Residential school building at Lower Post, B.C. to be demolished, replaced

Editor’s note: A video within this article touches on the sensitive and painful subject of residential schools

VICTORIA — A former residential school building in the remote B.C. community of Lower Post will be demolished and replaced after decades of lobbying efforts by local Indigenous leaders.

The federal and B.C. governments say construction on a new, $13.5-million project is set to start in June and expected to be complete by next year.

“I came [to the residential school] when I was eight years old … I never knew cruelty until I came here,” said Julia Dickson, an elder with the Liard First Nation and a residential school survivor.

“It was opened in the 1950s. I was only five years old when I came here,” Rose Caesar, another survivor. “It’s still with us today, the impacts that were never really dealt with.”

B.C. Premier John Horgan, federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller and area Indigenous leaders, including Deputy Chief Harlan Schilling of the Daylu Dena Council at Lower Post, made the announcement that the building will be demolished during a Thursday virtual news conference.

Horgan says he was moved to work with the federal government to replace the residential school building after local elders told him during a visit that some people feared stepping inside the place where they suffered physical and sexual abuse.

Harlan Schilling, deputy chief with the Daylu Dena Council was born and raised in Lower Post. He says his grandmother attended a residential school, as did his mother.

“It’s always been the stories of the negative effects. We lost our identity — who we are as a people — we lost being in touch with the land. It’s a dark cloud that’s been held over our people for way too long,” he said.

The building has been serving as the Daylu Dena Council’s band office, a post office and employment centre for the estimated 175 residents of the community, located near the B.C.-Yukon border.

Schilling says it’s been devastating knowing the hurt many elders have been holding inside over the years but the building’s demolition will finally bring some relief.