In the early 1920s, on the banks of the Peel River next to the community of Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories, Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) families gathered in grief. Anglican missionaries were loading children, some as young as two, onto boats bound for the St. Peter’s Indian Residential School in Hay River, close to 2,000 kilometres away by water.
Teetł’it Gwich’in Elder Mary Effie Snowshoe recalled this moment as a “sad story” passed down from her parents. At the centre of it stood Chief Julius Salu. Having lost his daughter to the school earlier that year, Salu declared:
“No more. Nobody is to send their children away again. If anybody is threatened that they are going to go to court over their children, I’m going to be there. If anybody is going to go to jail for this, I’m taking it.”
