114-728: Committee Bay (referred to as Nattiligaarjuk ( Inuktitut : ᓇᑦᑎᓕᒑᕐᔪᒃ ) by Inuit) is an Arctic waterway in both the Kitikmeot Region and the Qikiqtaaluk Region , Nunavut , Canada. It forms the southeast end of the Gulf of Boothia and is bounded on the east by the Melville Peninsula , and to the northwest by the Simpson Peninsula . Wales Island lies within the bay. The first European to explore
228-721: A glottal stop when after a vowel (e.g., maꞌna ), or separates an n from an ng (e.g., avin'ngaq ) or an r from an rh (e.g., qar'rhuk ). In April 2012, with the completion of the Old Testament , the first complete Bible in Inuktitut, translated by native speakers, was published. Noted literature in Inuktitut has included the novels Harpoon of the Hunter by Markoosie Patsauq , and Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk . The Inuktitut syllabary used in Canada
342-466: A concept of land ownership based on the discovery doctrine . As explained in the executive summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 's (TRC) final report: "Underlying these arguments was the belief that the colonizers were bringing civilization to savage people who could never civilize themselves ... a belief of racial and cultural superiority." Assimilation efforts began as early as
456-564: A day school on the reserve was the result of pressure from missionary representatives. Reliant on student enrolment quotas to secure funding, they were struggling to attract new students due to increasingly poor school conditions. The introduction of the Family Allowance Act in 1945 stipulated that school-aged children had to be enrolled in school for families to qualify for the " baby bonus ", further coercing Indigenous parents into having their children attend. Students in
570-580: A health crisis within the schools and a financial crisis within the missionary groups. In 1911, in an attempt to alleviate the health crisis, the federal government increased per capita grant funding. However, the funding did not adjust for inflation. In the 1930s, throughout the Great Depression and World War II , it was repeatedly reduced, and by 1937, the per capita grant averaged just $ 180 per student per year. For perspective, per-capita costs for comparable institutions included: Manitoba School for
684-676: A larger report entitled Statistics Respecting Indian Schools . The Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869 formed the foundations for this system prior to Confederation. These acts assumed the inherent superiority of French and British ways, and the need for Indigenous peoples to become French or English speakers, Christians, and farmers. At the time, many Indigenous leaders argued to have these acts overturned. The Gradual Civilization Act awarded 50 acres (200,000 m ) of land to any Indigenous male deemed "sufficiently advanced in
798-512: A legal settlement. These gains were achieved through the persistent organizing and advocacy by Indigenous communities to draw attention to the residential school system's legacy of abuse, including their participation in hearings of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples . The Truth and Reconciliation Commission list three reasons behind the federal government's decision to establish residential schools. In addition to these three
912-437: A life different from their parents and cause them to forget the customs, habits & language of their ancestors." In 1883 Parliament approved $ 43,000 for three industrial schools and the first, Battleford Industrial School , opened on December 1 of that year. By 1900, there were 61 schools in operation. The government began purchasing church-run boarding schools in the 1920s. During this period capital costs associated with
1026-463: A passable standard of health" and "[a]ll but four were infected with tuberculosis". In one classroom, he found 16 ill children, many near death, who were being forced to sit through lessons. In 2011, reflecting on the TRC's research, Justice Sinclair told The Toronto Star : "Missing children – that is the big surprise for me ... That such large numbers of children died at the schools. That
1140-436: A role in the decision to halt the education programs. An increase in orphaned and foundling colonial children limited church resources, and colonists benefited from favourable relations with Indigenous peoples in both the fur trade and military pursuits. Educational programs were not widely attempted again by religious officials until the 1820s, prior to the introduction of state-sanctioned operations. Included among them
1254-469: A root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. Inuktitut has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. However, it is highly regular, with rules that do not have exceptions like in English and other Indo-European languages , though they are sometimes very complicated. One example is the word qangatasuukkuvimmuuriaqalaaqtunga ( ᖃᖓᑕᓲᒃᑯᕕᒻᒨᕆᐊᖃᓛᖅᑐᖓ ) meaning 'I'll have to go to
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#17327901506601368-642: A scheme called Qaniujaaqpait or Inuktitut syllabics , based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics . In the 1860s, missionaries imported this system of Qaniujaaqpait , which they had developed in their efforts to convert the Cree to Christianity , to the Eastern Canadian Inuit. The Netsilik Inuit in Kugaaruk and north Baffin Island adopted Qaniujaaqpait by the 1920s. In September 2019,
1482-562: A separate dialect reputedly much closer to western Inuktitut dialects, spoken in the area around Rigolet . According to news reports, in 1999 it had only three very elderly speakers. Though often thought to be a dialect of Greenlandic , Inuktun or Polar Eskimo is a recent arrival in Greenland from the Eastern Canadian Arctic, arriving perhaps as late as the 18th century. Throughout Inuit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat
1596-730: A short time, efforts persisted. The Mohawk Institute Residential School , the oldest continuously operated residential school in Canada, opened in 1834 on Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford , Ontario. Administered by the Anglican Church, the facility opened as the Mechanics' Institute, a day school for boys, in 1828 and became a boarding school four years later when it accepted its first boarders and began admitting female students. It remained in operation until June 30, 1970. The renewed interest in residential schools in
1710-499: A trade or being otherwise educated. Such employment he can get at home." Both academic research and the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee relay evidence that students were included in several scientific research experiments without their knowledge, their consent or the consent of their parents. These experiments include nutrition experiments which involved intentional malnourishment of children, vaccine trials for
1824-482: A unified orthography called Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait, based on the Latin alphabet without diacritics, was adopted for all varieties of Inuktitut by the national organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami , after eight years of work. It was developed by Inuit to be used by speakers of any dialect from any region, and can be typed on electronic devices without specialized keyboard layouts. It does not replace syllabics, and people from
1938-468: A vestige of the retroflex consonants of Proto-Inuit . Inuinnaqtun has one fewer consonant, as /s/ and /ɬ/ have merged into /h/ . All dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. In Inuujingajut —Nunavut standard Roman orthography—long vowels are written as a double vowel. All voiceless stops are unaspirated, like in many other languages. The voiceless uvular stop
2052-470: Is 7–36% of what other Canadian child-welfare institutions were paying ($ 3,300 and $ 9,855) and 5–25% of what U.S. residential care was paying ($ 4,500 and $ 14,059.) Government officials believed that since many staff members belonged to religious orders with vows of poverty or missionary organizations, pay was relatively unimportant. Thus, almost all staff were poorly paid, and schools had trouble recruiting and retaining staff. In 1948, C.H. Birdsall, chair of
2166-515: Is also the name of a macrolanguage and, in that context, also includes Inuvialuktun , and thus nearly all Inuit dialects of Canada. However, Statistics Canada lists all Inuit languages in the Canadian census as Inuktut. Before contact with Europeans, Inuit learned skills by example and participation. The Inuktitut language provided them with all the vocabulary required to describe traditional practices and natural features. Up to this point, it
2280-459: Is ambiguous in state policy to what degree Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can be thought of as separate languages. The words Inuktitut , or more correctly Inuktut ('Inuit language') are increasingly used to refer to both Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut together, or "Inuit languages" in English. Nunavut is the home of some 24,000 Inuit, over 80% of whom speak Inuktitut. This includes some 3,500 people reported as monolinguals. The 2001 census data shows that
2394-477: Is an Inuvialuktun dialect. As of the early 2000s, Nunavut has gradually implemented early childhood, elementary, and secondary school-level immersion programs within its education system to further preserve and promote the Inuktitut language. As of 2012 , "Pirurvik, Iqaluit 's Inuktitut language training centre, has a new goal: to train instructors from Nunavut communities to teach Inuktitut in different ways and in their own dialects when they return home." Quebec
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#17327901506602508-467: Is associated with Inukjuak , Quebec, and there is an Itivimuit River near the town. The Nunatsiavut dialect ( Inuttitut ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᒻᒥᐅᑐᑦ or, often in government documents, Labradorimiutut ) was once spoken across northern Labrador . It has a distinct writing system, developed in Greenland in the 1760s by German missionaries from the Moravian Church . This separate writing tradition,
2622-650: Is based on the Cree syllabary devised by the missionary James Evans . The present form of the syllabary for Canadian Inuktitut was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s. Inuit in Alaska, Inuvialuit , Inuinnaqtun speakers, and Inuit in Greenland and Labrador use Latin alphabets. Though conventionally called a syllabary , the writing system has been classified by some observers as an abugida , since syllables starting with
2736-533: Is home to roughly 15,800 Inuit, nearly all of whom live in Nunavik . According to the 2021 census, 80.9% of Quebec Inuit speak Inuktitut. The Nunavik dialect ( Nunavimmiutitut , ᓄᓇᕕᒻᒥᐅᑎᑐᑦ ) is relatively close to the South Baffin dialect, but not identical. Because of the political and physical boundary between Nunavik and Nunavut, Nunavik has separate government and educational institutions from those in
2850-718: Is recognized as an official language in Nunavut alongside Inuinnaqtun and both languages are known collectively as Inuktut . Further, it is recognized as one of eight official native tongues in the Northwest Territories. It also has legal recognition in Nunavik —a part of Quebec—thanks in part to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement , and is recognized in the Charter of the French Language as
2964-761: Is secured in the Northwest Territories Official Language Act . With the split of the territory into the NWT and Nunavut in 1999, both territories kept the Language Act. The autonomous area Nunatsiavut in Labrador made Inuktitut the government language when it was formed in 2005. In Nunavik, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement recognizes Inuktitut in the education system. Nunavut's basic law lists four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtun . It
3078-546: Is usually written as q, but sometimes written as r. The voiceless lateral fricative is romanized as ɬ, but is often written as &, or simply as l. /ŋ/ is spelt as ng, and geminated /ŋ/ is spelt as nng. Inuktitut, like other Eskaleut languages , has a very rich morphological system, in which a succession of different morphemes are added to root words to indicate things that, in languages like English, would require several words to express. (See also: Agglutinative language and Polysynthetic language .) All words begin with
3192-733: The Indian Act by what was then the federal Department of the Interior . Adopted in 1876 as An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians , it consolidated all previous laws placing Indigenous communities, land and finances under federal control. As explained by the TRC, the act "made Indians wards of the state, unable to vote in provincial or federal elections or enter the professions if they did not surrender their status, and severely limited their freedom to participate in spiritual and cultural practices." The report commissioned by Governor General Charles Bagot , titled Report on
3306-577: The BCG vaccine , as well as studies on extrasensory perception, vitamin D diet supplements, amebicides , isoniazid , hemoglobin , bedwetting, and dermatoglyphics . Residential school deaths were common and have been linked to poorly constructed and maintained facilities. The actual number of deaths remains unknown due to inconsistent reporting by school officials and the destruction of medical and administrative records in compliance with retention and disposition policies for government records. Research by
3420-509: The Indian Act made attendance at a day school, if there was a day school on the reserve on which the child resided, compulsory for status Indian children between 7 and 16 years of age. The changes included a series of exemptions regarding school location, the health of the children and their prior completion of school examinations. It was changed to children between 6 and 15 years of age in 1908. The introduction of mandatory attendance at
3534-858: The Inuktut is used to refer to Inuktitut and all other dialects. It is used by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami , the Inuit Circumpolar Council , and the Government of Nunavut throughout Inuit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat . Eastern dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen consonants and three vowels (which can be long or short). Consonants are arranged with six places of articulation : bilabial , labiodental , alveolar , palatal , velar and uvular ; and three manners of articulation : voiceless stops , voiced continuants and nasals , as well as two additional sounds—voiceless fricatives . Natsilingmiutut has an additional consonant /ɟ/ ,
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3648-491: The United Church of Canada , and 2 were operated by Presbyterians . The approach of using established school facilities set up by missionaries was employed by the federal government for economic expedience: the government provided facilities and maintenance, while the churches provided teachers and their own lesson-planning. As a result, the number of schools per denomination was less a reflection of their presence in
3762-511: The vocational training and social skills required to obtain employment and integrate into Canadian society after graduation. In actuality, these goals were poorly and inconsistently achieved. Many graduates were unable to land a job due to poor educational training. Returning home was equally challenging due to an unfamiliarity with their culture and, in some cases, an inability to communicate with family members using their traditional language. Instead of intellectual achievement and advancement, it
3876-471: The 1760s that was based on the Latin script. (This alphabet is distinguished by its inclusion of the letter kra , ĸ.) They later travelled to Labrador in the 1800s, bringing the Inuktitut alphabet with them. The Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat (who additionally developed their own syllabary ) and the Siberian Yupik also adopted Latin alphabets. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using
3990-515: The 17th century with the arrival of French missionaries in New France . They were resisted by Indigenous communities who were unwilling to leave their children for extended periods. The establishment of day and boarding schools by groups including the Recollets , Jesuits and Ursulines was largely abandoned by the 1690s. The political instability and realities of colonial life also played
4104-630: The Commission stated a national security element and quoted Andsell Macrae, a commissioner with Indian Affairs: "it is unlikely that any Tribe or Tribes would give trouble of a serious nature to the Government whose members had children completely under Government control." The federal government sought to cut costs by adopting the residential industrial school system of the United States. Indian Commissioner Edgar Dewdney aspired to have
4218-612: The Commonwealth Braille and Talking Book Cooperative, developed a Braille code for the Inuktitut language syllabics. This code is based on representing the syllabics' orientation. Machine translation from Unicode UTF-8 and UTF-16 can be performed using the Liblouis Braille translation system<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://liblouis.io/ |title=Liblouis |access-date= which includes an Inuktitut Braille translation table. The book ᐃᓕᐊᕐᔪᒃ ᓇᓄᕐᓗ ( The Orphan and
4332-499: The Deaf: $ 642, Manitoba School for Boys: $ 550, U.S. Chilocco Indian Agricultural School : $ 350. The Child Welfare League of America stated per capita costs for "well-run institutions" ranged between $ 313 and $ 541; Canada was paying 57.5% of the minimum figure. Changes in per capita costs did not occur until the 1950s and were seen as insignificant. In 1966, Saskatchewan residential schools per capita costs ranged from $ 694 and $ 1,193, which
4446-634: The Polar Bear ) became the first work ever translated into Inuktitut Braille, and a copy is held at the headquarters of the Nunavut Public Library Services at Baker Lake . Although as many of the examples as possible are novel or extracted from Inuktitut texts, some of the examples in this article are drawn from Introductory Inuktitut and Inuktitut Linguistics for Technocrats . Canadian Indian residential school system The Canadian Indian residential school system
4560-558: The TRC concluded with the establishment of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and released a report that concluded that the school system amounted to cultural genocide . Ongoing efforts since 2021 have identified thousands of possible unmarked graves on the grounds of former residential schools, though no human remains have been exhumed. During a penitential pilgrimage to Canada in July 2022, Pope Francis reiterated
4674-501: The TRC revealed that at least 3,201 students had died, mostly from disease. TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair has suggested that the number of deaths may exceed 6,000. The vast majority of deaths occurred before the 1950s. The 1906 Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs, submitted by chief medical officer Peter Bryce , highlighted that the "Indian population of Canada has a mortality rate of more than double that of
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4788-424: The TRC's final report, dedicated to missing children and unmarked burials, was developed after the original TRC members realized, in 2007, that the issue required its own working group. In 2009, the TRC requested $ 1.5 million in extra funding from the federal government to complete this work, but was denied. The researchers concluded, after searching land near schools using satellite imagery and maps, that, "for
4902-552: The United Church committee responsible for the Edmonton school, in regard to the lack of funding for salaries, accommodations, and equipment, stated that it was "doubtful the present work with Indian Children could properly be called education." In 1948, Sechelt school staff were paying full-time staff a salary of $ 1800. In the 1960s, Christie school staff were paid $ 50 a month. The per capita grant system severely decreased
5016-621: The United States. While the Indian and Northern Affairs estimates that 11,132 children were adopted between 1960 and 1990, the actual number may be as high as 20,000. In 1969, after years of sharing power with churches, the DIA took sole control of the residential school system. The last federally-funded residential school, Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet , closed in 1997. Residential schools operated in every Canadian province and territory with
5130-733: The affairs of the Indians in Canada and referred to as the Bagot Report, is seen as the foundational document for the federal residential school system. It was supported by James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin , who had been impressed by industrial schools in the West Indies , and Egerton Ryerson , who was then the Chief Superintendent of Education in Upper Canada . This letter was published in 1898 as an appendix to
5244-568: The airport: The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories use a Latin alphabet usually called Inuinnaqtun or Qaliujaaqpait , reflecting the predispositions of the missionaries who reached this area in the late 19th century and early 20th. Moravian missionaries, with the purpose of introducing Inuit to Christianity and the Bible , contributed to the development of an Inuktitut alphabet in Greenland during
5358-527: The apologies of the Catholic Church for its role, also acknowledging the system as genocide. In October 2022, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion calling on the federal Canadian government to recognize the residential school system as genocide. Attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples were rooted in imperial colonialism centred around European worldviews and cultural practices, and
5472-518: The approvals required to undertake expensive renovations and repairs. By the 1930s, government officials recognized that the residential school system was financially unsustainable and failing to meet the intended goal of training and assimilating Indigenous children into European-Canadian society. Robert Hoey , Superintendent of Welfare and Training in the Indian Affairs Branch of the federal Department of Mines and Resources, opposed
5586-494: The area was John Rae in 1846 - 1847. This Kitikmeot Region , Nunavut location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Kivalliq Region , Nunavut location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Inuktitut language Inuktitut ( / ɪ ˈ n ʊ k t ə t ʊ t / ih- NUUK -tə-tuut ; Inuktitut: [inuktiˈtut] , syllabics ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ ; from inuk , 'person' + -titut , 'like', 'in
5700-745: The assimilation pursued by President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant . Davin's report relied heavily on findings he acquired through consultations with government officials and representatives of the Five Civilized Tribes in Washington, DC , and church officials in Winnipeg , Manitoba. He visited only one industrial day school, in Minnesota , before submitting his findings. In his report Davin concluded that
5814-500: The best way to assimilate Indigenous peoples was to start with children in a residential setting, away from their families. Davin's findings were supported by Vital-Justin Grandin , who felt that while the likelihood of civilizing adults was low, there was hope when it came to Indigenous children. He explained in a letter to Public Works Minister Hector-Louis Langevin that the best course of action would be to make children "lead
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#17327901506605928-412: The control sample. Details of the mistreatment of students were published numerous times throughout the 20th century by government officials reporting on school conditions, and in the proceedings of civil cases brought forward by survivors seeking compensation for the abuse they endured. The conditions and impact of residential schools were also brought to light in popular culture as early as 1967, with
6042-630: The early 1800s can be linked to the decline in military hostility faced by the settlers, particularly after the War of 1812 . With the threat of invasion by American forces minimized, Indigenous communities were no longer viewed as allies but as barriers to permanent settlement. This change was also associated with the transfer of responsibility for interactions with Indigenous communities from military officials, familiar with and sympathetic to their customs and way of life, to civilian representatives concerned only with permanent colonial settlement. Beginning in
6156-400: The education quality. British Columbia Indian Superintendent Arthur Wellesley Vowell in response to one of his agents recommending they only approve qualified teaching staff stated that that would require more funding and that Indian Affairs did not "entertain requests for increased grants to Indian boarding and industrial schools." The pay was so low relative to provincial schools that many of
6270-522: The elementary branches of education" and would automatically enfranchise him, removing any tribal affiliation or treaty rights. With this legislation, and through the creation of residential schools, the government believed Indigenous peoples could eventually become assimilated into the general population. Individual allotments of farmland would require changes in the communal reserve system, something fiercely opposed by First Nations governments. In January 1879, John A. Macdonald , Prime Minister of what
6384-649: The exception of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island . It is estimated that the number of residential schools reached its peak in the early 1930s with 80 schools and more than 17,000 enrolled students. About 150,000 children are believed to have attended a residential school over the course of the system's existence. Some parents and families of Indigenous children resisted the residential school system throughout its existence. Children were kept from schools and, in some cases, hidden from government officials tasked with rounding up children on reserves. Parents regularly advocated for increased funding for schools, including
6498-452: The expansion of new schools, noting in 1936 that "to build educational institutions, particularly residential schools, while the money at our disposal is insufficient to keep the schools already erected in a proper state of repair, is, to me, very unsound and a practice difficult to justify." He proposed the expansion of day schools, an approach to educating Indigenous children that he would continue to pursue after being promoted to director of
6612-570: The general population, but rather their legacy of missionary work. Although the British North America Act , 1867 made education in Canada the jurisdiction of the provincial governments, the Indigenous peoples and their treaties fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government. As a condition of several treaties, the federal government agreed to provide for Indigenous education. Residential schools were funded under
6726-603: The impact of the illness. Streptomycin , the first effective treatment, was not introduced until 1943. In 1920 and 1922, Regina physician F. A. Corbett was commissioned to visit the schools in the west of the country, and found similar results to those reported by Bryce. At the Ermineskin school in Hobbema , Alberta, he found that 50 percent of the children had tuberculosis. At Sarcee Boarding School near Calgary , he noted that all 33 students were "much below even
6840-436: The increase of centrally located day schools to improve access to their children, and made repeated requests for improvements to the quality of education, food, and clothing being provided at the schools. Demands for answers in regards to claims of abuse were often dismissed as a ploy by parents seeking to keep their children at home, with government and school officials positioned as those who knew best. In 1894, amendments to
6954-431: The information of their deaths was not communicated back to their families." The Truth and Reconciliation Commission wrote that the policy of Indian Affairs was to refuse to return the bodies of children home due to the associated expense, and to instead require the schools to bear the cost of burials. The TRC concluded that it may be impossible to ever identify the number of deaths or missing children, in part because of
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#17327901506607068-418: The language of instruction. As the government's interests in the north increased, it started taking over the education of Inuit. After the end of World War II, English was seen as the language of communication in all domains. Officials expressed concerns about the difficulty for Inuit to find employment if they were not able to communicate in English. Inuit were supposed to use English at school, work, and even on
7182-446: The late 1800s, the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) officially encouraged the growth of the residential school system as a valuable component in a wider policy of integrating Indigenous people into European Canadian society. The TRC found that the schools, and the removal of children from their families, amounted to cultural genocide , a conclusion that echoed the words of historian John S. Milloy, who argued that
7296-405: The legal responsibility of the school. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate heating, and a lack of medical care led to high rates of influenza and tuberculosis ; in one school, the death rate reached 69 percent. Federal policies that tied funding to enrollment numbers led to sick children being enrolled to boost numbers, thus introducing and spreading disease. The problem of unhealthy children
7410-505: The manner of'), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut , is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line , including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador , Quebec , to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut . It is one of the aboriginal languages written with Canadian Aboriginal syllabics . It
7524-402: The monitoring of child welfare . With no requirement for specialized training regarding the traditions or lifestyles of the communities they entered, provincial officials assessed the welfare of Indigenous children based on Euro-Canadian values that, for example, deemed traditional diets of game, fish and berries insufficient and grounds for taking children into custody. This period resulted in
7638-654: The most part, the cemeteries that the Commission documented are abandoned, disused, and vulnerable to accidental disturbance". In May 2021, a possible burial site was found in the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia , on the lands of the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc First Nation . The site was located with the assistance of a ground-penetrating radar specialist and Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Chief Rosanne Casimir wrote that
7752-496: The mother tongue. This set off the beginning of bilingual schools. In 1969, most Inuit voted to eliminate federal schools and replace them with programs by the General Directorate of New Quebec [ fr ] ( Direction générale du Nouveau-Québec, DGNQ ). Content was now taught in Inuktitut, English, and French. Inuktitut became one of the official languages in the Northwest Territories in 1984. Its status
7866-629: The official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in NunatuKavut and Nunatsiavut —the Inuit area in Labrador —following the ratification of its agreement with the government of Canada and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The 2016 Canadian census reports that 70,540 individuals identify themselves as Inuit, of whom 37,570 self-reported Inuktitut as their mother tongue. The term Inuktitut
7980-667: The pass system restricted and closely monitored the movement of Indigenous peoples off reserves. Launched in 1885 as a response to the North-West Rebellion , and later replaced by permits, the system was designed to prevent Indigenous people from leaving reserves without a pass issued by a local Indian agent. Instruction provided to students was rooted in an institutional and European approach to education. It differed dramatically from child rearing in traditional knowledge systems based on 'look, listen, and learn' models. Corporal punishment and loss of privileges characterized
8094-403: The playground. Inuit themselves viewed Inuktitut as the way to express their feelings and be linked to their identity, while English was a tool for making money. In the 1960s, the European attitude towards the Inuktitut language started to change. Inuktitut was seen as a language worth preserving, and it was argued that knowledge, particularly in the first years of school, is best transmitted in
8208-503: The practice of burying students in unmarked graves. The work is further complicated by a pattern of poor record keeping by school and government officials, who neglected to keep reliable numbers about the number of children who died or where they were buried. While most schools had cemeteries on site, their location and extent remain difficult to determine as cemeteries that were originally marked were found to have been later razed, intentionally hidden or built over. The fourth volume of
8322-463: The procedures enforced in the prison system. In some cases schools denied parents access to their children altogether. Others required families to meet with them in the presence of school officials and speak only in English; parents who could not speak in English were unable to talk to their children. The obstacles families faced to visit their children were further exacerbated by the pass system . Introduced by Reed, without legislative authority to do so,
8436-518: The publication of "The Lonely Death of Chanie Wenjack " by Ian Adams in Maclean's and the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 . In the 1990s, investigations and memoirs by former students revealed that many students at residential schools were subjected to severe physical, psychological , and sexual abuse by school staff members and by older students. Among the former students to come forward
8550-437: The rampant disrepair present in the buildings resulted in their having no economic value. Schools continued to be maintained by churches in instances where they failed to reach an agreement with government officials with the understanding that the government would provide support for capital costs. The understanding ultimately proved complicated due to the lack of written agreements outlining the extent and nature of that support or
8664-449: The regions are not required to stop using their familiar writing systems. Implementation plans are to be established for each region. It includes letters such as ff , ch , and rh , the sounds for which exist in some dialects but do not have standard equivalents in syllabics. It establishes a standard alphabet but not spelling or grammar rules. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel (e.g., aa , ii , uu ). The apostrophe represents
8778-498: The remote nature of many communities, school locations meant that for some families, residential schools were the only way to comply. The schools were intentionally located at substantial distances from Indigenous communities to minimize contact between families and their children. Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed argued for schools at greater distances to reduce family visits, which he thought counteracted efforts to assimilate Indigenous children. Parental visits were further restricted by
8892-443: The remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, has made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition. The Nunatsiavummiut call their language Inuttut ( ᐃᓄᑦᑐᑦ ). Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported Inuktitut to be their native language in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain . Inuktitut is seriously endangered in Labrador. Nunatsiavut also had
9006-477: The residential school system were faced with a multitude of abuses by teachers and administrators, including sexual and physical assault. They suffered from malnourishment and harsh discipline that would not have been tolerated in any other Canadian school system. Corporal punishment was often justified by a belief that it was the only way to save souls or punish and deter runaways – whose injuries or death sustained in their efforts to return home would become
9120-400: The residential school system, while traditional Indigenous approaches to education favour positive guidance toward desired behaviour through game-based play, story-telling, and formal ritualized ceremonies. While at school, many children had no contact with their families for up to 10 months at a time, and in some cases had no contact for years. The impact of the disconnect from their families
9234-454: The residential school system. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a public apology on his behalf and that of the other federal political party leaders. On June 1, 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was established to uncover the truth about the schools. The commission gathered about 7,000 statements from residential school survivors through various local, regional and national events across Canada. In 2015,
9348-417: The residential schools, through forced labour , be financially independent a few years after opening. The government believed through the industrial system and cheap labour costs of missionary staff it could "operate a residential school system on a nearly cost-free basis." Students "were expected to raise or grow and prepare most of the food they ate, to make and repair much of their clothing, and to maintain
9462-546: The rest of the Inuktitut-speaking world, resulting in a growing standardization of the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called Nunavimmiutut ( ᐃᓄᑦᑎᑐᑦ ). This dialect is also sometimes called Tarramiutut or Taqramiutut ( ᑕᕐᕋᒥᐅᑐᑦ or ᑕᖅᕐᕋᒥᐅᑐᑦ ). Sub dialects of Inuktitut in this region include Tarrarmiut and Itivimuit. Itivimuit
9576-876: The same consonant have related glyphs rather than unrelated ones. All of the characters needed for the Inuktitut syllabary are available in the Unicode block Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics . The territorial government of Nunavut , Canada, has developed TrueType fonts called Pigiarniq ( ᐱᒋᐊᕐᓂᖅ [pi.ɡi.aʁ.ˈniq] ), Uqammaq ( ᐅᖃᒻᒪᖅ [u.qam.maq] ), and Euphemia ( ᐅᕓᒥᐊ [u.vai.mi.a] ) for computer displays. They were designed by Vancouver -based Tiro Typeworks. Apple Macintosh computers include an Inuktitut IME (Input Method Editor) as part of keyboard language options. Linux distributions provide locale and language support for Iñupiaq , Kalaallisut and Inuktitut. In 2012 Tamara Kearney, Manager of Braille Research and Development at
9690-476: The schools led to student malnutrition, starvation, and disease. Students were also subjected to forced enfranchisement as "assimilated" citizens that removed their legal identity as Indians. Disconnected from their families and culture and forced to speak English or French, students often graduated being unable to fit into their communities but remaining subject to racist attitudes in mainstream Canadian society. The system ultimately proved successful in disrupting
9804-402: The schools were assumed by the government, leaving administrative and instructional duties to church officials. The hope was that minimizing facility expenditures would allow church administrators to provide higher quality instruction and support to the students in their care. Although the government was willing to, and did, purchase schools from the churches, many were acquired for free given that
9918-500: The schools." Most schools did this through a system where students studied for half the day and did "vocational training" for the other half. This system failed and the schools never became self-supporting. By 1891, the government cut already low salaries, stopped covering operating costs, and implemented a fixed amount of funding per student. This policy drove competition and encouraged the admission of students that were deemed "too young or too sick." The chronic underfunding developed
10032-438: The shift in policy from educational assimilation to integration, the removal of Indigenous children from their families by state officials continued through much of the 1960s and 70s. The removals were the result of the 1951 addition of section 88 of the Indian Act , which allowed for the application of provincial laws to Indigenous peoples living on reserves in instances where federal laws were not in place. The change included
10146-584: The site was undocumented and that work was underway to determine if related records were held at the Royal British Columbia Museum . As of May 2024, no remains have been excavated. On June 23, 2021, ground-penetrating radar suggested the presence of an estimated 751 unmarked graves on the site of Marieval Indian Residential School in Marieval, Saskatchewan , on the lands of Cowessess First Nation . Some of these graves predated
10260-416: The system's aim was to "kill the Indian in the child." Over the course of the system's more than hundred-year existence, around 150,000 children were placed in residential schools nationally. As the system was designed as an immersion program, Indigenous children were in many schools prohibited from, and sometimes punished for, speaking their own languages or practising their own faiths. The primary goal
10374-433: The system's more than hundred-year existence, around 150,000 children were placed in residential schools nationally. By the 1930s, about 30 percent of Indigenous children were attending residential schools. The number of school-related deaths remains unknown due to incomplete records. Estimates range from 3,200 to over 30,000, mostly from disease. The system had its origins in laws enacted before Confederation , but it
10488-599: The teachers lacked any teaching qualifications. Federal cuts to funding during the Great Depression resulted in students paying the price. By 1937, at the Kamloops Indian Residential School , milk production among the schools dairy herds was reduced by 50%. The federal government refused to fund construction for an additional barn to increase milk production and isolate the sick animals. Even among other schools dairy herds, funding
10602-446: The transmission of Indigenous practices and beliefs across generations. The legacy of the system has been linked to an increased prevalence of post-traumatic stress , alcoholism , substance abuse , suicide , and intergenerational trauma which persist within Indigenous communities today. Starting in the late 2000s, Canadian politicians and religious communities have begun to recognize, and issue apologies for, their respective roles in
10716-417: The trip that Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed argued that the schools should be moved farther from the reserves to make visiting more difficult. He also objected to allowing children to return home during school breaks and holidays because he believed the trips interrupted their assimilation. Visitation, for those who could make the journey, was strictly controlled by school officials in a manner similar to
10830-618: The use of Inuktitut, while lower among the young than the elderly, has stopped declining in Canada as a whole and may even be increasing in Nunavut. The South Baffin dialect ( Qikiqtaaluk nigiani , ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ ᓂᒋᐊᓂ ) is spoken across the southern part of Baffin Island , including the territorial capital Iqaluit . This has in recent years made it a much more widely heard dialect, since a great deal of Inuktitut media originates in Iqaluit . Some linguists also distinguish an East Baffin dialect from either South Baffin or North Baffin dialect , which
10944-524: The use of a pass system designed to confine Indigenous peoples to reserves . The last federally-funded residential school, Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet , closed in 1997. Schools operated in every province and territory with the exception of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island . The residential school system harmed Indigenous children significantly by removing them from their families , depriving them of their ancestral languages , and exposing many of them to physical and sexual abuse . Conditions in
11058-490: The welfare and training branch in 1945. The proposal was resisted by the United Church, the Anglican Church, and the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate , who believed that the solution to the system's failure was not restructuring but intensification. Between 1945 and 1955, the number of First Nations students in day schools run by Indian Affairs expanded from 9,532 to 17,947. This growth in student population
11172-414: The whole population, and in some provinces more than three times". Among the list of causes he noted the infectious disease of tuberculosis and the role residential schools played in spreading the disease by way of poor ventilation and medical screening. In 1907, Bryce reported on the conditions of Manitoba and North-West residential schools: "we have created a situation so dangerous to health that I
11286-651: The widespread removal of Indigenous children from their traditional communities, first termed the Sixties Scoop by Patrick Johnston, the author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System . Often taken without the consent of their parents or community elders, some children were placed in state-run child welfare facilities, increasingly operated in former residential schools, while others were fostered or placed up for adoption by predominantly non-Indigenous families throughout Canada and
11400-566: Was Phil Fontaine , then Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs , who in October 1990 publicly discussed the abuse he and others suffered while attending Fort Alexander Indian Residential School. After the government closed most of the schools in the 1960s, the work of Indigenous activists and historians led to greater awareness by the public of the damage the schools had caused, as well as to official government and church apologies, and
11514-465: Was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples . The network was funded by the Canadian government 's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various Christian churches . The school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture. Over the course of
11628-544: Was a school established by John West , an Anglican missionary, at the Red River Colony in what is today Manitoba . Protestant missionaries also opened residential schools in what is now the province of Ontario , spreading Christianity and working to encourage Indigenous peoples to adopt subsistence agriculture as a way to ensure they would not return to their original, nomadic ways of life upon graduation. Although many of these early schools were open for only
11742-440: Was accompanied by an amendment to the Indian Act in 1951 that allowed federal officials to establish agreements with provincial and territorial governments and school boards regarding the education of Indigenous students in the public school system. These changes marked the government's shift in policy from assimilation-driven education at residential schools to the integration of Indigenous students into public schools. Despite
11856-437: Was arduous, and severely compromised the academic and social development of the students. School books and textbooks were drawn mainly from the curricula of the provincially funded public schools for non-Indigenous students, and teachers at the residential schools were often poorly trained or prepared. During this period, Canadian government scientists performed nutritional tests on students and kept some students undernourished as
11970-440: Was further exacerbated by the conditions of the schools themselves – overcrowding and poor ventilation, water quality and sewage systems. Until the late 1950s, when the federal government shifted to a day school integration model, residential schools were severely underfunded and often relied on the forced labour of their students to maintain their facilities, although it was presented as training for artisanal skills. The work
12084-425: Was furthered by students being discouraged or prohibited from speaking Indigenous languages , even among themselves and outside the classroom, so that English or French would be learned and their own languages forgotten. In some schools, they were subject to physical violence for speaking their own languages or for practicing non-Christian faiths. Most schools operated with the stated goal of providing students with
12198-481: Was no longer working for the government, published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. In particular, he alleged that the high mortality rates could have been avoided if healthy children had not been exposed to children with tuberculosis. At the time, no antibiotic had been identified to treat the disease, and this exacerbated
12312-601: Was often physical appearance and dress, like that of middle class , urban teenagers, or the promotion of a Christian ethic, that was used as a sign of successful assimilation. There was no indication that school attendees achieved greater financial success than those who did not go to school. As the father of a pupil who attended Battleford Industrial School, in Saskatchewan, for five years explained: "he cannot read, speak or write English, nearly all his time having been devoted to herding and caring for cattle instead of learning
12426-441: Was often surprised that the results were not even worse than they have been shown statistically to be." In 1909, Bryce reported that, between 1894 and 1908, mortality rates at some residential schools in western Canada ranged from 30 to 60 per cent over five years (that is, five years after entry, 30 to 60 per cent of students had died, or 6 to 12 per cent per annum). These statistics did not become public until 1922, when Bryce, who
12540-519: Was primarily active from the passage of the Indian Act in 1876, under Prime Minister Alexander MacKenzie . Under Prime Minister John A. Macdonald , the government adopted the residential industrial school system of the United States, a partnership between the government and various church organizations. An amendment to the Indian Act in 1894, under Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell , made attendance at day schools , industrial schools , or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children. Due to
12654-533: Was so low that milk was separated with "skimmed milk served to the children" and the fat turned to dairy products sold to fund the schools. In 1939, the Presbyterian school in Kenora began charging students 10 cents a loaf until their Indian agent ordered the school to stop. Parents and family members regularly travelled to the schools, often camping outside to be closer to their children. So many parents made
12768-455: Was solely an oral language . However, European colonialism brought the schooling system to Canada. The missionaries of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches were the first ones to deliver formal education to Inuit in schools. The teachers used the Inuktitut language for instruction and developed writing systems. In 1928 the first residential school for Inuit opened, and English became
12882-530: Was then post-Confederation Canada , commissioned politician Nicholas Flood Davin to write a report regarding the industrial boarding-school system in the United States. Now known as the Davin Report, the Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds was submitted to Ottawa on March 14, 1879, and made the case for a cooperative approach between the Canadian government and the church to implement
12996-513: Was to convert Indigenous children to Christianity and acculturate them. Many of the government-funded residential schools were run by churches of various denominations. Between 1867 and 1939, the number of schools operating at one time peaked at 80 in 1931. Of those schools, 44 were operated by 16 Catholic dioceses and about three dozen Catholic communities; 21 were operated by the Church of England / Anglican Church of Canada ; 13 were operated by
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