Indigenous survivors look to move past anger after papal visit – The Globe and Mail
Aug. 1, 2022
In 1954, sisters Noella Robinson and Joan St. Denis arrived at St. Mary’s Residential School near Kenora, Ont. They had travelled more than 1,700 kilometres from their home in Hunter’s Point, a First Nations territory in Quebec. Ms. Robinson was nine years old, and Ms. St. Denis was only five.
Four years later in 1958, when they took a train to North Bay to be reunited with their parents, the two girls didn’t recognize them at the station.
Last week, their story of mistaking a white woman for their mother decades ago was told with laughter by the sisters in a conversation at a hotel in Quebec City, where they had made their way to meet with the Pope. They recall only discovering who their parents were when there were just two other people left standing on the platform.
