Survivors react to FSIN calls for papal visit to last remaining Sask. residential school site

Survivors of the Muscowequan Indian Residential School have mixed emotions if Pope Francis were to visit their community where the last remaining residential school stands.

Losing her connection to her parents is something that a papal apology cannot bring back for one residential school survivor.

Marie Haviland from the Muskowekwan First Nation attended the Muscowequan Indian Residential School in 1952. She remembers her parents dropping her off at the residential school when she was seven years old. It was a time that her life changed. She no longer had access to her Indigenous teachings, her language and living off the land.

The memories of being a student at the Muscowequan Indian Residential School reopened old wounds as Haviland weeps as she recalls her time at a place that robbed her of a childhood.

“What happened to us, we lost that core connection to our family,” she said. “That loss of that parents’ love, you can’t replace that with nuns and priests who were so rigid and disciplined with us.”

On Monday, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) held a media conference in Muskowekwan First Nation where it called on the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) to arrange for the July papal visit to include the Muscowequan Indian Residential School.

However, the idea of having a proposed papal visit to Muskokwekwan First Nation, where the last standing residential school in Saskatchewan is, doesn’t sit too well with Haviland.

“It doesn’t make sense to me. (There’s) too much loss, too many children gone (and) families broken up,” she said. “All the things we needed growing up, we didn’t have that … so I don’t think an apology for me would be any good.”

In 2021, 35 unmarked graves were discovered on the site of the residential school. The Pope is expected to visit Canada this summer, which was announced when Indigenous delegates from Canada were in Rome from March 28 to April 1.