Canada Post is commemorating this week’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with stamps featuring the iconic Bentwood Box of artist Luke Marston. The move is a tribute to Survivors and a symbol of healing, reconciliation and hope.

The issue includes three unique stamps depicting the front and sides of the Bentwood Box and reflecting the distinct cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis, and their children who attended residential schools.

Hands Raised Helplessly

On the stamp depicting the front panel of the box, crosses represent the churches that ran residential schools (with the federal government), while raised hands symbolize the helplessness felt by parents when their children were taken away and sent to residential schools.

The box by Marston, a renowned Coast Salish artist, was commissioned by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2009 as a tribute to Indian Residential School survivors. It travelled across Canada with the commission during years of reconciliation hearings (see the commission’s finding of ‘cultural genoicide’ at the end of this post).

On the box, Marston depicts his grandmother’s experience at one of the church and government schools, where children were taken by the thousands and stripped of language and culture (see more about the history of Bentwood Boxes at this Art Junkie post).

This stamp features a panel on the box that depicts the Inuit experiences at residential schools. The northern lights and stars in the background represent Inuit ancestors and teachings. Students were separated from this knowledge while at residential schools.

On the third stamp below, a panel depicts student experiences from the Prairies and Eastern Canada. The infinity symbol, found on the Métis flag, acknowledges the Métis children who were taken.

A Horrific Record

If you are not familiar with the horrific record of Canada’s residential schools, the country’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has an overview to help familiarize you with the issues here.

The easiest take-away from that site is:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) concluded that residential schools were “a systematic, government- sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.” The TRC characterized this intent as “cultural genocide.”

Luke Marston’s website, here.

A Q&A about the Bentwood Box, here.

A Reuters photo site with archive images of children at residential schools, here.