Exhibit captures the truth about residential schools

Imagine this, your mother has just packed your lunch and taken you to meet your new teacher, she gives you a tender hug, confidently sas you are going to have fun and then she quietly retreats. Now imagine a cattle round up as a herd is corralled then driven through the doors of a transport train.
The contrast between the above images is captured in the title of the new exhibit at the Lake of the Wood Museum in Kenora, Ontario. Bakaan nake'ii ngii-izhi-gakinoo'amaagoomin: We Were Taught Differently is the name of a seven-week exhibit at the museum.
Few children today would conjure up images of a cattle drive to describe their first day of school. However, for an Elder from Shoal Lake, Ontario, it is the image she invoked.
"It was heart breaking because I remember when we were taken away from our homes we were herded into a train like cattle and then when we got to Prince Albert we were herded into a truck like cattle," said Kathleen Greene.
Greene is a survivor of three residential schools, two in Prince Albert and the Cecilia Jeffery Residential School near Kenora, Ontario.
In a community where a large per cent of the community described themselves as Aboriginal for the 2006 federal census, the exhibit will continue to uncover old wounds and suppressed images for many survivors.
However, the greater goal of the exhibit is to educate the visitors while creating a greater understanding between neighbors by highlighting a devastating portion of Canadian History.
For more than a century, Indian residential schools removed over 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and communities in an attempt to, "kill the Indian in the child".
Over the years, the nation has suddenly begun to listen to the injustices suffered by the children of residential schools. Stories of sexual, physical, and mental abuse are heartbreakingly documented in the Canadian History books.
We Were Taught Differently, captures the essence of why so many cannot understand the often-overwhelming truth about residential schools.
The images presented are in such stark contrast to the quintessential Canadian image it is often beyond the reaches of the imagination to comprehend.
"We talk to our kids and grandchildren about what it was like in residential school, some things we tell them they don't believe," said Greene.
"They kind of look at me (and think) what planet are you from? They can't really put themselves in my place," she explained.
Many non-Aboriginal peoples are now realizing that they want to and need to understand the stories of the survivors.
"The stance (for assembling the exhibit); the time was right in our community for it and also it was about time that we did it," said Lori Nelson, Lake of the Woods Museum director.
Working with the NeChee Frienship Centre, Lake of the Woods Ojibway Cultural Centre and many Elders and survivors, Nelson and the rest of the museum committee gained a deeper insight through stories and pictures about the six residential schools from Treaty 3 that they now have on display.
"Our committee was great, there were some emotional times when people shared things," said Nelson, adding that it was "very eye-opening. "Overall, I think it was a really positive thing for everyone on the committee in terms of working on this project together and just sort of getting deeper appreciation for each other as well," she added.
One of the speakers described how he would play hockey with the boys from one of the residential schools but did not understand the accounts of pain, dislocation, and confusion they often revealed. Other survivors spoke about the impact it had on their entire family.
"As a former student of a residential school, I've come to understand how much residential school has affected our whole family.
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"Both my parents and all my siblings attended residential school and that experience has had a real impact on our lives, both good and bad. We've carried that experience into our own lives and our own families," said Donald Copenace, executive director of the NeChee Friendship Centre and member of the exhibit planning committee.
Now that the abuses are exposed, it is time for the harrowing struggle of healing to begin and continue for many.
"I don't think we will ever get over those issues that we went through at residential school," said Greene who now travels around North America with her husband helping others on their healing journey.
"I had to go through a lot of healing before I started doing this work. I knew I had to take care of a lot of my issues, even the past issues I have had with my parents," she added. 
She even had  to learn parenting skills and re-learn the traditions of her grandmother.
"I had to practice what I preach, and that is the hardest part. I don't think I will ever get over the abuse that I went through at the residential schools, personally that is how I feel," added Greene. "I went to an Elder and gave her tobacco and said, 'Help me I am hurting inside, help me,' and I think that was a big step that I took on my part to start my healing path."
Even as a young child, Greene said she was a fighter.
"I was one of the fighters, I knew the system, and I used to get in trouble all the time because I used to tell them that they had no right to treat me like this."
"We were deprived of our culture, our language-everything- they were trying to strip us of everything, but the one thing I would always say, they couldn't take my spirit away," she said with a note of determination still in her voice.
Bakaan nake'ii ngii-izhi-gakinoo'amaagoomin: We Were Taught Differently will be on display from September 16 to November 1.