Photo: The Canadian Press
A traveling exhibit at the Vancouver Public Library, as shown in this brochure image, tells the story of 12 Indigenous children who were taken from their families as part of the so-called Sixties Scoop. THE CANADIAN PRESS / HO-Sandra Relling
The Vancouver Public Library has presented an exhibition at its downtown branch that tells the story of 12 Indigenous children who were part of the so-called Sixties Scoop.
The “first” that began in the 1960s and continued until at least the 1980s involved the practice of taking an unknown number of children from their families and placing them in non-indigenous households.
Vancouver is the last of six cities in British Columbia to host the three-day exhibition, which has also toured Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Sandra Relling, president of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Alberta, says her group bought a copy of a traveling exhibition from the Ontario-based Legacy of Hope Foundation, which created the original around 2014.
The purpose of the tour is to defend survivors and educate Canadians about an important time in the country’s history, allowing people to read the stories of those who did not have the opportunity to learn about their own family or culture.
Relling says child removal policies continued as residential schools closed, but that reality is often overlooked.
“They continued through child welfare programs that the federal government essentially approved through an amendment to the Law of India and put it in the provinces and territories to manage the elimination of children.”
Relling says she was hospitalized as a baby in 1967, but her 16-year-old mother was unable to get to an Edmonton hospital when she was about to be discharged, so she was sent to live with her parents. adoptius.
He says thousands of other indigenous children faced the same fate with various scenarios, and some were forcibly removed from their families.
“We didn’t have any outside influence, indigenism, at all growing up. So this exhibit really tells us about going home to ourselves, to our communities,” says Relling, who is not in the dozen. of people who have their detailed stories. in the exhibition.
“We just want to tell the story that there was something that happened between residential schools and today’s child welfare. And we live with people who have gone through this life experience.”
Relling says she was raised by loving foster parents, but her mother never stopped looking for her.
They finally reunited a day before Relling’s 21st birthday, which was a “total shock” to her, as she had been living her life essentially as a Caucasian person with parents who loved her.
However, the experience of having her “world upside down” had an impact on her mental health, Relling says.
Andrew Battershill, a librarian at the Vancouver Public Library, says he expects the “powerful” exhibition, called Bi-Giwen: Coming Home, Truth Telling from the Sixties Scoop, to run at the downtown branch until Monday. it serves as an opportunity for people. to know the stories of the survivors in their own words.
“It’s just a very important piece of reconciliation learning to have in the library.”