What happened to Aboriginal languages and customs inside the residential schools?

Residential schools took in many Aboriginal children. The federal government ran the system, which started in the 1800s and only closed in the 1980s. Two goals lay behind it: to give the children schooling, and to absorb them into the country's mainstream culture. Funding was too small, and life inside caused real hardship for the pupils. Some of them suffered physical abuse. The children were also mostly banned from speaking their own languages or keeping their own customs. Because the policy lasted more than a hundred years, one generation of families after another was affected.

In 2008 the federal government in Ottawa made a formal apology to the former pupils of those schools. Aboriginal peoples in Canada today feel a renewed pride and confidence in who they are. They have achieved a great deal in farming, in care for the environment, in business and in the arts. The Haida artist Bill Reid, known for carving a totem pole, is one well-known example from the art world. Inuit children growing up in Iqaluit, Nunavut, are part of that living present as well.