What is penelakut?
The Penelakut are a large (about 1000 individuals) Hul’qumi’num-speaking First Nation. They live primarily on Penelakut Island (formerly Kuper Island) near the south end of Vancouver Island, and Galiano Island. Their land stretches to Tent Island which is private and currently uninhabited.
What happened to Kuper Island Residential School?
In 1969 the federal government of Canada took over the school, and closed it starting in 1975. The school building was demolished in the 1980s. The school was nicknamed “Alcatraz” or “Canada’s Alcatraz”, after the American prison, due to its remote island location and the difficulty of escape.
What church ran the Kuper Island Residential School?
the Roman Catholic Church
The Kuper Island Residential School on Penelakut Island near Chemainus, Vancouver Island, British Columbia opened in 1890 and operated to approximately 1975. It was run by the Roman Catholic Church although it was primarily funded by the Department of Indian Affairs.
Where is Penelakut Island?
Penelakut Island, formerly known as Kuper Island and renamed in 2010 in honour of the Penelakut First Nation people, is located in the southern Gulf Islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland Pacific coast of British Columbia, Canada. The island has a population of about 300 members of the Penelakut Band.
Who created residential schools in Canada and why?
Religious instruction and discipline became the primary tool to “civilize” indigenous people and prepare them for life as mainstream European-Canadians. To achieve this goal, Prime Minister Macdonald authorized the creation of new residential schools and granted government funds for those that were already in place.
How many bodies were found in residential schools?
After a recent geological survey, Williams Lake First Nation says it has discovered 93 potential burial sites on the grounds of a former residential school.
How did Kuper Island get its name?
British sailors surveying the area in 1851 cruised into a tiny group of five unnamed islands in the Strait of Georgia, naming the two largest Kuper and Thetis, after their Captain Augustus Leopold Kuper R.N. (1809-1885) and his frigate, HMS Thetis, a 36-gun Royal Navy frigate on the Pacific Station between 1851 and …