Lejac Residential School

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Lejac Residential School was part of the Canadian residential school system and one of the 130 boarding schools for Indians that operated in Canada between 1874 and 1996. Operated by the Roman Catholic Church under contract with the government of Canada, it opened in 192, succeeding the school opened in 1917 in Fort Saint James, and closed in 1976. It was located in an otherwise undeveloped area on the shore of Fraser Lake about half-way between the town of Fraser Lake and the village of Fort Fraser, just off the railway line. The location was about 10km from the Indian village of Stelako at the West end of the lake and the village of Nadleh at the East end of the lake. Although there were a few lay employees, most of the staff were religious, the men Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the women Sisters of the Child Jesus. The school was named after Father Jean-Marie Lejacq, an Oblate missionary who co-founded the mission at Fort Saint James in 1873.

Due to its location at the centre of Carrier country, the majority of students were Carrier, but Lejac also enrolled substantial numbers of students from neighbouring tribes, including the Sekani and Gitksan.

As with most other residential schools, former students have charged that they were physically and sexually abused.

After the school closed the land was transferred to the Nadleh Indian Band and the school buildings razed. What remains at the site are the cemetery and a memorial, the site of an annual pilgrimage in honor of Rose Prince, a Carrier girl who remained to live and work at the school whom some consider a candidate for sainthood.

[edit] Bibliography

Coccola, Father Nicola (1988) They Call Me Father: Memoirs of Father Nicola Coccola. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Edited by Margaret Whitehead.

Fiske, Jo-Anne (1981) "And Then We Prayed Again": Carrier Women, Colonization, and Mission Schools. MA. Thesis, University of British Columbia.

John, Mary and Bridget Moran. (1989) Stoney Creek Woman: The Story of Mary John. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 1-55152-047-8.

Yinka Dene Language Institute (1989) We Remember Lejac. Videotape. Vanderhoof, British Columbia: Yinka Dene Language Institute.

[edit] External links

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