'A space where we can talk': YRHS Survivors Flag presentation creates dialogue on reconciliation and residential schools

The Survivors Flag and its associated board are now prominently displayed in YRHS's foyer. (Brady Lang/CTV News)

Staff at Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) originally had planned to have its new Survivors Flag up in time to fly last September, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

But the flag, which is an expression of remembrance meant to honour residential school survivors and all the lives and communities impacted by the residential schools in Canada, arrived after that date.

Kendra Helfrich, the teacher at YRHS who initially started the process to have the flag gifted to the school, ended up using the time to plan something extra special for the school and its surrounding communities.

So, the Survivors Flag sat in Helfrich’s office until Jana Martinuk, the school’s art teacher had thought to present it on a board in the school’s main foyer. The moment that idea was shared, Martinuk had an idea.

“(She said) I know just the student who would be able to design it,” Helfrich recalled, thinking of young Cowessess member and grade 11 student at the school, Cree Delorme.

Delorme, a straight-A student at YRHS, jumped right into the project, with Helfrich describing it as a “really natural conversation,” adding the entire vision of not just the board design, but multiple other ideas began to grow.

With many in the school affected personally by the impacts of residential schools, and the intergenerational trauma that followed, the school knew it needed to do something special.

Led by Delorme, the project grew into a full presentation full of speakers, along with emotional presentations and the unveiling of the flag.

‘IT JUST SORT OF LIKE SNOWBALLED FROM THERE’

Delorme remembers walking through the hallway of the main foyer at YRHS, when she ran into Martinuk.

That was the first time the project had been brought up to her, and at that point in time it wasn’t going to be a “big project.”

“It just sort of like snowballed from there. We started talking, exchanging ideas, and then it turned into this, because the art is one piece of it,” Delorme explained. “But the event I feel like it's something that is really helpful to the community.”

The art piece ended up being all of the flag’s meanings, broken down into singular, similar pieces of the flag. The pair designed it all, creating the board.

The event included multiple community members and dignitaries, and was held in YRHS’s Anne Portnuff Theatre.

Cree Delorme (centre), Jana Martinuk and Kendra Helfrich are pictured. Delorme was a main driving force behind the project that eventually led to a full fledged presentation of the Survivors Flag at Yorkton Regional High School. (Brady Lang/CTV News)

Delorme brought in both teachers, along with Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Second-Vice Chief, Dutch Lerat, her aunt, Clorice Delorme, along with Max Delorme to speak at the event, which looked into the impacts of residential schools and how to move forward through reconciliation.

Lerat, a survivor of residential school and a member of the Cowessess First Nation, spoke to the past. Delorme herself, spoke to the present, and her aunt Clorice, who also works for Good Spirit School Division, to the future.

Delorme said that what Lerat and Clorice expressed at the presentation, will really stick with her.

“The thing that struck me is how Clorice and both Dutch explained that reconciliation is from both sides, and there's a middle ground where you both have to listen to each other and hear what each other have to say, and have a lot of compassion and empathy for what each other is trying to say,” she said.

“Because that's really important and communicating in general and was such an important thing. Reconciliation, it's just to have a space where we can talk and exchange ideas in an honest environment.”

Clorice is another survivor of residential school. She said following the 751 findings at Marieval Residential School near Cowessess, she started to see the difficult discussions of the realities of residential schools come to light.

“The truth opened the door, and many people are talking now. It’s opened a safe place for us to talk,” she said during the event.

‘A STRENGTH AND A QUIET POWER’

Creating this project was no easy feat for Delorme and her family, along with the teachers facilitating it.

The research into creating the event meant looking, speaking, and understanding deeper into Delorme’s past, and her family’s past.

By creating a safe and open space and having these discussions out in the open; Delorme said the community can work together and continue to heal.

“Just having those personal stories, because I feel like anyone could say that what happened at residential school is bad, that's so bland. I feel like having a personal story from someone who went through that is just so much more impactful, both emotionally and informationally, it was really tough, for the research. I feel like as someone who's non-Indigenous, you hear about them and say, ‘Oh, they're people,’ but as someone who's Indigenous, those are my people who are impacted by the impacts of residential schools. That just really hit home,” she said.

“I've seen the impacts of residential schools firsthand. Addiction, not being able to show affection properly, not being able to show the kids that you love them. I think that's something that was really hard for me because I live it every day. I see things because I'm a part of a community that's been impacted by residential schools.”

The young Delorme has been a leader at the YRHS, someone other students look up to as an early success story. Having her lead the work really impacted those teachers involved in Helfrich and Martinuk.

“Cree is one of the most phenomenal young people I have ever had the privilege to work with. She is incredibly driven and extremely humble. She is, for someone so young, so connected to who she is. With a strength and a quiet power that you don't see in most adults,” Helfrich said.

“I genuinely believe after having the privilege of working with not just Cree, but with her family through this project — that is directly a result of her family, her community, (and) the people who have raised her.”

Cree is the niece of Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme. Following the event, when asked if politics may be in Cree’s future, she responded with a laugh, and a “possibly.”

The main goal for the grade 11 student after graduation is another goal that runs deep for Cree.

She has had plans since she was young, thanks to a career inquiry project, to become a forensic pathologist, in order to do her part in helping the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis.

“My career aspirations stem from a part that is so connected to me. Being a young Indigenous woman myself, I'm almost four and a half more times likely to go missing or be murdered in my entire lifetime … I know a lot of our people may not be comfortable with having their loved ones examined by someone who isn't Indigenous and being a forensic pathologist will give me the chance to provide closure for families, to what happened to their loved ones, and hopefully find justice for them,” she explained.

“I know cultural practices, and I feel like they would just be a lot more comfortable having me doing it, an Indigenous woman doing it.”