Stolen Kainai Children: A Companion to the Exhibit

This article explores one example of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s, Calls to Action #69, being implemented through the work of the Galt Museum & Archives with a Blackfoot researcher within the Treaty 7 area in Southern Alberta. Call to Action #69 recommends that museums and archives allocate more resources and develop programs which allow Indigenous Peoples’ “inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why…in the residential schools.” In many instances, the educational policy underpinning Indian residential schools (IRS) was never explained to the schools’ Survivors or their families. The author created a travelling exhibit to rectify the gap in knowledge, whereby Survivors, Intergenerational Survivors, and interested Canadian citizens can learn about the educational policy that drove Canada’s assimilation efforts for over a century and a half. This article is meant to be a companion piece to contextualize and explain the exhibit entitled: “Stolen Kainai Children: Stories of Survival.”