'We must never forget': Hundreds come together for reconciliation walk in Saskatoon

Warning: This story contains distressing details. 

Hundreds of people wearing orange joined together in Saskatoon on Treaty 6 territory as part of the Rock Your Roots Walk for Reconciliation on Friday.

The gathering was held on Orange Shirt Day and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. 

People shared a meal at a pancake breakfast outside the Central Urban Métis Federation Inc. in the core of the city before the walk began.

Shirley Isbister, president of Central Urban Métis Federation Incorporated, said the sea of orange shows that people are listening to the calls for support. 

"For me, it means that all the education that people in our community have been talking about: residential schools and the effects and the descendants, the message is starting to get out there," she said.

"We have a long way to go but part of it is about diversity and everyone coming together." 

Isbister said it's important that people continue to listen, so they understand why support and action is needed. Isbister has seen firsthand how the pain from residential schools carries forward through generations. 

"My mother-in-law was a residential school survivor, and at five years old, she was taken from her mother's arms, put on the back of an army truck and taken to Birtle, Manitoba," she said. Her mother-in-law was there 13 years.

More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend church-run, government-funded schools between the 1870s and 1997.

"How would you feel if you were caring for a child or your grandchild, and someone came and took your five-year-old child out of your arms and you had no say in it?" Isbister said. 

"If you look at it that way, you'll feel the pain."

Children were removed from their families and culture and forced to learn English and embrace Christianity. 

Many of the children at residential schools were physically, sexually or psychologically abused in a system described by the TRC in its landmark 2015 report as cultural genocide.