Girls pickup baseball team at St. Margaret's in the Spring of 1947.

Girls brush their teeth and spit into a bucket at St. Phillip's Indian Residential School. The Anglican school was in Fort George on James Bay in northern Quebec. It opened in February 1933 and closed in 1979.

Boys pose in 1926 at Brandon Industrial School for Lenore Kirk, a nurse at the school. This page in her photo album has the title "Future hog raisers." The album was donated to the United Church Archives. The Methodist school (later United Church) opened in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1895.

St. Margaret's Indian Residential School, 1944: Dick Bird (far right) with the school's hockey team, the Rainy Lake Redskins

Girls sewing at Lebret Indian Residential School, Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, in 1894. The publicity photo looks frozen in time. All traces of the girls Aboriginal background have been removed. The Catholic school opened in 1884 and burned down in 1908.

From left to right: Staff quarters, barn, workshop, laundry. The main building contained senior students classroom, girls dormitory, chapel, outdoor chapel, nuns quarters, boys dormitory, junior classroom, boys playroom and teachers quarters.

Beginners in 1909 at All Saints Indian Residential School, Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan, with a teacher. The girls' hair is cut in the bowl style common in residential schools.

Marching band at St.Michael's Indian Residential School, Alert Bay, British Columbia, circa 1945

Children prayed many times a day. In 1950, Swampy Cree boys kneel before bedtime with an Anglican supervisor looking on, at Bishop Horden Memorial School on Moose Factory Island, Ontario.

Students outside Carcross Indian Residential School, Yukon, 1921

Children from St. George's Indian Residential School, Lytton, British Columbia, in their school uniforms, possibly visiting the Anglican Mission in the background. Also seen is the St. Mary and St. Paul Catholic Church. The photo, taken in 1941, is from the private collection of photographer Charles Nelles, who worked at Earlscourt Farm, a 2,834-hectare fruit farm nearby.

"We picked potatoes for four weeks in the fall. For six weeks every spring, boys and girls piled wood for the school furnaces. The classroom was on the back burner. Our school library was a little cupboard that was always locked. Our best reading materials were comics brought in by ex-terns. They were the Métis and other day students who lived nearby and went home at night." - Larry Loyie (Cree)

Sister Helen Greyeyes, a member of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, was the first Aboriginal nun to teach in a residential school. In 1934, she taught her nephews Harold and Albert Greyeyes (shown here) at the Catholic Lebret Indian Residential School, Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan.

Boys walk in formation in 1905 under the watchful eye of a supervisor at St. George's Indian Residential School (Anglican), Lytton, British Columbia.

A student in 1930 at Edmonton Indian Residential School (Methodist) in St. Albert, Alberta, with a team of horses.

Shirley Horn (centre, big smile) at Shingwauk Indian Residential School.

Girls in bed in their dormitory at Shingwauk Indian Residential School.

Girls enrolled in Girl Guides and Brownies.

File Hills Indian Residential School, 1948: Boys whitewash a fence (far right); girls pose in the uniforms of Canadian Girls in Training, a United Church club, on the steps of the school.

"A boy gave me a note for another girl. The nun saw it and read it out loud to all the kids. The note said, I love you and I dream of you every night.' All kinds of love talk and everybody laughed! For taking that note, the nun made me stand in the corner for a week at lunch time with only bread and water to eat. The girls used to make me a meat sandwich and sneak it to me. One donated a slice of bread, another gave me a slice of meat."
- Violet Rossetti Okimaw (Carrier)

In the laundry room at Shingwauk Indian Residential School, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in the 1950s. A pair of long johns brings a smile to a student and a laundry room supervisor.

I was in the front row. When the picture was taken, the boy behind me pinched me. That's why I have that surprised look on my face." Circled: Dustin Twin (Cree) at St. Bruno Indian Residential School in 1956

We watched hockey on television. Shingwauk Indian Residential School, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, 1960s

We were excited about Christmas. Kindergarten students, Carcross Indian residential School, Yukon, 1950s