THUNDER BAY — Matawa First Nations has celebrated the official grand opening of its Education and Care Centre, a high school that is having life-changing impacts for First Nations students who come to Thunder Bay for education.
Outside of the classroom, the school offers trades programming, land-based learning, cultural and spiritual programming, and supports like mental health services and recreation opportunities.
A student residence allows up to 100 students to live on-site with support from Matawa staff, while the school can accommodate up to 200 students.
Around 160 are currently enroled from across Matawa’s nine member communities.
The project was birthed as means to address recommendations of the seven youth inquest, by providing adequate education facilities to ensure student safety.
The centre is housed in the former Grandview Lodge long-term care home, which was renovated extensively after the City of Thunder Bay sold the facility to Matawa in 2018 at a nominal cost.
Classes officially began in 2018 with 70 students registered, while renovations continued.
The school has Indigenized eight to ten school credits in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.
Sharon Nate, the centre’s executive director, called those elements key to the school’s success.
“Having the land-based program is really instrumental to having students come to school,” she said. “They’re excited about learning outdoor ways, in terms of hunting, fishing, trapping, dog sledding, snowmobiling, ice rescue. We have a yearly canoe trip where the students do obtain high school credits… I believe that brings them into the school more.”
Grade 12 student Dora Ooshag, from Eabametoong First Nation, found those opportunities life-changing.
After transferring to the school in 2019, she started going on trips with the land-based education program, which sparked a passion that has led her to pursue a career in outdoor recreation.
“Seeing what the guides are doing, it really opened my eyes to how much I love being out on the land,” she said.
Ooshag is now looking to attend Algonquin College for outdoor recreation and hopefully return to Matawa to work with future students.
“I feel very proud and happy to have discovered this school when I did, because I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I wouldn’t… have figured out what I want to do with my life,” she said. “That’s what this school can do, because there’s a lot of support, a lot of things you can do, a lot of programs.”
Grade 11 student Jersey Towegishig, from Long Lake No. 58 First Nation, said while she came from a comparatively close community a few hours’ drive away, attending high school in Thunder Bay was still a big move that staff helped ease.
“I was nervous moving away from home,” she said. “But it feels just like home here – they welcome you with open arms. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, and I fit in perfectly.”
She hopes to parlay her love of math into a career in civil engineering.
“I want to build stuff like this, the new gymnasium, the new buildings,” she said.
Nate said she’s thrilled to hear those stories, contrasting them with her own experience coming to Thunder Bay for high school decades ago.
“The previous generations that have left the northern communities to come to school, we lived in homes where we did not know the families — we lived with families where we weren’t familiar with their ways and customs.”
The Education and Care Centre cost around $23 million to build, Matawa reported, though that doesn’t include some amenities like a safe sobering site. That was supported with over $20 million from the federal government.
Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu called that investment a step toward reconciliation, and an investment in the future of First Nations youth.