’re trying to track all our kids. Unfortunately, many of our children went missing as a result of residential schools, day schools, the ’60s Scoop and all of that, so any information we can get access to will be a great help to us.”
The First Nation, which has an agreement with Frontier to teach local students, is preparing to welcome a long-lost member who recently found their relatives from Cross Lake at the end of July.
The British Columbia Museums Association and Indigenous leaders in that province endorsed key principles for repatriation with a 2017 declaration.
At the time, they came to a consensus that the ownership of First Nations artifacts and ancestral remains should reside with Indigenous peoples, there is an opportunity for decolonization by partnering with rightful owners, and these individuals should not pay for repatriation costs.
Given the sensitive nature of this work, Monias said it is important for any entity with information about missing items or people from his community to contact the chief and council so they can co-ordinate a meeting or information-sharing.
“We have to make sure we are getting people prepared for receiving information or receiving family members,” he said. “Everybody thinks it’s old, ‘Leave it alone; it’s old’ — but it’s not. It’s still very much alive for us. The unmarked graves. The missing children. The missing documents. Questions unanswered.”
Last year, the national association of museums released a toolkit and report on the subject.
The 2022 documents urged governments to enact legislation “with strong compliance measures” for private and public collections and provide dedicated funding to bring Indigenous belongings and ancestors home.
“This is not easy work and it’s not fast work, and it has a significant amount of emotion to it as we get the documents back to their rightful owners and make sure that those documents are part of the history that we share,” Klassen said.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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History
Updated on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 8:47 AM CDT: Minor copy editing change