Visiting Alert Bay can be a very emotional experience. Being a center of First Nation's Culture there is much history of the injustice to the native populations. The specter of the decaying "Residential School" is alive with the ghosts of the little children taken from the arms of their parents and incarcerated in these very walls. They were subject to emotional abuse by demeaning and outlawing their culture, cutting off their hair, forbidding their native language and traditions all in the name of "Christianity". They were subject to physical and sexual abuse by those that should have been protecting them. The effects of this cruel practice haunts many generations as the last the "schools" closed in the late 1980's For more information check this website:
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-692/disasters_tragedies/residential_schools/
The tradition of "The Potlach" is an ancient integral part of Native life. In 1884 "missionaries" recommended and succeeded in making it illegal to practice this most sacred ritual thus denying the Native people this important and essential part of their lives. The Natives went underground with their ceremonies and in 1921 the RCMP raided, arrested the participats and confiscated the treasures of the Potlach held on Village Island. In the 1980 the Native people succeeded in having their treasure returned to them. They can be seen in the U'Mista Cultural Center ironically next to the "Residental School" in Alert Bay.
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