Black Apple

Author/Guide: Joan Crate

Why a Booktrail?

WW2, 1950s: The horror of the residential school system in Canada and the First Nations scandal

ISBN: 978-1476795164
Genre: Fiction, Folklore, Historical

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

A young Blackfoot girl grows up in the residential school system on the Canadian prairies.

Torn from her home and delivered to St. Mark’s Residential School for Girls by government decree, Rose Marie finds herself in an alien universe where nothing of her previous life is tolerated, not even her Blackfoot name. This is now the world of the Sisters of Brotherly Love, an order of nuns dedicated to saving the Indigenous children from damnation. Life under the sharp eye of Mother Grace, the Mother General, becomes an endless series of torments, from daily recitations and obligations to chronic sickness and inedible food. And then there are the beatings. Worse still are the rows of plain wooden crosses behind the school, reminding her that many students have never left here alive.

Then Rose is thrust back into the outside world with only her wits to save her.

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

The residential school system in Canada

The residential school system during WWII and the 1950’s was a tough and unforgiving place to be.

This story is based on the experiences of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada who suffered greatly during this time, remove from their homes and forced into residential schools where it was hoped that they would be conditioned to to fit in with the rest of Canadian children. They were often seen as having unusual and wild lifestyles so by incorporating them in school, this was a way of bringing them into civilization.

A horrible place to be for anyone and with staff who abuse their position and the children in their care there are those who actually help those in their care become better people and the person they were meant to be. Rose Marie’s real name Sinopaki references her birth name and culture and through her eyes we see the way she sees the world, her world and the new one and the good in people everywhere.

A dark time in Canada’s past but this shines a light on in and illuminates the hope as it learns from its mistakes.