Senator and Elder Jenny Spyglass, left, shown with Living Sky School Division Indigenous Learning Consultant Sherron Burns in 2017 during an Orange Shirt Day event. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

A step towards reconciliation

Orange Shirt Day a time to honour residential school survivors

Sep 30, 2020 | 1:20 PM

Today marks Orange Shirt Day in the Battlefords and across Canada – commemorating a difficult time in the nation’s history, as well as efforts towards healing and reconciliation.

Senator and elder Jenny Spyglass and Patricia Whitecalf-Ironstand, executive director of Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre, spoke with CJNB/CJNS morning show host Grant Schutte today about the history and importance of Orange Shirt Day.

Spyglass, of Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation, is the first female Senator appointed to Battlefords Agency Tribal Council and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Senate.

She is also a residential school survivor.

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Spyglass says Orange Shirt Day on Sept. 30 commemorates the time in Canada’s history when Indigenous children were taken away from their homes to residential schools.

She hopes the day can serve as an aid for healing, and lead to understanding.

“It is an opportunity to set the stage for anti-racism and anti- bullying policies for the upcoming school year,” Spyglass said.

It is also an opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to “come together in the spirit of reconciliation,” she said.

To young people struggling with alcohol and drug dependence, Spyglass said, Orange Shirt Day is also an opportunity to “come back to your culture, and learn to speak your language.”

“I lost my language because I was not allowed to speak my language when I was in residential school,” she said. “Now I love my language. Your language is so powerful. It will make you powerful when you come back to your culture.”

Whitecalf-Ironstand related the history of Orange Shirt Day.

It was inspired by the story of Phyllis Webstad who was six years old when she went to a residential school in B.C. Her grandmother gave her a new orange shirt to wear to her first day of school.

“When she got to the school, all her clothes were taken away including her orange shirt,” Whitecalf-Ironstand said. “She had never seen that shirt again.”

Whitecalf-Ironstand said the colour orange reminds Webstad of her experiences in residential school, and is a symbol for all those affected by the residential school experience.

“It is a time to honour and remember the victims of residential schools – those who survived residential shools, and those who never made it home,” she said.

Whitecalf-Ironstand added, people need to remember that painful time in Canada’s history.

“It’s a time to honour the past, and to acknowledge what had happened to First Nations people, Métis and Inuit in Canada,” she said. “But it’s also a time to learn about each other, and to move on, in a good way.”

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW