Fort Albany Residential School, also known as St. Anne’s, was home to some of the most harrowing examples of abuse against Indigenous children in Canada. The school opened in 1906 under the direction of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Grey Nuns of the Cross (also known as the Sisters of Charity) with the financial and administrative support of the federal government. Originally located at the Fort Albany Mission on Albany Island, Ont., in the James Bay Treaty region (Treaty 9), the school relocated to the north shore of the banks of Albany River in 1932. The school burned down in 1939, and was subsequently rebuilt.

Students who attended the school were from surrounding First Nations communities including: Fort Albany, Attawapiskat, Weenusk, Constance Lake, Moose Fort and Fort Severn. Reports of the appalling abuse at St. Anne’s did not begin to appear in mainstream media until school Survivors reached adulthood. Among those who told their stories is Edmund Metatawabin, former chief of the Fort Albany First Nation band. He became a voice for other Indigenous people who also experienced the alienation, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse rampant at the school. In 2014, Metatawabin shared his experiences in the memoir Up Ghost River: A Chief’s Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History.

Documents from this investigation weren’t released until 2014, after an Ontario Superior Court judge ordered the federal government to disclose them to Survivors of the schools and to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Survivors argued they were being denied the full scope of compensation they were entitled to without access to the extensive police investigation files documenting the serious nature of the sexual and physical abuse rampant at St Anne’s.

The documents revealed stories of children being locked in the school basement for days, being forced to wear soiled underwear on their heads for hours, and being forced to eat their own vomit. Staff used metal fashioned whips for corporal punishment. The most shocking account that emerged was the use of a homemade electric chair to punish children, often for the amusement of staff working at the school. The electrocutions were often administered in front of other children. Metatawabin remembers his own experience:

Without the diligence and perseverance of Survivors, records of the horrendous treatment Indigenous children faced at St. Anne’s residential school would have been forgotten and Survivors would not have received fair compensation for their childhood tragedy. Their long-standing battle for justice and for full acknowledgment of what Survivors encountered in the schools remains a powerful example of the ongoing resistance of Indigenous Peoples to historical whitewashing and attempts to deny the devastating levels of harm inflicted on thousands of children and community members.