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Kuper Island: Return to the Healing Circle
They sit in a raised clearing in the woods - grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. Between them passes an eagle feather, and as the feather reaches each of them they begin to speak, heads bowed, voices barely audible above the rustling of the leaves. They speak of a place and time far removed from the tranquillity of these woods - a place whose name is seared into the collective memory of their people, a time that most of them have spent their lives trying to forget.
They called it Alcatraz. It was the Kuper Island Indian Residential School, a huge, four story, red brick structure built on a remote island off the east coast of Vancouver Island - built to provide education and training for the children of the Cowichan Indian Agency and adjacent Coast Salish groups on southern Vancouver Island. The government funded, Catholic-run institution operated from 1890 until the mid-1970's when it was closed and later destroyed.
For many former students, the memories of Kuper Island are almost too painful to bear. Some recall picking rat feces out of their food before they ate it. Others buried their babies near the school grounds, babies that were the result of sexual abuse at the school. Still others remember children who died trying to escape their Island prison in canoes or on floating logs.
Until recently, few of them talked openly about their ordeal. But, like thousands of other aboriginal people across Canada and the United States, the former residents of Kuper Island are now beginning to break the silence and to speak out about the trauma of their residential school experience. For them, the time for healing has come ...
Status:
• Initial Screening on Kuper Island in May 1997
• Premiere on CBC Rough Cuts
• Nominated for Best Documentry, and Winner of Best Cinematography, Dreamweavers Festival
• Recently screened at the American Indian Festival in San Francisco
and at the 24 Northwest Film & Video Festival
• Video available
• Broadcast and distribution available
Produced in participation with:
Vision TV
CBC Newsworld
Health and Welfare Canada
Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada
Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
British Columbia Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs
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Moving Images Distribution
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