WARNING: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
This article contains mention of residential schools and resulting deaths. Those seeking emotional support and crisis referral services can call the 24-hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419.
In honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, Carleton University held an unveiling ceremony for 356 beaded baby vamps, created to commemorate the lives of children who never returned home from residential schools.
The initiative was launched by Deborah Young, a Cree social worker, Carleton PhD candidate and lecturer, and daughter of residential school survivors. She said she was inspired to start the project after hearing about the 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021.
Young said she first heard about a call for baby vamps—the upper part of a child’s moccasin—from Velma Olson, a member of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation in Yukon. Olson was looking to start a collection in commemoration of children who never returned home from residential schools, as well as for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Young said.
Young was going to send her own baby vamp to an existing vamp collection in the Yukon, but she waited to see if someone would call for vamps in Ottawa. After holding onto her vamp for three weeks without a call, she said she decided to create her own.
She then launched a vamp beading project at Carleton and encouraged all staff, students and faculty to participate. The final project features a collection of 356 beaded vamps stitched on leather, felt and fabric.
At the unveiling ceremony, Young spoke about the baby beaded vamps and why she put out the call.
“The intention all along was to inform social [work] students and faculty about the impacts of residential schools in Canada and how the residential school era has actually impacted how we practice social work in itself,” Young said.
Each vamp in the collection represents a child or baby who never returned home from residential schools, Young said. The baby vamps allow people to reflect and inform others about residential schools and how Indigenous people continue to experience the effects of this system.
Kimberly Murray, a Carleton graduate, member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation and the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites encouraged participants to learn more about the 94 Calls to Action released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015.
She urged everyone at the unveiling to read all volumes of Calls to Action in the report instead of just reading the summary.
“Reconciliation is not possible without knowing the truth,” Murray said. “Learn the truth, so we can move forward with reconciliation.”
As the ceremony concluded, attendees lined up to take a closer look at the beaded baby vamp collection.
Logan Stalker, a graduate student in Carleton’s master of social work program and a member of the First Nations Cree community, said he attended the ceremony to support reconciliation efforts.
“I thought it would be appropriate to bear witness to the unveiling of the baby vamps,” Stalker said. “As an Indigenous person myself, I think it’s important to take time to remember, to recognize [and] support reconciliation.”
The vamps will move to the Ottawa School of Art before going to Carleton’s MacOdrum Library in January. After a few weeks on display at the library, the project will make its way back to the fifth floor of Dunton Tower, where Carleton’s School of Social Work is located.
Young said she is thankful for the opportunity to unveil a teaching aid with such a personal connection for herself and other contributors.
“Each vamp, unique as the person who has beaded it … came with personal stories and reflections,” Young said at the unveiling. “For me, each little vamp represents a child taken and I felt [their] presence in my home.”
Featured image by Jessica Campbell.
