Mapping the Residential Schools Narrative in Canada
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Taylor, D.R.F.; 2Pyne, S.
1CARLETON UNIVERSITY Email: fraser.taylor@carleton.ca
2UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA Email: sapyne@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper will describe the process of collaborative mapping relating to the Residential School Narrative in Canada. Residential schools were a dark chapter in Canadian history when indigenous children were forced by the Government of Canada to leave their home villages to be educated in these schools, which were often hundreds of miles from their homes. They were not allowed to use their own languages and their cultural heritage was often denigrated. The Residential Schools Mapping Project seeks to participate in reconciliation processes by working with others to meet on residential school sites to engage in a series of awareness enhancing educational participatory mapping and related activities. The results of these engagements will provide the content for the further development of the interactive residential schools mapping component of the Lake Huron Treaty Atlas, which provides a virtual space for ongoing knowledge sharing and education. This national case study springs from concerns and observations that emerged in earlier work. The mapping will honour and enhance awareness of the living history of the land, the buildings and the survivors of residential schools and will contribute to education and build relationships in the spirit of reconciliation. The paper will describe the collaborative mapping element of the Residential Schools Project building on the Lake Huron Treaty Atlas which was launched in 2012 (Pyne, S. and Taylor, D. R. F., 2012. Mapping Indigenous Perspectives in the Making of the Cybercartographic Atlas of the Lake Huron Treaty Relationship Process: A Performative Approach in the Reconciliation Context, Cartographics, 47: 92-104.
Keywords
collaborative mapping; indigenous peoples; Canada