Residential Schools in Newfoundland and Labrador

Operations

As Newfoundland and Labrador was not part of Canada until 1949, independent organizations, not the federal government, created and ran residential schools. In particular, the Moravian Church and the International Grenfell Association (IGA) operated most of the residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. One school, the Labrador Public School, was organized by an Anglican reverend and was later operated by the IGA. Similar to residential schools throughout Canada, children faced injustices, abuse and trauma.

Moravian Church

The Moravian Church began to expand by way of mission work in 1727 (see also Moravian Missions in Labrador). In 1752, the first attempt to missionize Labrador failed. In 1771, Jens Haven, a Danish Moravian missionary, was successful in opening and maintaining a mission in Nain — currently the largest community in Nunatsiavut. Over a period of 150 years, the Moravians opened mission sites at Okak, Hopedale, Hebron, Zoar, Ramah, Makkovik and Killiniq. All of these missions were near long-standing Inuit settlements and hunting areas. Missionaries chose these locations intentionally, knowing they would have greater success reaching Inuit. Further, the missionaries selected sites in Northern Labrador to isolate Inuit from the developing English fishery in more southern regions of Labrador.

The missions provided trading posts, schools, healthcare and churches. They also offered social support to individuals in need. Life at the mission was structured to urge Inuit to convert to Christianity, alter their family structures to those that reflected European customs, and live in European-style homes unsuited for Arctic weather. Conversion of Inuit was a slow process, partly because of resource limitations that necessitated Inuit to move across the landscape throughout the year. Today, the Moravian Church continues to play an important role in the daily lives of Labrador Inuit, whether in the form of celebrations or in singing Moravian hymns in Inuttitut (dialect of Labrador Inuit)(see also Inuktitut). Although many Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador practise Moravian Christianity, the church’s legacy is complex. Inuit knowledge and cultural practices were lost as outsider beliefs were introduced (see also Inuit Traditional Stories).

International Grenfell Association

The second organization that operated residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador was the IGA. It was founded by English medical missionary Sir Wilfred Grenfell. The IGA was a philanthropic organization that offered medical, educational and social services in the late 19th and early 20th centuries throughout Labrador and Northern Newfoundland. After his first travels to Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1890s, Grenfell sought to help fishermen and local communities. He opened two summer hospitals in Battle Harbour and Indian Harbour, Labrador. These communities previously had no medical facilities. There were a range of reactions to these early interactions with the IGA. According to John Kennedy, many felt that the work was “well-intentioned but often patronizing.” Inhabitants of Northern Newfoundland and Labrador were often described as sick, sad and in need of help — a narrative that was used to garner funding from upper-class audiences.

Notably, Grenfell used objectifying images and stories of Indigenous children to promote his philanthropy, creating mascots of ill, hurt and orphaned children who were portrayed as needing the help of White society. Grenfell relied heavily on these audiences for financial support. He also relied on young, emerging professionals from wealthy families who worked or volunteered for the IGA. Moreover, Grenfell removed children from Indigenous families where he deemed the parents unfit. He then found European, American and Canadian families to adopt them.

Labrador Public School

The Labrador Public School (LPS) was opened in 1920 by Anglican Reverend Henry Gordon at Muddy Bay, near Cartwright, Labrador. The LPS was meant to serve as both a school and as an orphanage, as the nearest orphanage was across the Strait of Belle Isle in St. Anthony. This need intensified after the Spanish Flu killed a large proportion of the population of the Sandwich Bay area, leaving 40 children orphaned or with only one parent. As the construction and operation of the school relied on charitable donations, it experienced financial difficulty causing the IGA to take over after two years of operation.

Indigenous Peoples and the Terms of Union

Even after Confederation in 1949, the Indian Act and federal residential school system were not immediately extended to Newfoundland and Labrador. The Terms of Union between Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador, which outlined the terms and conditions for Newfoundland and Labrador joining Canada as the 10th province, effectively left out Indigenous peoples. This made Newfoundland and Labrador the only province in Canada to have no legislation pertaining to Indigenous peoples.

The governmental separation of Newfoundland and Labrador from the rest of Canada meant that the federal residential school system was not extended to the youngest province. However, Indigenous children still attended schools — commonly called boarding schools — that promoted Western religions, practices and languages.

Residential Schools in Newfoundland and Labrador

There were seven boarding schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. Six of these schools were in the Labrador communities of Nain, Makkovik, North West River, Muddy Bay, Cartwright and Mary’s Harbour (formerly St. Mary’s River). The remaining school was in St. Anthony on the island of Newfoundland, which operated both as a school and as an orphanage. All seven schools were running by the 1920s, with the Nain and Makkovik schools run by the Moravian Church. The remaining schools were administered by the International Grenfell Association (IGA), with the exception of the Labrador Public School, which was initially organized by an Anglican reverend before being operated by the IGA. Unlike the federal residential school system, IGA-run schools were attended by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children.

As with many assimilative programs, residential schools were promoted as being positive influences on Indigenous children. However, these institutions and their beliefs were inherently racist. They declared that Indigenous ways of living and being were wrong and in need of change, often leading to children feeling ashamed of their families and cultures. Over 2,000 children attended these institutions over the course of their operation in Newfoundland and Labrador. These numbers do not include Indian Day Schools.

Survivors and Treatment of Students

While the treatment of students at the schools varied, many survivors faced abuse from their first days at the school. Ethel Campbell, a survivor from West Bay, Labrador, explained that upon their arrival, students were washed and checked for bugs, making children feel humiliated and dirty for being Indigenous:

We were all going in this room, getting our heads checked, putting all this old stuff on our heads, burning my neck. Getting our hair cut, just like we were coming out of a cave or something.

Jane Shiwak, a survivor from Rigolet, Labrador, recalled the difficult transition of living away from home and family – and receiving no comfort or empathy as a child:

I couldn’t adjust to the food. I’d throw it up and had to eat it back again. All the kids watching me… I was only 5 years old. Stripped off and beaten in front of all the school children, with a leather belt. Every day they did that… And then my mom, so far away from me, couldn’t get to me.

Staff at the schools also made Indigenous students feel as though their ways of life and cultures were inferior. Survivors have described priests telling them the Innu were “backwards,” and practitioners of “devil worship.” By encouraging Westernization of students, children lacked the necessary traditional skills when they returned home, as the late Hazel Williams Beaulac explained:

I was always called the farmer’s child. Because they were fishermen and I didn’t know what to do, like my sister did. I didn’t know how to row. I didn’t know what kind of rocks to pick up for the nets.

Children and local community members were required to do manual labor for the school, such as fetching water, chopping wood, cooking, mending and hunting to cover the school's operations. Ida Sheppard recalls:

We had to do all the work… The big girls and big boys [the older students] had to do all their own dormitories and empty their own pails in the winter. And the big boys had to get water…They’d be out in the storms hauling two barrels of water on a big old long Kamutik. Had to work hard there.

Discipline for not completing chores, homework or acting out often came as physical abuse, such as being hit with leather shoe soles or food deprivation. Annie Andersen Evans shared:

It was some hard times in school. Like, they did use a — not the leather strap, but it was the pointer that made a long thick stick for the teacher for pointing at the blackboard, and you’d get strapped with that….we were their responsibility and we couldn’t tell anybody, we couldn’t go home.

Knowing parents would remove children from schools to protect them from abuse and assimilation, the government and school operators used relief programs as bargaining chips to keep children enrolled. Labrador Innu, for example, were promised housing and jobs, and ultimately a better life for their children, so long as they sent their children to schools. Such promises supported the government’s goal of forcing Innu into permanent settlements as opposed to continuing their traditionally nomadic way of life — a way of assimilating Innu into White society. One Innu woman recalls:

The Innu were told that houses would be built for them and they had to school their children in return. It’s like bribing the Innu... We were told the children would eventually find proper jobs once they finished school. It was never like that. All those promises.

Parents in Southern Labrador/NunatuKavut were also unable to receive family allowance benefits unless they sent their children to residential school. In an interview, Margaret Toomashie states:

I don’t know how our parents paid them. But they said if we didn’t go to school, then they were going to take our Family Allowance. They’d always treat them like that. There were some people who wouldn’t send their kids there. I guess they knew better!

The Apologies and Lasting Impacts

In 2008, the Stephen Harper government gave an apology to residential school survivors across Canada — excluding Newfoundland and Labrador. It was only when Newfoundland and Labrador survivors filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government that an apology was given by the Justin Trudeau government in 2017. This lawsuit and the Newfoundland and Labrador Residential School Healing and Commemoration Project played critical roles in bringing these issues to light — led by retired Provincial Judge and Inuk, James Igloliorte, and former students like Toby Obed.

In 2023, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey apologized to NunatuKavut Inuit in Cartwright, Southern Labrador, and Nunatsiavut Inuit on a tour throughout Nunatsiavut and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Premier Furey apologized for the government’s role in residential schools and this dark chapter in Newfoundland and Labrador history.

Despite the apologies, these institutions have had lasting negative impacts on Indigenous peoples in Newfoundland and Labrador, including loss of languages, cultural practices and traditions, and, in some cases, perpetuated a deep sense of shame for being Indigenous. Though the last school closed in 1980, these impacts will be felt for generations to come. Josie Curl Penney, a survivor, effectively summarizes this when saying:

I raised four children and I wasn’t able to be there emotionally for my children. That’s the damage, that’s really the crux of the damage – not being able to share your emotions and express your emotions.