Kuper Island: Return to the Healing Circle

Christine Welsh/Peter C. Campbell
Gumbooot Productions
44:30 minutes • 1997
Also available on DVD

They called it Alcatraz. It was the Kuper Island Residential School, and it stood on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia. For almost a century, hundreds of Coast Salish children were sent to Kuper Island, where they were forbidden from speaking their native language, forced to deny their cultural heritage, and often faced physical and sexual abuse. Some died trying to escape on logs across the water. Many more died later, trying to escape their memories.

Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh and Peter C. Campbell join survivors of the school, 20 years after its closure, as they begin to break the silence and embark on an extraordinary healing journey.

Subject(s): Addiction, British Columbia, Healing, Indigenous people–Coast Salish, Restorative justice