Wooden ribs frame the interior of the student-centred space, which is designed to evoke the underside of an upturned canoe. Photo by Tom Arban
?I wasn?t really aware: nobody told us or discussed it, except maybe at parties?? This is how Peggy Pitawanakwat, former Wikwemikong Chief and current First Peoples Co-ordinator at Seneca College, describes her understanding of Canada?s devastating residential school system as a teenager growing up on Manitoulin Island. Her words are

a powerful reminder of the need for community-based spaces, including the new Odeyto Indigenous Centre at Seneca: a small but thoughtfully accommodating social hub where students and elders can counsel one another on the past and future of Indigenous culture, celebrate its traditions, and spread awareness of its difficult truths. The desire to connect and learn more about Indigenous culture is what brings me to Odeyto on a frigid afternoon in late February. I am among a small assembly of strangers who have gathered for a screening of Indian Horse?a film portraying the true-to-life story of a First Nations boy who survived Canada?s residential school system in the 1970s. We are a multi-cultural group, but here, under Odeyto?s sinuous array of tall, vaulted wood ribs, we are all welcome in equal measure.
Named with an Anishinaabe word meaning ?the good journey,? Odeyto marks a new, alternative entrance into Seneca?s Newnham Campus. Its modest 167 square metres are situated at the centre of an Indigenized ...