A school on the Onion Lake Cree Nation is the setting today for a conference about the intergenerational impacts of residential schools.

Around 350 children are attending the event.

Coordinator Bernadine Harper says students on the reserve often ask questions about the schools, because they hear about them but don’t know the history.

She hopes the conference answers those questions, and lets the children see how First Nations survived their impact:

“The goal was to ‘take the Indian out of the child’ — but today, we can still see a lot of our First Nations people . . . they still speak the language and they still practice the ceremonies.”

Harper adds speakers are discussing issues such as what life was like before and after the schools started, and the apologies by the Pope and Prime Minister.