Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City

The Presbyterian Church ran the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School between 1929 and 1969. The school was named after Cecilia Jeffrey, a white woman whose dream was “to build a school to teach the children English and to prepare them to live in the white world” (69), thinking it could “save” the Indigenous children. Among local Indigenous groups, however, the school was well-known for its excessive corporal punishments. Because of this cruelty, Indigenous families started refusing to send their children to the school. Some students ran away to escape punishment.

The school officially closed in 1976. The residential school was demolished, although the baseball diamond still survives. The local Indigenous peoples think it was a burial ground and avoid it. Today, a “single-storey sky-blue office building” (64) stands on its grounds. This building is the home of the tribal council. Elder Thomas White plans to set up a display for the survivors and their families so that they can see what remains of the residential school. However, many are unwilling to come.

A school for Indigenous students in Thunder Bay, Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) High School was named after a beloved Nishnawbe Aski Nation grand chief who suddenly passed away from a heart attack. The Northern Nishnawbe Education Council (NNEC) runs the school. Most of the Indigenous students who attend it come from communities hundreds of miles away and must live in boarding houses. The school pays the boarding parents to look after the kids. Six of the seven fallen feathers attended DFC High School.

Situated near the city of Thunder Bay on the western end of Lake Superior, Fort William First Nation is one of the 133 Indigenous reservations in the province of Ontario. This reservation was created in 1853 as one of the conditions of the 1850 Robinson-Superior Treaty.

Administered by the Department of Indian Affairs, the Indian Act of 1876 gave the federal government in Canada the power to control all aspects of Indigenous life. Under this act, the government restricted the movement of Indigenous people off their reservations, banned traditional religious ceremonies, and forced the education and assimilation of Indigenous children. The act was later amended to make attendance at residential schools compulsory for Indigenous children. Today, the act continues to dictate “the terms of who is considered a real Indian under the federal statute—and hence who receives treaty rights” (58). Indigenous people must register with the federal government, but the government places a limit on how many people it grants Indigenous status. Talaga notes that “the Indian Act was such a successful piece of legislation for the Canadian government that it was used as a model by white South African legislators when they set up their brutal system of apartheid” (59).

Passed in 2006, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) represents the largest class action settlement to date in Canada. The settlement recognizes the damage that residential schools inflicted on Indigenous peoples. A multi-billion-dollar fund was created as part of the IRSSA to help residential school survivors. The agreement has five main components, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, all of which began going into effect in 2007.

After the passage of the Indian Act of 1876, the federal government worked with Protestant and Roman Catholic churches to establish The Indian Residential Schools System for Indigenous children across the country. However, the experience of attending a residential school was extremely traumatic for many Indigenous youth. They were often forcibly removed from their families and subjected to physical and sexual abuse; harsh discipline, especially if they tried to run away; and the devaluation of their language, religion, and culture. Between the 1880s and the 1990s, an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools. Of these students, 80,000-90,000 were impacted by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Talaga notes:

By the 1940s and 1950s, the government knew the residential school system was an absolute disaster. The Indigenous people were not seamlessly assimilating into Canadian culture and society; in fact, they were actively resisting assimilation (73).

Despite this knowledge, it took another 40-50 years for this system to be shut down. The last residential school was closed in the 1990s. The federal government was supposed to finance schools for Indigenous children, especially those living in more remote areas, through the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). As Seven Fallen Feathers illustrates, this promise has yet to be met.

Since the 1980s, residential school survivors launched legal campaigns to push the federal government and churches to acknowledge and provide compensation for the damages that Indigenous peoples incurred because of the Indian Residential Schools System. The IRSSA is among the most comprehensive settlements to come out of these campaigns.

Talaga describes the Intercity Shopping Centre as “the no man’s land of Thunder Bay, that nondescript middle part of the city down by the Kam and the railway tracks that links Fort William to Port Arthur” (30). Some locals refer to this area as the demilitarized zone. It was a popular hangout area for teenagers.

After a child named Jordan River Anderson died while two levels of government in Canada fought over who should pay for his home-care costs, the Canadian parliament introduced Jordan’s Principle in 2007. Jordan’s Principle is a guide to ensure that Indigenous children receive necessary medical attention first—that governments can decide later who pays for it. Parliament voted to pass this law unanimously. However, advocates today suggest that little has changed for Indigenous children.

Kamanistiquia (Kam) is an Ojibwe word meaning “river with islands” (5). Kam is the largest river in Thunder Bay. Animikii-wajiw (known as Mount McKay in English), or Thunder Mountain, overlooks the Kam. Animikii-wajiw represents the Ojibwe’s spiritual center.

While the river is now polluted because of industrial and urban development, it still draws people, especially Indigenous teenagers. While these teenagers meet to drink and party near its shores, the river is also the closest that many to get to nature in Thunder Bay; it reminds them of their homes hundreds of miles away.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIW) is a movement that shines a spotlight on the high rates of disappearance and murder of Indigenous people, especially women and girls, and advocates for an end to violence against them. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) released a study that investigated the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women. It found that between 1980 and 2012, more than 1,000 Indigenous women went missing or were murdered. Despite Indigenous women making up around four percent of Canada’s total population, they account for 16% of the country’s women murder rates (The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview.” 2013).

Part of the Anishinaabe group, the Ojibwe tribe resides in southern Canada and the northern plains and Midwest areas of the US. The Ojibwe are Canada’s second-largest First Nations population. The author is one-quarter Ojibwe.

In 1850, Ojibwe chiefs and the British Crown signed two treaties. The first was called the Robinson Superior Treaty and involved Ojibwe chiefs along Lake Superior’s northern shore. The second was called the Robinson Huron Treaty and involved Ojibwe chiefs along Lake Huron’s northern and eastern shores. Both agreements gave the British Crown access to parts of Lake Huron and Lake Superior for European settlement and mining. The British Crown was supposed to recognize the hunting and fishing rights of the Ojibwe, provide them with an annual payment, and create two reservations. However, the British Crown and the subsequent federal government of Canada betrayed both treaties, which has had a substantial socioeconomic impact on Indigenous communities.

The Anishinaabe prophecy of the seven fires marks the phases in the life of the people living on Turtle Island, which was the original name that Indigenous people gave to North America. The first three fires describe the history of life before the arrival of Europeans in 1492, including “the peaceful existence along the Atlantic coast and the migration west to find food and water” (16).

The Fourth Fire predicts the arrival of Europeans. The Anishinaabe would be able to determine their future by reading the faces of the Europeans. If the Europeans came in brotherhood, then there would be a wonderful change for the Anishinaabe. As Talaga notes, the prophecy stated that “two nations would join as one, resulting in the growth of a mighty nation full of knowledge and understanding” (17). Peace and happiness would reign. However, if the Europeans came bearing weapons and wore the face of death, then the Anishinaabe would face great suffering and their land would be poisoned from the Europeans’ greed.

The Fifth Fire predicted war and suffering for the Anishinaabe. The prophecy warned that the Europeans would try and get them to accept their gods. If the Anishinaabe did this, however, “they would forget the ways of the past and have no direction for the future” (17).

The prophecy of the Sixth Fire made it clear that the promise the Anishinaabe agreed to during the Fifth Fire was false. The Europeans wore the face of death. Disease would ravage Indigenous communities, Indigenous children would be taken from their families, and the teachings of the Elders would be forgotten.

The Seventh Fire predicted that young people would again begin to follow the ways of their ancestors. They would try to ask the Elders for help, but many Elders would be unable to help either out of fear or having forgotten the past. The young people would need to find their own way for the Anishinaabe nation to be reborn. If the young people fail, then everything fails. If they choose the right path, then this leads to the eighth fire. The eighth fire is the eternal fire of peace.

Six of the prophecies have been fulfilled. Only the last two have not. Talaga, like many Indigenous peoples, hopes that the prophecy of the eighth fire comes to pass.

This school was originally established as a Catholic orphanage in 1870 for young Indigenous girls, which began accepting young boys so that the nuns could get more money from the Department of Indian Affairs. The orphanage eventually became St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School and was relocated to Fort William in 1907, becoming the St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School (also called the Fort William Indian Residential School). To continue receiving funding from the federal government, the school had to accept more and more students. This school policy of not turning away children resulted in constant overcrowding. Talaga notes that six children died there and 16 remain unaccounted for. Although the school was demolished in 1966, it took several decades until a plaque was mounted so that the residential school survivors and their descendants and the broader Thunder Bay community didn’t forget this dark chapter in Canada’s history of the treatment of Indigenous peoples.

Located in the northwestern part of Canada’s Ontario province, Thunder Bay was the ancestral home of the Ojibwe, who called it Animikii, or thunder, because it was “the place where the sky rumbled and pounded with Superior’s immense power” (4). Ojibwe trappers and fur traders first met Europeans here for trade. The Europeans agreed with the Ojibwe and called the place Thunder Bay.

Two older cities make up Thunder Bay: Fort William and Port Arthur. Fort William was the first fur trading post in North America. Port Arthur, which is located on the Kaministiquia (Kam) river, served as a transshipment point for lake freighters that carried cargo across the Great Lakes. A British colonel named the city after one of Queen Victoria’s sons. Talaga notes that Thunder Bay served as the beginning of nation building for Canada. Roads and railways began to spring up and move west. The government acquired land from the Ojibwe to allow the country to grow. As the port prospered, European settlers arrived at Thunder Bay. These settlers forcibly spread Christianity to the Indigenous peoples living in the area.

Fort William and Port Arthur eventually combined into one city (becoming known as Thunder Bay) in the 1970s. Thunder Bay remains divided. Indigenous peoples live on the Fort William side, and white people live on the Port Arthur side. Indigenous people are forced to move to Thunder Bay to pursue education, find a job, access medical care, and escape the poverty of reservations. By 2030, it’s likely that 15% of the city will be Indigenous.