In the 1840s, the Canadian government established the Indian Residential School system, a network of church-run boarding schools created to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into the dominant culture of Canada.

The children who attended these facilities — coming from First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities — were punished for speaking their native languages or observing indigenous traditions. They were routinely physically and sexually abused, both by the teachers who ran the schools and by older students who had typically been assaulted themselves. In some extreme instances, students were subjected to medical experimentation and sterilization by teachers and school administrators.

The last residential school didn’t close until 1996. The Canadian government issued its first formal apology in 2008.

Still, the lasting impact on Canada's indigenous populations is immeasurable. At least 4,000 children died while in the system — so many that it became common for residential schools to have their own cemeteries.

Those who did survive, deprived of their families and their own cultural identities, became part of a series of lost generations. Languages died out; sacred ceremonies were suppressed and even criminalized. First Nations elders have called the residential school system’s practices a cultural genocide.