The orange-clad people were too vibrant, too active and too many to go unseen — even in the misty damp of just-barely dawn darkness.
In response, periodic bursts of supportive car horns punctuated the hum of traffic that served as a backing track to the drumming, song and conversation that marked an early morning Orange Shirt Day event near the Mendenhall Wetlands viewing area in Juneau. Orange Shirt Day is an international day honoring Indigenous children who died in the boarding school system, and survivors of the schools that historically separated Indigenous children from their families and imposed Euro-American assimilation.
“It’s a good day to raise awareness and help with erasure of that history,” said Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist, vice president of Juneau’s Alaska Native Sisterhood chapter and event organizer.
Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist, vice president of Juneau’s Alaska Native Sisterhood chapter, sings and drums Friday morning during an Orange Shirt Day event held in the Mendenhall Wetlands parking area. Hasselquist said the location was chosen for its high visibility. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire)
It’s a history that spans much of the 19th and 20th centuries and includes loss of life, as evidenced by the presence of graves near such schools in the U.S. and Canada, and documented in a recent Department of the Interior report. Marlene Hughes of Kake, who was among the couple dozen people present for Friday’s event, said her sister-in-law is buried in Ohio and died while in such a school. She said she feels a great loss, but was gladdened by the morning event.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Hughes said. “I didn’t think things like this would come out in the open.”
[Clearing and healing: Lawson Creek Cemetery restoration continues]
Hasselquist, who was joined at the morning event, said awareness of boarding schools generally seems to be on the rise. That includes increasing acknowledgment and understanding of local links to the systemic attempt to quash Indigenous cultures.
Connor Ulmer holds a flag along Egan Drive for an Orange Shirt Day event. The international day remembers lives lost in the boarding school system and the profound impact systematic forced assimilation has had on Indigenous peoples. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire)
Among the people present Friday morning were Laura Talpey, Cathy Walling and Jan Bronson. Talpey is executive director of the Juneau Montessori School, and both Walling and Bronson are Quakers with the Alaska Friends Conference.
Hasselquist said Talpey’s recognition of and reaction to the Montessori school’s history as the Bureau of Indian Affair’s Mayflower School, which has included both integrating Alaska Native artwork and ceremony, is a positive example.
“The more we learn, the less we can ignore,” Talpey said of the school’s past.
Walling and Bronson were in town from Fairbanks and Anchorage respectively for an evening ceremony at Sayèik: Gastineau Community School, the former site of the Douglas Island Friends Mission School, a Quaker-run boarding school. In 2012, graves were inadvertently unearthed at the school and a subsequent radar scan revealed anomalies below the ground. Hasselquist said she believes at least some of the human remains beneath the Douglas soil are related to the school.
Flags, signs and people were present Friday morning at the Mendenhall Wetlands in Juneau for an Orange Shirt Day event. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire)
Walling said she and Bronson were morally and spiritually compelled to be present.
“We are here to offer an apology for the historical harms we have heard from Indigenous people around the state,” Walling said.
She referenced a sign reading “We’re all in this together,” near the entrance of the wetlands’ parking lot.
“We are all in this together in so many ways,” Walling said.
• Contact Ben Hohenstatt at (907)308-4895 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.
