User:Alaney2k/Alberni Indian Residential School

The Alberni Indian Residential School (AIRS) was an Indian residential school located in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada. It was operated first by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, then the United Church of Canada and later the Government of Canada from 1920 until 1973.

History
The first missionary Rev. J.A. MacDonald of the Presbyterian Church in Canada opened a day school in 1891. Soon after a boarding home for girls was opened in 1892 by the Women's Missionary Society. The two operated until 1899. The school was upgraded to a full residential school in 1900. The school was taken over by the United Church of Canada in 1925 and it operated until 1966. From 1967, the facility was the Alberni Student Residence, for students attending school nearby.

Twice the Alberni School burned down.

The 1960s saw what would be referred to by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a "campaign of sexual terrorism" by Alberni staff member Arthur Plint, who was employed at the school from 1947 until 1953 and 1963 until 1968. One of the worst incidents was when Plint sexually assaulted a ten-year-old boy. Plint lured the boy to his room, stating he would be allowed to contact his family. The boy reported the assault and Plint beat the boy, requiring treatment in the school's infirmary. Student Willie Blackwater confronted Plint in 1968, threatening him with a knife, making him promise to stop sexually abusing Blackwater and other boys, or "if I don't kill you, they will." Plint would eventually be sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1995.

In 1973, the West Coast District Council of Indian Chiefs, called for Alberni Residential School’s closure. Council members also noted that many students had to travel great distances from their communities even though there existed schools much closer by. In its response, Indian and Northern Affairs acknowledged that the issues facing Indigenous peoples “can’t be solved by sending children 800 miles away from their homes” and ordered the residence closed. Students who were still in residence when Alberni Residential School closed its doors Aug. 31, 1973, were placed in accommodations closer to their homes.

In the 1990s, the Reverend Kevin Annett helped publicize the history of abuse at the school after he was posted to the Alberni United Church in 1993. He interviewed Indigenous residents that were residential school survivors. He learned of the abuse at the school and attempted to bring forth witness testimony to the church as a form of reconciliation. The United Church defrocked him and denied the abuse. Annett became an activist to reveal the abuse and has written several books about his experiences and a documentary was made of his story in 2010.

In 2009, the remaining Parke Hall which housed the high school portion of the school was demolished.

Strength from Within
Strength from Within is an art installation by Connie Watts located in Port Alberni that commemorates survivors of and those whose people died at the Alberni School. The installation depicts two thunderbirds, adorned with West Coast designs, and a third without any cultural symbols to represent the horrors of the residential school era.

Abuse
Malnutrition was rampant at almost all residential schools, but at Alberni, milk and dental care were deliberately withheld for two years from some children by researchers studying the effects of malnutrition. Records reviewed by the TRC included 29 children who`lans to contact family members of those dead students that can be identified, and eventually hold a ceremony to tear the old school building down.

Survivor accounts
Alvin Dixon, a former student at the Alberni school and a survivor of the nutrition experiments, played a key testimonial role in the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings to uncover the truth regarding the details of these experiments. On a CBC Radio One radio series titled As It Happens, Dixon provides the following account: "I arrived in Alberni Residential school in September, 1947. One of my only memories of that year was being presented in a classroom with, like, a spreadsheet, seven days a week, of mealtimes and we were asked to fill in breakfast lunch and dinner. What we ate in those particular meals, and the thing that struck me as a ten-year old was 'Why were they asking me? They know what they're feeding us.' They didn't ask us if they were eating these things... And we didn't always eat what was presented to us, obviously, because it was totally inadequate food, a lot of the times, and not necessarily the best tasting or the best quality... I remember having to, all of us kids having to, steal fruits, steal carrots, potatoes, so we could roast the potatoes somewhere offsite, you know, on a fire and eat it because we were never full when we left, like I said, the dining room table."

Ray Silver, another former residential school student at the same residential school in Alberni, British Columbia, describes his bleak experiences in the following statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: "And us kids, we used to sneak from the school, we must have had to walk about a mile, sneak away from the school, sneak over the bridge, and go to that dump, and pick up apples, they were half rotten or something, and they threw out, they were no more good to sell, but us kids that were starving, we'd go there and pick that stuff up, fill up our shirts, and run back across the bridge, and go back to the school."

Gravesites search
Tseshaht First Nation announced plans to search near the Alberni School building in August 2021. Funding was secured by December 2021 of over CA$1 million and an initial GPR scan was scheduled in the spring of 2022. The search began in earnest in July 2022.

On February 21, 2023, Tseshaht First Nation released "phase one" findings, the results of a ground-penetrating radar survey of just over 10% of the area identified at the Alberni School for investigation, as well as historical research that included interviewing survivors of the school, which was run first by Presbyterians, then the United Church, and eventually the Canadian government. The findings reported 17 suspected Interviews with survivors identified 67 students who died at AIRS.