Governments invest more than $9.4 million to Save the Evidence
Former Mohawk Institute Residential School is undergoing a multimillion-dollar restoration project
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
The federal and provincial governments say they are investing a combined $9.4 million in a project to restore a former residential school in Brantford — one of the few in the country still standing.
“The community has come together and said that you want to continue to tell the story,” said
Infrastructure and Communities Minister Catherine McKenna. “That’s why I am happy that we’re stepping up.”
Speaking from outside the former Mohawk Institute Residential School on Monday, McKenna announced the federal government would be investing more than
$7.6 million to support the next phase of a multi-year, multimilliondollar restoration project to transform the former residential school building into an interpretive centre through its Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP).
The province is providing an additional $1.8 million.
The Woodland Cultural Centre, which manages the 36,000-squarefoot building, is currently preparing for Phase 3 of the Save the Evidence campaign, said executive director Janis Monture.
She said with the new funding, the work will begin “momentarily.”
Phase 3 includes significant masonry work to restore the bricks inside and out, many of which bear names and messages of former students at the institute, accessibility features such as an elevator and ramps, and finishing the heritage windows.
Residential school survivor Geronimo Henry, who spent 11 years at the institute, etched his nickname, “Fish,” into the bricks at the back of the building when he was a student.
“If you just have a little plaque here, I mean, people forget about that,” said Henry, 84. “But if you see the building, you can see where all the atrocities happened.”
The Save the Evidence campaign was launched in 2013, beginning with community consultation and fundraising. In 2017, the centre launched the first phase of the restoration — a $1.6-million repair to the building’s roof. The second phase, which took place between 2017 and 2019, involved about $12 million in infrastructure upgrades, such as a new HVAC system, plumbing, and repairs to windows, floors and walls.
In 2020, the project was put on hold amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June, Monture told The Spectator the centre was waiting on a significant government grant that would fund the bulk of the next phase, in order to proceed.
The centre is also accepting donations, which Monture said increased last month after the discovery of unmarked graves on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. As of mid-June, the centre had raised about $115,000 for Phase 3, surpassing its initial $75,000 goal.
Funds that go unused will be put toward the final phase, which involves preparing the rooms inside the building as part of the interpretive heritage site.
Monture said the hope is to reopen to the public in 2024.
“The Mohawk Institute is one of the sadder and more challenging parts of our history,” said elected Chief Mark Hill. “Today’s announcement is one more step toward true reconciliation in this country. This building will be used as a tool to better equip us to educate the world about what happened here exactly.”
In its 142-year history, at least 15,000 children attended the former Mohawk Institute, one of the country’s oldest and longest-running residential schools.
The Brantford facility was one of 139 residential schools across the country that sought to systemically — and, often, violently — strip Indigenous children of their culture, language and identity. The residential school system would later be described by the TRC as a project of “cultural genocide.”
Sherlene Bomberry, who attended the school from 1966 to 1970 — the year it closed — said she was “so happy” to hear that the next phase of the restoration can go ahead. She is looking forward to visiting with her 87-year-old mother, whose own mother attended the school.
“If there’s an elevator in here she can use it,” said Bomberry, 65. “I took her through before, I said ‘Mom, this is where your mom played, this is where your mom slept, this is where your mom ate’ … because it was never talked about to her.”