Carver Ivan Rosypyske went to Alert Bay with his sister on his birthday last February to witness the demolition of St. Michael’s Indian Residential School, a place where his mother had been forced to spend much of her young life.
After witnessing that destruction, and as a way of commemorating this dark chapter of Canadian history, Rosypyske is now giving a gift to residents of Powell River through the creation of a healing sculpture in the Sycamore Commons in Townsite.
“I want to make people think,” said Rosypyske. “Imagine being taken away as a five-year-old child, from your family and your community.”
According to Rosypyske, the presence of a brick from St. Michael’s interrupts the smooth figures carved into the sculpture, marking how first nations culture was interrupted but not destroyed by residential schools.
“I want people to look at the brick sitting there among the bear, salmon and killer whale figures and ask what it’s doing there,” said Rosypyske. “The sculpture tells us to remember the mistakes we made in the past.”
Now surrounded on all sides by protective cedar boughs, Rosypske said even when bringing the brick to Powell River in his truck he could feel the object’s power to harm and heal.
Inlayed into a nearly 10-foot sculpture carved into a standing cyprus stump in the Sycamore Commons’ garden outside Saint David and Saint Paul Anglican Church, Rosypyke said the brick’s presence helps heal a rift between first nations people and Canadians.
“That brick was taken from St. Michael’s residential school, an Anglican school, and this is an Anglican church,” he said. “This gets people talking. It is just a nice extra that the sculpture happens to be beautiful.”
In addition to carving the piece with fellow sculptors Phil Russell and Nancy McKay, Rosypyske also had to learn how to carve the standing piece of wood using different tools and techniques.
Using hammer and chisels rather than a traditional adze, Rosypyske said he had to manage and direct the sculpture as he went along.
“You do the best you can with what you’ve got,” he laughed. “I think I did pretty good.”
Other than sculpting, Rosypyske has been taking time out to teach Brooks Secondary School students about the powerful symbols on the sculpture and their meaning.
Welcoming a grade eight class led by first nations language teacher Karina Peters, Rosypyske first drew the students’ eyes to the bear, salmon and eagle on the sculpture, taking them through his carving process and its symbolism.
“My canvas is in between the knots of the wood,” he said. “Even with the space I had, it turned out bigger and better than I thought.”
John Louie, a support worker helping residential school survivors at Tla’amin Community Health Services, said Rosypyske’s sculpture is helping to transform the brick from Saint Michael’s into a more positive symbol.
“First nations residential schools were not a good experience,” said Louie. “The sculpture helps create awareness about what happened.”
Himself a residential-school survivor, Louie said he will be blessing the sculpture in a special ceremony later this month, marking a new beginning at the end of the long and painful process of reconciliation.
“The people who have gone through the process are just starting to heal,” he said. “People tell us to, ‘Just get over it,’ and, frankly, they don’t understand.”
According to Louie, commemorating the residential-school experience is part of educating Canadians about what happened so it won’t happen again.
“We were removed from resources that the rest of Canada are benefitting from,” said Louie. “People need to know why we live on reserves, why we live as we do and and what the Indian Act is.”
The sculpture is a way to get people to ask about the residential-school experience, said Louie.
“We are just at the beginning of getting people to understand that we are still trying to work through what happened to us,” he said. “Where is the understanding of that?”
Louie said that he his brother, Eugene, and Betty Wilson, now Tla’amin First Nation elders, were among the first Sliammon students to go to Brooks Secondary School back in the 1960s and there was little knowledge or understanding at the time about what residential schools were.
Louie said on his first day of class as a 14-year-old student he was able to get through it because of the help he got from a a determined classmate.
“I sat in the back of homeroom and this girl came over and spoke to me,” said Louie. “I was afraid because at residential school we were always punished for talking to girls.”
The teacher asked him what was wrong and had no idea what a residential school was, said Louie.
“He told me that from here on out I was allowed to talk to girls, so I reached out reluctantly and shook her hand,” said Louie. “Bless her heart, she clearly got that I had no idea what was going on.”
The girl helped him by taking him to each class and waiting for him afterwards. Now Louie said it’s his duty to go in to schools and teach students about residential schools and what he and other first nations people went through.
“We know our history because we lived it,” said Louie. “It is going to take seven generations to get over this and we have a bit of a way to go.”
Rosypyske’s sculpture will be unveiled during a ceremony at 5 pm on Tuesday October 20.
