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Canadas Residential Schools The Inuit and Northern Experience demon- strates that residential schooling followed a unique trajectory in the North. As late as 1950 there were only six residential schools and one hostel north of the sixtieth parallel. Prior to the 1950s the federal government left northern residential schools in the hands of the missionary societies that operated largely in the Mackenzie Valley and the Yukon. It was only in the 1950s that Inuit children began attending residential schools in large num- bers. The tremendous distances that Inuit children had to travel to school meant that in some cases they were separated from their parents for years. The establishment of day schools and what were termed small hostels in over a dozen communities in the eastern Arctic led many Inuit parents to settle in those communities on a year-round basis so as not to be separated from their children contributing to a dramatic transformation of the Inuit economy and way of life. Not all the northern institutions are remembered similarly. The staff at Grandin College in Fort Smith and the Churchill Vocational Centre in northern Manitoba were often cited for the positive roles that they played in developing and encouraging a new generation of Aboriginal leadership. The legacy of other schools particularly Grollier Hall in Inuvik and Turquetil Hall in Igluligaarjuk Chestereld Inlet is far darker. These schools were marked by prolonged regimes of sexual abuse and harsh discipline that scarred more than one generation of children for life. Since Aboriginal peo- ple make up a large proportion of the population in Canadas northern terri- tories the impact of the schools has been felt intensely through the region. And because the history of these schools is so recent the intergenerational impacts and the legacy of the schools are strongly felt in the North. Canadas Residential Schools The Mtis Experience focuses on an often- overlooked element of Canadas residential school history. The federal government policy on providing schooling to Mtis children was subject to constant change. It viewed the Mtis as members of the dangerous classes whom the residential schools were intended to civilize and assimilate. This view led to the adoption of policies that allowed for the admission of Mtis children at various times. At Saint-Paul-des-Mtis in Alberta Roman Catholic missionaries established a residential school specically for Mtis children in the early twentieth century while the Anglicans opened hostels for Mtis children in the Yukon in the 1920s and the 1950s. However from a jurisdictional perspective the federal government believed that the responsi- bility for educating and assimilating Mtis people lay with provincial and territorial governments. When this view dominated Indian agents were often instructed to remove Mtis children from residential schools.Because provin- cial and territorial governments were reluctant to provide services to Mtis people many Mtis parents who wished to see their children educated in schools had no option but to try to have them accepted into a residential school. As provincial governments slowly began to provide increased educa- tional services to Mtis students after the Second World War Mtis children lived in residences and residential schools that were either run or funded by provincial governments. As this volume demonstrates the Mtis experience of residential schooling in Canada is long and complex involving not only the federal government and the churches but provincial and territorial governments. Much remains to be done to identify and redress the impact that these schools had on Mtis children their families and their community. I N D I G E N O U S S T U D I E S C A N A D I A N H I S T O R Y 5 M Q U P S P R I N G 2 0 1 6 S P E C I F I C AT I O N S McGill-Queens Native and Northern Series January 2016 978-0-7735-4654-7 27.95A 27.95A 18.99 paper 978-0-7735-4653-0 100.00S 100.00S 69.00 cloth 6.75 x 9.75 288pp 41 bw photos 10 tables Ebook available also available in French S P E C I F I C AT I O N S McGill-Queens Native and Northern Series January 2016 978-0-7735-4656-1 19.95A 19.95A 13.99 paper 978-0-7735-4655-4 75.00S 75.00S 52.00 cloth 6.75 x 9.75 96pp 16 bw photos Ebook available also available in French Canadas Residential Schools The Inuit and Northern Experience The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Volume 2 Canadas Residential Schools The Mtis Experience The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Volume 3