Seven Fallen Feathers by Christian Morisseau (father of Kyle Morisseau)
Today is National Truth and Reconciliation day in Canada. This national day was created in June of 2021, to recognize and honour the Indigenous children who were forced to attend Indian residential schools from the mid-1800s to the late 90s. Residential schools were supposed to bring opportunity to Indigenous families. Parents were promised their children would receive education that would properly equip them for life in a colonised world. The reality is that these schools often did the opposite. The environment was typically cold and unsympathetic. Educators and staff at residential schools often did not care for the children, using means of physical and emotional abuse to control them. Excessive punishment wasn’t uncommon; residential school survivors recount stories of being heavily beaten, isolated for days on end, and even being chained. Many residential schools were also infiltrated by sexual predators who sought to take advantage of innocent and helpless children. Graduates of residential schools were left to start their life often with deep trauma from their experiences at school. With mental and emotional support unavailable and highly stigmatised when residential schools remained open, survivors had to deal with their trauma in any way they could. Consequently, substance abuse, alcoholism, depression, and suicidal ideation are not uncommon in Indigenous communities, as trauma is unintentionally passed down from parent to child and over again.
Residential schools slowly closed their doors between the mid to late 1900s, with the last closing in 1996. By this time, many day schools had already been established on reserves, typically operating under religious curriculum with missionary teachers. In the 1940s, statistical data indicated that Indigenous children were not benefiting from formal education experiences with many children having to repeat grades and few going on to graduate elementary school and begin high school. As such, policies were formed to ensure education in Indian day schools began to resemble the curriculum of non-Indigenous schools, missionaries were replaced with provincially trained teachers, and federal funds were provided to enable students to attend provincial elementary and high schools. By the 1960s, approximately 10,000 Indigenous children attended off-reserve provincial schools.
It’s indisputable that school is more safe for Indigenous children nowadays, but education of Indigenous peoples has barely evolved and many Indigenous families are still stuck in the same educational rut. Schools on remote reserves are often underfunded and staff lacks specialized training to teach Indigenous students effectively. Many remote reserves still do not have their own high schools, forcing students to have to travel far to finish their education. In several cases, this involves children moving hundreds of kilometers away from their families to attend school and live in boarding homes. Sound familiar?
This is the reality for many First Nations students from northern remote reserves in Ontario. Those who want to pursue further education must travel from their home communities to Thunder Bay to attend high school. Compared to the remote reserves in northern Ontario, Thunder Bay is like New York City for these students. Students are often unfamiliar to city life, have little supervision from their boarding families, and typically have their own traumas they carry with them when they move to Thunder Bay. To top it off, the city has a deeply rooted history of racism and maltreatment against Indigenous people. This situation has proved to be a recipe for disaster. Between 2000 and 2011, seven students who travelled to Thunder Bay to attend Dennis Franklin Cromarty high school died suddenly under suspicious circumstances. All of their deaths were unsolved or ruled accidental by the Thunder Bay Police.
Jethro Anderson went missing on October 28th, 2000. Two weeks later, his body was found at the bottom of the city’s Kaministiquia River. Police immediately stated they did not suspect foul play despite the family finding bruises and cigarette burns on Jethro’s body at the funeral home. In their initial investigation, Thunder Bay Police determined his death to be accidental: death by drinking too much and then drowning. The 2016 inquest into the deaths of the seven students later found Jethro’s cause of death to be “undetermined”.
On September 22, 2005, Curran Strang went missing. Thunder Bay Police only started working his case and trying to find Curran two days after the missing persons report was filed. 4 days after Curran’s disappearance, his body was found McIntrye Lake. Thunder Bay Police determined his death to be accidental with drowning as the cause. The 2016 inquest came to the same conclusion and determined Curran drowned with “ethanol intoxication”.
Unlike Jethro and Curran, Paul Panacheese made it back home the night he died. On February 6th, 2006, Paul returned home from a night of playing poker with his friends. He suddenly collapsed and by the time his mother rushed to find him, he had no pulse. An autopsy was performed the next day and found “no anatomical and no toxicological cause of death”. Paul’s case was closed with no follow-up. To this day, his family does not know why he died.
After hanging out with her friends and drinking, Robyn Harper had a little too much to drink and called her boarding parent, Cheyenne Linklater, to pick her up. When they arrived home, Cheyenne left Robyn on the floor. Robyn died early that morning. On January 12th, 2007, paramedics and fire crews responded to the call and spent less than 30 minutes at the scene. When toxicology and coroner reports came back after three months, the cause of death was determined to be acute ethanol toxicity. Robyn’s blood alcohol concentration was less than the average concentration to cause fatal alcohol intoxication. Thunder Bay Police determined Robyn’s death to be accidental.
On October 26th, 2007, Reggie Bushie went missing. He was last seen by his brother, Ricki, before he lost consciousness during a night out drinking. Ricki awoke ice-cold in the McIntrye River with his brother nowhere to be found. Two days later, Reggie’s boarding parents reported Reggie as missing to the Thunder Bay Police. On November 1st, Reggie was found dead in the McIntrye River. Thunder Bay Police determined the cause of death to be accidental by drowning, despite both brothers being experienced swimmers.
Kyle Morrisseau was last seen on October 26th, 2009, drinking with Ivan Masakeyash by the McIntrye River. Thunder Bay Police failed to interview Ivan until two weeks after Kyle’s disappearance. His body was found in the McIntrye River on November 5th, with burn holes and rips in his pants and a BAC lower than the fatal range. The coroner determined Kyle died by drowning with alcohol as a contributing factor.
Jordan Wabasse was last seen at a transit station a block away from his boarding house on February 7th, 2011, and was reported missing a day later. Police did not conduct their first search until three days after the report was filed. Indigenous searching teams found his hat and running shoes in the snow in February, but Jordan’s body was not found until early May in the Kaministiquia River. Thunder Bay Police determined Jordan’s death was accidental by cold water drowning but made no effort to explain how Jordan went from being a block away from his house to drowning in a river several kilometers away.
These children are known as the Seven Fallen Feathers. They all came from remote reserves and travelled to Thunder Bay for better educational opportunities. They all had their own baggage, insecurities, and traumas they tried their best to deal with under unfamiliar circumstances while living in a new city. Thunder Bay was not equipped to aid them. Their schools could not ensure their safety. Some of these children’s boarding families could not ensure they were properly cared for and looked after. And most frighteningly, the Thunder Bay Police could not properly investigate and solve the reasons behind their deaths. The Seven Fallen Feathers deserved so much better than what Thunder Bay could provide for them.
Though residential schools are now obsolete, education is clearly still not safe for all Indigenous students in Canada. Indigenous children should not have to leave their families to receive the same quality of education as non-Indigenous children. As truth and reconciliation continues to spread, I can only hope that Canada prioritises the safety of Indigenous children and their right to adequate and effective education.
For more information on the Seven Fallen Feathers, visit seven-fallen-feathers.webnode.page or read Tanya Talaga’s book “Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City”.