Guiding their spirits home

Residential Schools
Truthing Initiative

Guiding Their Spirits Home is dedicated to the Survivors of Indian Residential Schools, their descendants, and the families of those children who never made it home.

The Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations is helping coordinate efforts to recover the truth about the children who went to the following institutions:

Red Deer Industrial Institute
Edmonton Indian Residential School (Poundmaker's)
Blue Quills Indian Residential School (St. Paul site)
Youville Indian Residential School (St. Albert)

The Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations offers this space as an information and resource-sharing hub regarding residential schools, survivors' stories and possible undocumented burial sites.

In the spirit of unity and reconciliation, this initiative seeks to forge partnerships with existing provincial, federal, religious entities, Indigenous agencies, and other Treaty areas.

If you or someone you know has useful information which may be helpful in finding physical areas of interest or would like to share your experience with us, we would like to connect with you.

If you are seeking information about accessing governmental, church or other institutional archival resources, please contact us directly at irsadmin@treatysix.org.

We are grateful to those who share their truths, and we work to ensure those sharing their experiences feel empowered and respected in doing so.

Share your
Truth Tellings

Statement to Survivors and Descendants

We know the sharing of one’s lived experience as a residential school survivor can be upsetting for some, particularly for those who are sharing for the first time.

We recognize the courage it takes to relive past trauma experiences and we encourage you to share only if you feel comfortable in doing so.

We work to ensure those who wish to share their experiences feel empowered and respected throughout the process, as their recollections are an important source of information in the search for missing children and unmarked graves.

We are committed to working with survivors, descendants, Elders, and their communities ensure proper protocols and traditional practices are followed and respected.

We will ensure any recording of survivors’ knowledge is done confidentially and in the format they are comfortable with, as video or audio recordings, or as written accounts.

We respect the right of survivors to full autonomy over their experiences and their stories will only be shared with their informed consent.

If you feel you require immediate support, please contact the following:

Indian Residential School Survivors Society’s 24/7 Crisis Support line:

1-800-721-0066

24-hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line:

1-866-925-4419

Photo credit: Alberta Provincial Archives

Guiding Principles

Charting an integrated approach of action begins with First Nations spirituality, ensuring all information collected is done so with a culturally sensitive approach and the knowledge that trauma or psychological challenges may arise.

To work with First Nations and other Indigenous communities to memorialize or commemorate their lost children and ensure their names and truth are heard for eternity. We will do this in a good way, by ensuring everyone who shares with us has ownership of their information and we will honour that for the rest of time.