How one survivor of Canada’s residential schools reclaimed her identity

‘It’s like home’

Martha was able to heal some of that trauma by reconnecting with her father before he died in 2005.

“He sobered up in the later years,” she says. “He was getting sickly, but I would ask him things, [about our culture]. And he would bring me to round dances, he would bring me to a healing sweat lodge.”

At each ceremony, she would observe her father – the way he carried himself, how he interacted with the elders, the precise way he performed their cultural rituals. When he spoke of their Cree traditions, she would lean in close, soaking up every word.

“This was what I was missing,” she says.

“I really felt that he was trying to look out for me now that I was older and understood about pain and hurt and all that stuff. I think that's why he was bringing me to these ceremonies. I lost my culture and my identity. And he was trying to bring it back.”

Martha was just getting to know him, she says, when, aged 72, he died in his sleep at home.

Now, Martha passes on the culture and traditions to her 14 grandchildren.

But to be able to fully do that, she has had to forgive those who abused her.

“I had to pray for [the people who hurt me] because I want to have a good life. I want to be at peace. I had to learn how to forgive.”

In 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised to the residential school survivors. In the same year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. Over six years, it travelled across Canada, gathering testimonies from survivors. The Catholic Church delivered a historic apology in 2022.

Martha is now retired. She fills her time hosting healing workshops in Saddle Lake and other Indigenous communities and volunteering at a church in Edmonton, where she feeds the homeless and provides outreach to people in need.

Martha runs her fingers over a large bundle of dried sage leaves.

“Healing is a lifelong journey,” she says.

“It took a long time [to get where I am],” she reflects. “I’m going to keep learning, keep going back to my culture. I just love it when somebody is talking to me in Cree. It’s like home.”

This summer Martha participated in a sun dance ceremony, a sacred ritual practised by several Indigenous Nations. The sun dance is a time of spiritual renewal and personal sacrifice. Participants seek visions, offer prayers and make sacrifices to the Creator. Martha fasted for four days and danced in the sacred circle praying for healing for her community.

It was pouring with rain as she danced, but she says the skies opened to a stunning vision of her father.

“When I was dancing, I saw my dad. He was looking down. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m doing this for my dad.’ And the message for me was, ‘Your dad is happy, you’re doing it for him, you’re doing it for everybody’.”

“I don’t want to be stuck over there [in the past],” she says. “I was already there long enough.”

If you, a child or a young adult you know require support, help is available. Please visit Child Helplines International to find sources of help. In Canada, Kids Help Phone is available on 1-800-668-6868. In the United Kingdom, call Childline on 0800 1111 and in the United States, text or call the Childhelp hotline number 800-422-4453.