B.C. woodcarver Stanley C. Hunt channels grief into monument honouring children who died at residential schools

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The artist Stanley C. Hunt was at his studio in Fort Rupert, B.C., immersed in his work of woodcarving, when he first heard the news on the radio. It was May, 2021, and newscasters were announcing the discovery of what First Nations leaders described as potential unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops.

Mr. Hunt, who is a Kwagu’l master carver – whose parents were residential school survivors, and who comes from a family of well-known artists – immediately put down his tools.

“It was such hard news to hear,” he said. “It was devastating.”

The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that it had used ground-penetrating radar to identify 215 probable unmarked graves of what it believed were children. The number was later revised to 200.

Over the next weeks and months, Mr. Hunt had a difficult time focusing on anything else. The Kamloops announcement prompted other First Nations to conduct their own radar work, which led to similar discoveries. “More and more and more just kept coming out,” he said.

So he decided to channel his grief into a new sculpture carved from the trunk of a red cedar. He spent a year crafting a monument to honour the children. Since its completion, it has travelled across the country, displayed for audiences from coast to coast. And on Monday, it will be officially unveiled at its permanent home at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, at a ceremony to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

“In order to move forward, the non-native people of Canada have to understand the truth of our history,” Mr. Hunt said. “This is a closet door that they kept closed for 150 years.”

The monument has evolved into a tangible outlet for the outpouring of grief in Indigenous communities over the discovery of the probable graves – and a symbol for the many other traumas that have gone unspoken.

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To date, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which maintains a registry of children who died at or after attending residential schools, includes more than 4,000 names. Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, meanwhile, has said the number of children who died at the schools could be between 15,000 and 25,000.

Mr. Hunt comes from a long line of artists. His father, Henry Hunt, was chief carver for Thunderbird Park, an outdoor exhibit of totem poles at the Royal BC Museum. And his grandfather was the Kwakwaka’wakw artist and songwriter Mungo Martin. But even within his own family, he said, they rarely discussed the traumas they’d endured.

His mother and older siblings, who were also residential school survivors, never talked about their experience at the schools. And his father only ever shared one story: about being beaten until left bleeding. It was punishment for having snuck a single cube of sugar.

Mr. Hunt himself, along with four other siblings – two brothers and two sisters – were part of the Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children were taken without the consent of their families and placed in non-Indigenous households. He and his siblings were taken and spread across Alberta.

Since taking to the road with the sculpture last year, Mr. Hunt has met with residential school survivors across the country. Some have followed the truck along the highways. Others have stopped him on the road, asking to touch the monument, to hold the tree trunk in their arms.

“It’s just been a flood of emotions,” he said. “Some have told me, ‘I’ve never spoken about residential schools. I’ll tell you my story.’”

Kaitlin McCormick, a curator at the Canadian Museum of History, said she’s witnessed the powerful effect the sculpture has on people – especially given Mr. Hunt’s request that guests be allowed to touch the monument.

“When they reach out and actually touch it, you see how it’s a transformative experience for a lot of people,” she said.

Caroline Dromaguet, the museum’s CEO, called it an honour to display. “It is our shared responsibility to listen, bear witness and work toward a better shared future,” she said.

The sculpture itself is painted orange and black. It stands more than 5½-metres high and more than a metre in diameter. At the top is a black raven, its wings pointed down as an offer of comfort for the children.

The trunk is a grid of black squares, each one showing the face of a child.

The sculpture also shows the logos of prominent institutions, all of them carved upside-down: a maple leaf, the RCMP logo, and a cross to represent the Catholic Church.

“It tells the truth about a time in Canadian history, where some very, very bad decisions were made,” said Mr. Hunt. “It’s not to insult. It’s to tell the truth.”

And though it’s still hard for even his own siblings to share their experiences, he said the monument has at least helped to pry open the door for discussions – and, hopefully, healing.

“They’re very proud of this,” he said. “Proud to see this.”