Gordon's Residential School, residential school in the Canadian Indian residential school system located in Gordon's Reserve / Punnichy, Saskatchewan
Gordon's Residential School was a boarding school in Punnichy, Saskatchewan, operated from 1888 to 1996 and run by the Anglican Church. The four-story building housed students from surrounding Indigenous communities and other distant areas over its more than a century of operation.
Originally established as a day school in 1876, it evolved into a boarding school over time. A fire destroyed the main building in 1929, but it was rebuilt and reopened in 1930, continuing to operate until closure in 1996.
The site is named after Chief George Gordon, an Anishinaabeg leader whose reserve was nearby. The school functioned as an institution designed to eliminate Indigenous languages and cultural practices from students' lives.
The site is located on land traditionally occupied by the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, as well as the Métis Nation. Visitors should approach the location with respect, keeping in mind the trauma and loss associated with this history.
A boy named Andrew Gordon froze to death near the school during a blizzard in 1939, and his parents did not learn of his death until much later. The school also became known for abuse by staff members, notably William Starr, who was convicted in the early 1990s for sexually abusing multiple students.
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