Okotoks marks National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with pipe ceremony

A large audience gathered Wednesday in Okotoks for a pipe ceremony marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day, at Viking Rentals Centre.

The ceremony was led by Doctors Reg and Rose Crowshoe, Blackfoot elders from Piikani First Nation in southern Alberta, and hosted by the Town of Okotoks. The day honors victims, survivors, and all those impacted by the residential school system.

Reg Crowshoe, who was five years old when taken by an Indian agent to residential school, spoke about his long silence and eventual healing. "I've seen what happened at residential school," he said. "After I came out, I told a few of the people in the local town what happened and they didn't believe me." For 55 years, he carried that experience alone until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report in 2015, exposing the residential school system.

"All of a sudden there's a freedom, there's a time I can start healing," Crowshoe said. "They acknowledged the residential school and the apologies happened, and then I told a few more people."

Town councillors and staff attended, including Desmond Jackson, Indigenous relations advisor, who grew up on Piikani First Nation. Jackson spoke about the resilience of Indigenous culture in the face of the residential school system's assimilationist aims. "We were able to keep it intact because of how strong our old people were," Jackson said.

Okotoks has held several Indigenous cultural events this year, including a National Indigenous Peoples Day pipe ceremony in June and a powwow weekend in May.