Lessons
For Project Soul Pancake: Admire An Old Building
While living in the Rocky Mountains is great for it's nature, it's quite lacking in any real ancient buildings to explore. While I wish I had some abandonded hospitals or schools or skyscrapers to wander through, I'm afraid that most of our buildings are still very much in use. Since this area really didn't start to develop until the gold rushes in the late 1800's most of our "old buildings" are from that time period, including the one in the photo above.
Built in the early 1900's this building was originally a residential school comissioned by the Canadian Government and run by the Catholic Church to "educate and house" first nations children. Essentially the government, along with the church wanted to assimilate first nations people into "european life" in the new world and this was their way of doing it and it wasn't optional, it was mandatory. For such a beautiful building it holds what I'm sure is a dark history, I tried to find some stories about or some elders to tell me about it but I haven't heard back yet. I feel that this is such a tragic part of Canadian history that often gets overlooked, it makes me sad to think that at the time this was how our government acted. The building stopped being used as a school in 1970's and is now a part of a hotel and resort complex, an attempt at reclaiming the building for more positive uses I suppose. I've only ever been inside this building once and it held in it some very strong vibes and emotions, as it would after being used in such a way.
Lessons
For Project Soul Pancake: Admire An Old Building
While living in the Rocky Mountains is great for it's nature, it's quite lacking in any real ancient buildings to explore. While I wish I had some abandonded hospitals or schools or skyscrapers to wander through, I'm afraid that most of our buildings are still very much in use. Since this area really didn't start to develop until the gold rushes in the late 1800's most of our "old buildings" are from that time period, including the one in the photo above.
Built in the early 1900's this building was originally a residential school comissioned by the Canadian Government and run by the Catholic Church to "educate and house" first nations children. Essentially the government, along with the church wanted to assimilate first nations people into "european life" in the new world and this was their way of doing it and it wasn't optional, it was mandatory. For such a beautiful building it holds what I'm sure is a dark history, I tried to find some stories about or some elders to tell me about it but I haven't heard back yet. I feel that this is such a tragic part of Canadian history that often gets overlooked, it makes me sad to think that at the time this was how our government acted. The building stopped being used as a school in 1970's and is now a part of a hotel and resort complex, an attempt at reclaiming the building for more positive uses I suppose. I've only ever been inside this building once and it held in it some very strong vibes and emotions, as it would after being used in such a way.