‘That is why we wear orange’: Kuujjuaq elder says youths need to hear about residential school experiences

Youthful spirit energized the streets of Kuujjuaq Monday to focus this year’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on helping children learn from the healing of their elders.

Kuujjuammiut walked from the Forum to the baseball field wearing orange shirts for the event, organized by volunteer-run Kuujjuaq Sivuliritisait Youth Committee.

At the finish line, there were games and refreshment for the kids. At the field, elder and social worker Martha Greig spoke in Inuktitut about the importance of the day, surrounded by youths.

Kuujjuaq Sivuliritisait Youth Committee volunteer Lavinia Qiatsuk Flaherty, front, led the organization of this year’s Truth and Reconciliation Day in the community. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

She said the reason everyone wears an orange shirt on this day started with the time a woman gave her five-year-old grandchild an orange T-shirt to wear to residential school, “because we always want our kids to dress well.”

“That little girl had her orange T-shirt taken away from her,” Greig said, speaking of the childhood experience of Phyllis Webstad that led to the creation of Orange Shirt Day honouring residential school survivors and those who didn’t survive.

“That is why we wear orange. So that we can bring back what was taken away from us.”

In an interview later, Greig said she herself is a residential school survivor.

“Today is a celebration, but unfortunately we were the lucky ones that went to residential school but came back to our parents. There were so many that were not able to do that, it is sad,” she said.

“But at the same time it is a celebration, because even though bad things happened to us we can always start again.”

She added it’s also a day to remember the children who never came home. “I grieve for them and also for the parents,” she said.

“I am here with my great-grandchildren and some of them were as young as [the ones who were taken away]. Just imagine what that would be like.”

Greig said it’s important for survivors to tell youths their experiences so “they will better understand, because they don’t understand what we went through.”

To share this from generation to generation means a brighter future for everyone.

“I can see the youth having pride in who they are,” she said, adding that sentiment was lost some time ago, affecting the upbringing and child-rearing of a whole generation.

Elder and social worker Martha Greig speaks to youths about the importance of Truth and Reconciliation Day, what needs to be celebrated, and what needs to be remembered about Canada’s residential schools. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

For her own generation, she said, it was a difficult to reconcile the traumatic events that happened to them.

“Unfortunately, some people that went through hardship turned to alcohol and drugs as their medicine, and they need help,” she said.

As a social worker, she has dealt with these issues personally and professionally.

“There is a better way than to dwell on your problems,” she said. “There has to be forgiveness, when there is no forgiveness you can never truly heal.

“When I had to be sent down [south], I came back pregnant. That was hard to accept,” she added.

“My grandmother was a midwife. When I came back, she saw my face and she knew I was pregnant.”

She told her grandmother what had happened to her when she was sent away to school: “She told me, ‘You have to have forgiveness.’”

All organizations in Kuujjuaq had orange flags flying at half mast Monday for Truth and Reconciliation Day. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)

That space and understanding Greig’s grandmother gave her “helped me tremendously in understanding the importance of forgiveness, and letting go,” Greig said.

“What was done to me, that was somebody’s garbage. It unfortunately happened to me, but it is not for me. I don’t need to own it.”

This is where today’s youths get involved, she said.

“Being a healthy person is that you pass down the good ways to live, no matter what you are going through.

“Instead of dwelling on our problem and being stuck in it like if it were mud, we have to take a step forward.”

Residential school survivors must tell their stories to their children so they can be understood, Greig said.

Kuujjuaq’s Truth and Reconciliation Day ended with a country food feast hosted at the Forum.