CANADA
The Province
A carved pole installed Saturday at the University of B.C. contains thousands of copper nails that serve as a reminder of Canada’s traumatic colonial past.
Each nail — hammered into the 16.8-metre-tall, 800-year-old red cedar pole by residential-school survivors, affected families and school children — represents an indigenous child who died at a residential school.
Officially know as the Reconciliation Pole, the monument tells the story of the school system, which was founded in the 1800s and not shuttered until 1996.
“My hope for the pole is that it moves people to learn more about the history of residential schools and to understand their responsibility to reconciliation,” said James Hart, Haida master carver and hereditary chief, in a media release.
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