INUVIK - As soon as John Banksland began speaking at the Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission meeting March 28, not a single person of the more than 50 filling Ingamo Hall made a peep.

Commissioner Marie Wilson spoke to a full house at Ingamo Hall on Monday, March 28, to discuss the National Event for residential school survivors Inuvik is hosting June 28 to July 1. - Kira Curtis/NNSL photos

"I'm considered one of those survivors that had killed the Eskimo in the child," Banksland said. "The saying is, "Let's go out there and kill the Indian in the child, put them in residential schools and they become just like us."

Banksland was born in Ulukhaktok, formerly Holman. He spent 15 years in residential schools: 11 years in Aklavik and four in Yellowknife, and is a member of the Indian Residential School Survivor Committee.

"I can't speak my language and had many years of heartache in the residential schools in Aklavik," he said. "This was one of the strictest residential schools in Canada."

The TRC community meeting and information session was called to help prepare for the Northern National Event being planned in Inuvik June 28 to July 1, which is expected to draw an estimated 1,200 people. At the meeting, a map of all the acknowledged residential schools in Canada from the 1870s to the 1990s showed the North had more residential schools than all of Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces combined.

The event was scheduled to run from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. but the discussions continued until after 9 p.m.

At first the hall slowly filled, but as commissioner Marie Wilson opened up the night with a speech, more and more people filled the room, most or all affected on some level by the residential schools.

"It's affected everyone," said Julie Thrasher, a mother and community wellness worker in Inuvik. "My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, myself, my children and it will no doubt affect my grandchildren."

She spoke to the TRC commission and the room about how she thinks educating Canadians, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, about the legacy of residential schools should begin in the school system.

"We need to educate our teachers and we need to help our young people at the same time because when this event comes a lot of young people are going to be angry," Thrasher said.

Thrasher said important and hard questions need to be addressed, adding, "breaking down why we are the way we are, well, it just breaks down everything. Why was your uncle in jail for all these years? Why was your mother not allowed to speak her language? Why were the children taken from me?"

Banksland spoke of how the drum is a tradition and the pumping heartbeat of the aboriginal people.

"We just about lost our drum," Banksland said. "We have to get that drum back; we have to find that drum and make it work.

"Imagine that, being able to drum and not being told that that dance is the dance of the devil. Now we are dancing, now we know who we are. In June, let's have something similar to that opening event with drums, because that's where the heartbeat of the nation comes from, is that drum."

Banksland said he felt very fortunate to work with the TRC, not only for the opportunity for him to speak but to help get others affected by residential schools to speak as well. Banksland spoke bluntly about the harshness of the experiences and the pain involved. He acknowledged how hard it will be for the commissioners to take in all the stories and the hurt from so many people.

"You're going to be hearing from people who have been carrying this (bull) for so many years," he said. "We finally have a chance to get it off of our chest, quit carrying that monkey around that you've been carrying for so many years. It's going to be something to hear."

He said he knows firsthand that it takes a lot of courage for people to tell a story they have been repressing most of their lives and that today many aboriginals are still too timid to speak out about this pain to official, government-like figures.

"That has to change," he said.

"I'm not saying I'm cured or I'm super or whatever, I'm still going through my healing journey. The more I go through it the more I realize how much garbage I've been carrying around all these years."

Thrasher said the people helping survivors have to truly understand what it was like to be taken from family or raised by parents so broken by the system that it has rippled into the new generations, "We didn't fall into a bunting bag full of hate and anger," she said. "We lived what we were taught and we taught what we lived.

"We need to start working on the problems of why and we need to start with our young people. This is why we are the way we are."

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