Carriage House Second Floor

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem… Our objective is to continue until there is not an Indian that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department…” – Duncan Campbell Scott, 1920

Now used for storage for Alberta Culture, the first floor of the carriage house used to be used for storing of equipment and supplies for the residential school, such as items used for labour around the grounds which was primarily conducted by students. While education was supposed to be a core goal of the residential school system, children who attended oftentimes spent a lot of their time on vocational “training” and undertaking activities for the running and maintained of the school itself. During the harvest, for example, older boys would often spend their entire day working on the farm [1]

Countless examples of the acceptance of student as labourers are peppered throughout the DIA records. When the DIA agreed to an EIRS request to build a farmer’s cottage in correspondence from May 18,1927, Deputy Superintendent Scott suggested keeping costs low by employing “as much of the school labour as possible” [1,2]

During the harvest, older boys often spent the entire day on the farm, which, by 1929, consisted of 500 acres under cultivation, including 110 acres of wheat, 125 acres of oats, and 40 acres of barley. The potato crop that year produced 3,000 bushels. By 1933, livestock consisted of 15 horses, 59 cattle (both beef and dairy), 135 pigs, 50 chickens and 25 turkeys.

Principal Woodsworth wrote of his students being pulled out of class to haul water into the school during the 10 days in April of 1929 that EIRS was without water, as well as using school labour to build a new shed in preparation for the arrival of additional students from the Brandon IRS [1,2]. Similarly, in preparation for students moving to the new school, Acting Deputy Superintendent General, A.S. Williams wrote in March of 1931 that “staff and older boys” would be responsible for setting up the furniture and supplies [4].

By 1949 it was suggested to the church that students should no longer be used for this kind of labour, but it was not until 1955 that the administration of the Edmonton IRS finally made changes that resulted in more classroom time for students.

Overcrowding

The carriage house was used to accommodate students when there was not enough room in the main school building. Overcrowding was a consistent problem in many Indian Residential Schools. The cause appears to be two-fold. First, the per capita grant funding model used by the Department of Indian Affairs was flawed. It assigned a fixed allowance for each student registered. This funding model was the primary source of operational funds, following the construction of a school, and therefore, more students meant more money. Second, churches wanted to recruit and retain students within their denominational faith, a practice that is discussed below. Even with overcrowding, the funds did not leave enough to cover the cost of salaries, basic supplies, or food. Consequently, repairs, maintenance and capital projects were done poorly or not at all.

Notes:

[1] United Church of Canada. 2022. Edmonton Indian Residential School. The Children Remembered. Electronic document, https://thechildrenremembered.ca/school-histories/edmonton/, accessed February 23, 2022.

[2] Ma, K. 2018. The Red Road of Healing. St. Albert Today 13 July. Electronic document, https://www.stalberttoday.ca/local-news/the-red-road-of-healing-1299235, accessed on August 3, 2022.

[3] Poundmaker’s Lodge and Treatment Centre (PLTC). 2022. About. Electronic document, https://poundmakerslodge.ca/about/, accessed August 29, 2022.

[4] Wallace, R. and N. Pietrzykowski. 2022. Digital IRS Archival Research Unpublished report prepared by Collective Heritage Consulting for P. Dawson, University of Calgary. On file in Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary.

The following virtual tour was created using panospheres from the Z+F 5010X laser scanner. Use your mouse or arrow keys to explore each image. Click on an arrow to "jump" to the next location.

This image gallery shows historic and modern photos related to the first floor of the carriage house. Click on photos to expand and read their captions. If you have photos of the Edmonton IRS that you would like to submit to this archive, please contact us at irsdocumentationproject@gmail.com.

Laser scanning data can be used to create “as built” architectural plans which can support repair and restoration work to The Edmonton Indian Residential School Carriage House. The main school building was lost to fire in 2000. This plan was created using Autodesk Revit and forms part of a larger building information model (BIM) of the school. The Revit drawings and laser scanning data for this school are securely archived with access controlled by Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Center.