Correction: The film showing will be held on Saturday, Feb. 26, NOT Feb. 28 as previously stated.

Between the 1870’s and the 1970’s, around 150,000 Canadian native children were forcibly taken from their parents and sent to residential boarding schools, with an official goal “to kill the Indian in the native child,” all too often through horrific abuse. Native Orcas Island children were also taken away to residential schools in the United States. Island resident, PhD in urban planning and filmmaker Leonie Sandercock says communities around the world each have a tale to tell, as part of the long, bitter story of apartheid worldwide. For example, “South Africa based its apartheid legislation on Canada’s Indian Act of 1867,” she said. Orcas Island has its own share in the story. Sandercock, with co-film-maker Giovanni Attilli, has spent four years scripting, researching, narrating and producing a documentary film called “Finding Our Way,” about both apartheid and healing between white and First Nations peoples in British Columbia. The film will be shown at the Odd Fellows Hall at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26, followed by discussion. Admission is by donation. “It’s extremely powerful,” said long-time Orcas resident Peter Fisher. “It has tremendous relevance… this [phenomenon] happened on Orcas.” The infamous schools are commonly thought to be a thing of the past, but “The effects of residential schools are ongoing,” said Sandercock, “the last residential school did not close until 1996.” (The schools began closing in the 1970’s). She hopes the film will begin to open up conversations in communities whose people still bear scars from their experiences at the schools. Gerry Oldman, a former native chief and elder, as well as a survivor of the residential schools, will attend the film screening with Sandercock. The film was created through extended dialogue with two First Nations groups located in north central BC, Canada: the Burns Lake band and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation. It begins by chronicling the history of Canada’s relationship with native people, a story of official policy-driven apartheid, said Sandercock. It then delves into the experience of each of the native bands, and their response to a history of discrimination. “The whole film ends on a really inspiring and positive note,” Sandercock said. “The communities have reached out to the non-native communities in a spirit of forgiving but not forgetting. Given this tragic past and all of this injustice, is there a way forward? There IS a way forward. It’s all about partnerships for social and economic development… Acknowledging the past is the first step; the film itself is the beginning of the healing process.” The film has been shown in various towns across BC. Sandercock and Attilli’s last film, “Where Strangers Become Neighbors,” won recognition at film festivals in California, Los Angeles and New York. A human rights activist who saw the film brought the situation in Burns Lake to Sandercock’s attention. She told Sandercock a startling story: in the winter of 2000, with temperatures at minus-30 degrees, the Burn’s Lake municipality shut off essential services of water, sewer and fire to the reservation community because they refused to pay $400,000 per year for those services – to serve a community of about 30 homes. “This was a shock to me,” said Sandercock. “I thought, how is this possible in 21st century Canada, in mid winter; this seems like a major human rights violation.” The story also included Ghandi-like peaceful protest: the youth of the town got together, writing and performing a song about racism and violence called ‘Leave It Behind,’ a fusion of traditional native and non-native native rock music. “On the one hand, there is the old power structure, treating natives like less than human, like third class citizens; and on the other hand there are youth trying to cross the cultural divide,” said Sandercock. It was a compelling fusion. The second story in the film is about the Cheslatta people, who were living self-sufficient on their native lands in the 1950’s when the Canadian government told them they had 10 days before the land would be completely flooded due to operations of AlCan, an aluminum mining company. They lost their lands, homes, barns, cemeteries and spirit houses and were displaced to a reservation within the territory of a neighboring tribe. “Within six months [of moving to the new area] they were dying of alcohol-related deaths,” said Sandercock. “It was a descent into social chaos… Both communities have fought back, and are working with internal healing processes.” As Sandercock shares her hopes that the film will open dialogue about the past between native and non-native cultures, it is clear that Orcas Island’s sacred ground of Madrona Point is close to her heart. Still bearing a sign that says ‘Closed’ to the public, the promontory contains the bones of a mix of white settlers and native Lummi people. Sandercock said there was a large amount of intermarriage between the groups during the first 50 years of white settlement on Orcas – and then history went silent, as cultural shame caused islanders to “forget” their native heritage. “Hybrid origins stopped being talked about,” she said. “My hope is that this might open up a space for a conversation.” “The first third of her very powerful film paints that picture [of historical apartheid]; then the rest is extremely inspiring stories of recent history, a tremendous movement towards healing,” said Fisher. “I was deeply moved by the film… to hold hope that the same thing could happen here.” A native Australian, Sandercock immigrated to California in 1985 and fell in love with John Friedmann, uncle to Orcas Chamber Music Festival director Aloysia Friedmann. After visiting for 20 years, the couple bought their own place on Orcas about eight years ago. Sandercock commutes to Vancouver to teach graduate classes at the University of British Columbia in community and regional planning. She has a PhD in urban research from Australian National University and a MFA in screenwriting from the University of California. Sandercock and Attilli created the film through their two-person film production company, Mongrel Stories. For more information, visit mongrelstories.com.