A crosswalk on Flin Flon’s Main Street has received a fresh coat of paint, paying tribute to Indigenous tradition and those lost to Canada’s residential school system. The tribute, which was painted June 19, is the first of its kind to be made in Flin Flon.
Similar crosswalk tributes to Indigenous people and residential school victims and survivors have been made across Canada, but not in Flin Flon. It was one of those other crosswalks that inspired Vanessa Watson to first float the idea earlier this month.
Watson originally found the idea online, seeing similar crosswalks painted in B.C. and the Yukon. After seeing the original design and getting support from friends and community members online, Watson sent a letter to the City of Flin Flon requesting approval to paint a crosswalk in a similar way in time for National Indigenous People’s Day - June 21.
The letter was first read at the June 15 council meeting as correspondence, but was approved shortly thereafter, allowing painting to begin on the crosswalk between Main Street and Angel Avenue, running between the Flin Flon Public Library and the Canada Post office.
“It feels good to do something. For me, it’s a healing process. My grandma went to residential school district here, in Sturgeon Landing. It was nice to be able to help people see, that people around here need to be recognized - Aboriginal people, the community,” said Watson.
“I think that community, the Aboriginal community here, is huge. If it wasn’t for the Aboriginal people here, I don’t think this town would survive, to tell you the truth.”
Work on the crosswalk was conducted by Watson, Loretta McDermott and several members of the Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre youth group, using stencils to paint the feathers on the pavement. Once all the feathers were painted down, the words “All Children Matter” were painted in the middle of the crosswalk, stretching from one side to the other. Children around the same age as those taken to residential schools in the past instead helped paint the crosswalk itself.
“The painting is to remember the residential school survivors and the traumas that they've had to face. It’s just a little bit of, ‘Hey, we hear you. We see you. We are with you,’” Watson said as kids and elders painted the crosswalk.
The announcement of the finding of 215 children in unmarked graves at a B.C. residential school earlier this year was a catalyst for the crosswalk project. With the history of residential schools at the forefront of Canada’s national conversation, Watson wanted to do her part to ensure the children who were pushed into the system were not forgotten in Flin Flon.
“It’s something to acknowledge who we are as people. The feathers are to symbolize the children that they found in B.C., in Kamloops. That was something that people can’t ignore. They can’t ignore it now. Nobody wanted to acknowledge that, but it can’t be hidden now when they find mass graves,” she said.
“I think a lot of people are trying to understand, to find something to do. When you hear about kids in a mass grave, you don’t know how… how do you stomach that? How does it make you feel?”
Watson said the piece was a tribute that came from a place of healing, noting that the crosswalk is meant as a tribute to Indigenous people and the hurdles they’ve faced.
“It says we are a resilient people,” she said.
“I would like our non-Aboriginal brothers and sisters to know we’re not here to blame them. We are not blaming them, but they’ve got to realize or acknowledge the fact that there’s a dark history in Canada. The sooner it [that knowledge] comes, the better.”
