'Most of the city is evacuating': Gridlock on Alberta highway after evacuation order in Fort McMurray
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Indigenous advocates in Canada are calling for more cultural and mental-health supports for residential school survivors as communities discover unmarked graves at former sites.
Front-line organizations working with Indigenous people say the need for in-person help has intensified in the past month since the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., announced ground-penetrating radar had found what are believed to be the remains of 215 children buried on the grounds of a one-time residential school in Kamloops.
Cowessness First Nation in Saskatchewan announced Thursday that the same technology had indicated 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School.
Jason Mercredi, executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon, said the disclosures are triggering "troublesome memories" for survivors. He said there has been an increase in visits to the safe consumption site from individuals looking for mental-health support.
"We can't really keep up, and it's tough because some of these folks have been successfully coping for a number of years," said Mercredi, who is Denesuline and Metis.
Pandemic restrictions have limited the number of places offering face-to-face support, so workers have had to refer people to an outside support line, he said.
A national crisis line is available through the Indian Residential School Survivors Society and some groups are offering regional helplines.
Mercredi said the federal government should be funding First Nations, Inuit and Metis-led organizations and communities to ensure appropriate support is provided.
"Each community needs to have the ability to design its own response model and support model," he said. "All these cultures are very different ... (and) they need to have the funding to be able to respond where they need to."
The federal government recently promised $27 million to help locate graves across the country. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have also committed funding.
Tracy Wilson, who manages the Indian Residential School program at Boyle Street Community Services in Edmonton, echoes Mercredi's call for more help.
Wilson, who is Nakota, Cree and Saulteaux, has taken calls from non-Indigenous agencies in the city as well as from the police force asking for guidance on how to support survivors who are retraumatized.
Some who returned home from residential schools are living with survivor's guilt, she said.
"This is not a shock to most of us. It's just a deeper grief," she said.
"A lot of survivors think they could have stopped what happened. You know, that's not the case, but they live with that every day."
Wilson also believes there is a need for more culturally appropriate forms of support such as beading or sewing circles.
"We need more people to understand how our hands can help us more so than traditional western talk-through therapy."
The National Association of Friendship Centres, which represents more than 100 such gathering places across the country, would like to see intergenerational support as well.
"Our youth are in this sea of information about crimes, violence, murders against their ancestors. They need help walking through that and figuring out what does that mean," said Kelly Benning, a Metis woman and the association's vice-president.
If you are a former residential school survivor in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
------
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2021.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Saskatchewan RCMP have revealed that a historic sexual assault investigation has led to the discovery of alleged crimes against children dating back to 2005.
Less than a week after two public sculptures featuring a livestream between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City debuted, 'inappropriate behaviour' in real-time interactions between people in the two cities has prompted a temporary shutdown.
After a final frame that saw the visiting Vancouver Canucks claw their way back and tie the game late, a slap shot from the point by Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard with 38 seconds left (until what seemed like certain overtime) iced the 3-2 victory for Edmonton to knot the series.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend.
King Charles III has unveiled the first portrait of the monarch completed since he assumed the throne, a vivid image that depicts him in the bright red uniform of the Welsh Guards against a background of similar hues.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
The province has released more information on its plan to break up Alberta Health Services and replace it with four sector-based health agencies.
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than US$1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.