The book, "Ashes and Embers," will be launched Nov. 25 in North Battleford. (Submitted/Floyd Favel)

By Angela Brown

"Ashes and Embers"

Book on Delmas residential school fire to be released next month

Oct 24, 2022 | 5:13 PM

A new book, called “Ashes and Embers: Stories of the Delmas Indian Residential School” is set to be launched at a special reception in North Battleford.

Written by Poundmaker Cree Nation author and educator Floyd Favel, the book is about the fateful night in January 1948 when the school was destroyed in a fire.

A book launch will take place on Nov. 25 at the Allen Sapp Gallery, with the time still to be determined. If people are not able to attend the launch, they can also order a copy of the book through the website: Miyawata Culture Inc.

The illustrations for “Ashes and Embers” were done by Alix Van Der Donckt-Ferrand. The book also contains a foreword by Karen Whitecalf and an afterword by Eleanore Sunchild.

Funded by Canadian Heritage, the book is based on the documentary film “Ashes and Embers” released in 2021 to critical acclaim.

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Favel is also the founder of Miyawata Culture and is the film’s producer and writer. He said his late father attended the Delmas residential school as a youth, so Favel had an interest in the story on many levels.

The school was reportedly deliberately burned down by some boys who attended it at the time.

Favel said the stories in the book were based on several interviews conducted with people from the area.

“That was our central focus of our interviews, and the central focus of our movie, because I believe it’s the only school that was ever burnt down by the students in Canada,” he said. “We focused our interviews of their general experience of the school, and also more focused on the day and the night it burnt.”

Favel said there were no casualties from the fire. The students, like other residential school survivors, banded together to help each other out, so everyone managed to escape.

“I think we could say that it’s one of our interviewees. He wasn’t present at the school. He was just an observer. He does say the people who burnt the school are heroes. That’s what he said, and it should be remembered as such,” Favel said.

Favel said there was a feeling of celebration and euphoria when the Delmas residential school burned down.

“Our parents, grandparents never thought anyone would be interested in this story,” he said. “They never believed it was valuable or important because they were made to feel unimportant.”

Favel said the book tells a story of a time when Indigenous people were essentially imprisoned in Saskatchewan and Canada by colonial laws.

“For us, who are my age, [we are] the first generation to be free, to have been born free and to have been living free, allowed to travel, allowed to go to school, allowed to go into a restaurant, allowed many basic human rights,” he said. “So one of the importances of this book was to pay tribute to the previous generation who didn’t have that freedom and those human rights that we enjoy today.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow