This post is part of a series entitled “Land, Memory, and Schooling: Environmental Histories of Colonial Education.” You can find the introduction here.
This post and series discuss 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.
Mapping, once used for colonial domination, is increasingly being transformed as part of the wave toward decolonization and reconciliation. In this vein, the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre has, since 2014, been working with the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group (ARSLG) and others1 on projects to share Survivor knowledge of the Assiniboia Residential School with the broader public through innovative map-based approaches to documentation, archiving, and presentation. These projects are linked to the ARSLG’s educational, healing, commemoration, and reconciliation objectives. They also contribute to an environmental history of residential schooling that highlights the spatial elements of each Survivor’s journey with an emphasis on their engagement with Indigenous and colonial spaces as they changed over time.
“Mapping, once used for colonial domination, is increasingly being transformed as part of the wave toward decolonization and reconciliation.”
In this post, we introduce the connected and iterative mapping projects that we have been working on with ARSLG and Survivors of the Assiniboia Residential School. Assiniboia was Manitoba’s first residential high school. It operated in the River Heights neighbourhood of Winnipeg between 1958 and 1973. Until 1967, students were both boarded and taught on site, after which it primarily served as a hostel for Indigenous students undergoing immersion in public high schools. It was run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate with assistance from the Grey Nuns of Montreal until 1969 when the federal government assumed its direct management. The late Elder Theodore Fontaine (Anishinaabe) recalls, “Assiniboia was a place of hope for us, coming from lives of deprivation and abuse at remote residential schools. But it was still a residential school for Indian children, far away from family and home.”2
Our first project, titled Residential Schools Land Memory Mapping Project, produced the Assiniboia Residential School Map.3 This interactive map of the Assiniboia campus and the locations of various tents that were set up as part of the 2017 Assiniboia Residential School Reunion and Commemorative Event (the Reunion) includes digitized building plans, photographs, and video clips.
Documenting the Reunion also involved transcribing audio interviews conducted with Survivors and others at the event. In 2021, the ARSLG published Did You See Us? Reunion, Remembrance, and Reclamation at an Urban Indian Residential School based on these interviews with Survivors and others with a connection to Assiniboia Residential School.
Our next project, titled Mapping Assiniboia Residential School Survivor Stories: Did You See Us?4, used GIAMedia (a content management system with map views) to create an interactive story map for Elder Theodore Fontaine’s chapter in Did You See Us?5, which chronicles a memorable three-day journey. Shortly after graduating from Fort Alexander Residential School, Theodore and his two cousins travelled unchaperoned by bus from Sakgeeng First Nation (Zagiing, then called Fort Alexander Reserve, located approximately 130 km northeast of Winnipeg) to the Union Bus Depot in Winnipeg to investigate their prospective new residential high school.
Elder Theodore’s story provides an excellent starting point for narrative digital mapping because it includes details such as routes, places, and events reflecting the historical geography of the late 1950s. It also provides visual testimony to how Elder Theodore negotiated the various challenges faced during his journey, including struggles he and his cousins faced in trying to get home. To map Elder Theodore’s story, we identified 16 relevant locations corresponding to its various narrative episodes.
Mapping extended beyond geolocating textual references to include a concern with historical geographical context and change over time. We gathered archival photographs and other media to paint a picture of the environment of Elder Theodore’s story. For example, he recalls that when he and his cousins “got off at the bus depot on Carleton Street … it was a little scary despite our bravado.”6 The map complements this point in the narrative, offering an archival photo of the Union Bus Depot from this era, which includes a bus of the sort Elder Theodore and his cousins would have taken to Winnipeg (see figure 2).
Born and raised at Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Elder Mabel’s chapter covers her pre- and post-Assiniboia Residential School life and includes positive experiences at the school and beyond in relation to her career in nursing. In spite of being geographically separated from her family, she was connected to them through the value of education that was instilled in her by her parents. Elder Mabel transmitted this value to her children and continues to share her passion for education with youth.
We have been working with Elder Mabel to map her chapter as part of our current project, titled Collaborative Story Mapping with Urban Residential School Survivors.7 In addition to providing her with opportunities to reflect further and embellish where and how she wishes, she is also learning about the mapping platform.
Mapping with Elder Mabel has followed a similar method used to map Elder Theodore’s story, yet has also extended beyond her chapter to include charting out her professional and personal travels to date.
Each mapping project builds on and integrates previous projects. Elder Theodore passed away before he could see his story mapped, but his wife Morgan helped us locate specific events and better understand their significance. Elder Mabel has been involved in the making of her map, allowing her direct oversight of the presentation of her geographic biography.
“Presenting Survivors’ stories in this way makes them more accessible and facilitates connection to and enriched awareness of a shifting place-based context and Survivor engagement with space.”
Presenting Survivors’ stories in this way makes them more accessible and facilitates connection to and enriched awareness of a shifting place-based context and Survivor engagement with space. For both Elder Theodore and Elder Mabel, their stories refused to be contained within the physical space of the residential school. One witnesses their agency in resisting the boundaries placed upon them both during and after their residential school years. For example, they cross the invisible boundary dividing the boys from girls and they venture out into the neighbourhood surrounding Assiniboia. And they see parts of the world not plotted out for them by the residential school system thereby rejecting the containment imposed by colonial maps and remapping their lives on their own terms.
Feature Image: Cover of Did You See Us? (2021) by the Survivors of the Assiniboia Indian Residential School. Courtesy of University of Manitoba Press.
Notes
1 Other participants include a series of research assistants from the University of Manitoba under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Woolford and a research assistant from the University of Toronto (Scarborough) under the supervision of Dr. Glenn Brauen.
2 Theodore Fontaine, “Assiniboia was a Place of Hope for Us … But it was still a Residential School” in Survivors of the Assiniboia Indian Residential School (eds.), Did You See Us? Reunion, Remembrance and Reclamation at an Urban Indian Residential School (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2021), 26.
3 This project was funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant, 2015-2020, and involved developing an atlas using the Nunaliit Framework.
4 This project was funded by a PEG-JI (Residential Schools) Grant, 2022-2023, in partnership with the ARSLG.
5 Theodore Fontaine was the co-founder and first president of the ARSLG.
6 Fontaine, “Assiniboia was a Place of Hope for Us,” 18.
7 This project is funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
Stephanie Pyne, Caléa Turner, Andrew Wiebe, and Andrew Woolford
Latest posts by Stephanie Pyne, Caléa Turner, Andrew Wiebe, and Andrew Woolford (see all)
- Mapping with the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group - November 11, 2025