This post is the introduction to a series entitled “Land, Memory, and Schooling: Environmental Histories of Colonial Education.”
This post and series discusses Indian residential and day schools. Please take care as you read. If you are a Survivor or intergenerational Survivor of residential or day school and you need help, there’s a free 24-hour support line. Call 1-866-925-4419. Additional resources are available here.
In January 2025, we published a post on the NiCHE blog about the relationship between histories of “Indian education” in the North and environmental history that drew upon six interviews we conducted as part of the How I Survived project. These interviews are now publicly available through the How I Survived Podcast. The podcast foregrounds Survivors’ own reflections on the role of Land, recreation, and environment in their experiences of schooling in the North.
This was only the third time that the subject of residential schooling histories was directly addressed on the NiCHE blog. The first time was in 2016, when Jocelyn Thorpe explained to readers how residential school history is environmental history:
Canadian government representatives took Indigenous children away from their families, communities and territories to residential schools in order to secure the land base for non-Indigenous families and communities. The transfer of land from Indigenous peoples to European powers and then to the Canadian government and settlers had, and continues to have, profound consequences for both people and land. It doesn’t get much more environmental historical than that.
The second was in 2021, when the NiCHE editorial team gathered five sources that “engage critically with residential school history and highlight[ed] the environmental context of each.” In that post, the editorial team also issued a call to “Canadian environmental historians to write more in-depth posts about residential schools in Canada.” In other words, the NiCHE blog has only touched residential school histories three times in nearly a decade.
The limited attention paid to histories of Indian residential and day schooling on the NiCHE site is not an anomaly, but is consistent with the field of environmental history more broadly. Although Land and environment are central to residential and day school histories, they remain under-examined in environmental history. This silence speaks to a wider disciplinary gap: although dispossession, extraction, and ecological transformation are central to residential school histories, they have too often been sidelined in environmental history scholarship. This silence is particularly striking given that environmental historians have long examined resource extraction, settlement, and land use—processes deeply entangled with residential and day schools.
This silence speaks to a wider disciplinary gap: although dispossession, extraction, and ecological transformation are central to residential school histories, they have too often been sidelined in environmental history scholarship.
In our post about Land and northern histories of residential and day school, we wrote that we welcome the opportunity to respond to the editors’ call for more environmental histories of residential and day school and hoped that others do the same. Following a NiCHE conversation with NiCHE editor Jessica DeWitt about the post and northern histories of residential and day schooling, we decided that we should follow through on our own call to action. As co-editors of this series, we recognized that issuing an invitation also carries a responsibility to model the kind of scholarship we were asking of others.
Recognizing this responsibility, we issued a public call for contributions—and were pleasantly surprised by the response. The generosity of Survivors, intergenerational Survivors, and scholars who agreed to contribute demonstrates a collective commitment to broadening the field. We welcome additional submissions to the series (see the call for more information and to contribute).
Our decision to launch the series on September 30 was deliberate. September 30 is Orange Shirt Day, an Indigenous-led grassroots commemoration of the residential school experience initiated to witness and honour the healing journey of Survivors and their families. As the Orange Shirt Society explains, “The date was chosen because it is the time of year in which children were taken from their homes to residential schools, and because it is an opportunity to set the stage for anti-racism and anti-bullying policies for the coming school year. It is an opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.”
In 2021, in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s call to action 80, the federal government passed legislation making September 30 a statutory holiday, observed as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. As outlined in Bill C-5, the holiday “seeks to honour First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors and their families and communities and to ensure that public commemoration of their history and the legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”
Launching the series on September 30 links the work of environmental historians to ongoing, Indigenous-led calls for truth and justice. It is also meant as a reminder of our responsibilities as historians to Survivors and intergenerational Survivors. There is still much work to be done to bring to light the histories and legacies of residential and day schools in this country. There is a growing urgency to this work as Survivors age and pass on, but also in the context of residential school denialism, which Sean Carleton defines as “the deliberate downplaying, distorting, and misrepresentation of residential school history to shake public confidence in truth and reconciliation and protect the status quo.”
As historians, we must ensure that our research and writing counter denialism by documenting and analyzing the full scope of residential and day school experiences—including their environmental dimensions.
As historians, we must ensure that our research and writing counter denialism by documenting and analyzing the full scope of residential and day school experiences—including their environmental dimensions.
Readers may notice different approaches to capitalization and spelling in the series. For example, we use Indian residential school, but others use Indian Residential School. There is no one way, so we chose not to impose a uniform system on the posts.
That said, we have encouraged contributors to use Elements of Indigenous Style, written by the late Cree author Gregory Younging. This foundational and path-breaking text advises writers to use capitals more liberally. Younging writes,
Indigenous style uses capitals where conventional style does not. It is a deliberate decision that redresses mainstream society’s history of regarding Indigenous Peoples as having no legitimate national identities; governmental, social, spiritual, or religious institutions; or collective rights.1
Readers will also notice different approaches to voice and method. Some posts are reflective and personal, others analytical, and still others experimental in form. This diversity reflects the many ways Survivors, intergenerational Survivors, and scholars engage with Land, environment, and residential and day school histories—in their own voices and on their own terms.
In the coming weeks, readers will hear from Survivors and intergenerational Survivors of residential and day school, as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars about some of the many ways that Land and environment figure into histories of residential and day schooling in what is now Canada. Posts will address histories of day schools and dispossession, the failure of “Indian education,” health and disease, residential schooling as forced relocation, sharing Survivor stories through maps, labour, Indigenous-led conservation, and ecological alienation.
Together, these contributions demonstrate that residential and day school histories cannot be separated from histories of Land and environment. We hope this series sparks further research, reflection, and action—work that feels increasingly urgent as Survivors age and denialism persists.
Feature Image: This photograph of Inuit children travelling between the Inuvik Federal Day School and the neighbouring residences in a dog sled was part of a NFB photo story entitled “New Town in Land of Tomorrow,” 1959. Credit: Library and Archives Canada / National Film Board fonds / e011177266.
Notes
1 Gregory Younging, Indigenous Elements of Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples (Edmonton: Brush Education, 2018), 77.
Crystal Gail Fraser and Jess Dunkin
Latest posts by Crystal Gail Fraser and Jess Dunkin (see all)
- Environmental History and the Work of Truth and Reconciliation - September 30, 2025
- Call for Submissions – Environmental Histories of Indian Residential and Day Schools - July 22, 2025
- How I Survived: Land and Northern Histories of Residential and Day Schooling - January 9, 2025