‘We Want to Blanket Ken with Love Today’

Ken Luggi and Jim Foote shared a classroom for only a brief time.

Ken’s family, who is from the Stellat’en First Nation, had returned to the Fraser Lake area after Indian Affairs told them that the children couldn’t attend the public school where they had been living in Burns Lake, about an hour to the east.

The family enrolled Ken and his sister at the Fraser Lake elementary school, a few kilometres from the Stellaquo reserve.

There, as one of the few Indigenous children, Ken experienced racism. “It had a big impact on me,” he remembers. But the Foote family, who were not Indigenous, were different. Ken and Jim formed a lifelong friendship.

Perhaps that’s why, more than 70 years later, Jim still remembers when, several months into the school year, Ken was removed from his Grade 1 class at the Fraser Lake school and taken to Lejac Residential School. Though Lejac was less than 10 kilometres away, Ken got to see his parents only during holidays for the six years he attended.

On National Indigenous Peoples Day, Jim’s wife, Dini Foote, honoured Ken with a quilt. The ceremony was part of a blanketing project that’s bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members to honour Lejac survivors as a geophysical search of the former residential school grounds gets underway.

“The whole time I was working on this I was thinking about little Ken having to leave for residential school. My heart is in this one for you, Ken,” Dini told those gathered at Nadleh Whut’en First Nation at the June 21 celebrations. “We want to blanket Ken with love today.”

Lejac sat along the shores of Fraser Lake, about 150 kilometres west of Prince George, on Nadleh Whut’en traditional territory. It closed in 1976 and its buildings have since been demolished. Like other residential schools, its legacy includes horrific stories of abuse, disease and death.

In May, Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en First Nations announced a search of the former residential school’s grounds. The nations are seeking information about children who were taken there — some from as far away as Tahltan territory in the B.C.’s northwest and the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in the southern Interior — and never returned home.

As they begin, an integral piece is interviewing Lejac survivors, says Terry Luggi, who leads the project. Terry is Ken’s daughter.

“Jim had never forgotten how they had taken my dad from the classroom and taken him to Lejac,” Terry says. Despite knowing the Footes all her life, she’d never heard that story before, she says.

It’s only one of many painful stories that Terry has heard from survivors and other witnesses about the residential school experience. Terry wanted to find a way to honour those who shared their memories to help the search.

“As much as we can, we’ve wanted to implement our own ways throughout this whole process,” Terry says. “Part of that was wanting survivors and witnesses to be blanketed after they've completed their interview process.”

Blankets are an important part of Dakelh, or Carrier, culture, she says. They are part of the traditional regalia worn for ceremonial purposes and are gifted at Bahlats, or Potlatches, as a sign of respect.

In her search for blankets, Terry turned to the Nadleh Whut’en sewing centre. There, she connected with Linda Nooski, who is not Indigenous but is married to a community member. In turn, Nooski contacted two nearby quilters’ guilds in Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof.

The quilters donated their time and materials. By the end of June, they had completed 28 quilts.

The blankets were gratefully received by the project, Whuz Noolh’en, which means “we are looking/searching.”

“Blanketing anyone is such a significant honour. For them to play a role in that is a big deal,” Terry says. “It is a true act of reconciliation — each quilt made with love, good intentions and prayers for that person.”

The project also gives non-Indigenous community members a way to acknowledge the hurt caused by residential schools and contribute to healing, Nooski says.

“Every quilt is different. Every quilt is beautiful. Every quilt is a work of heart, as well as art. They’re precious,” she says.

In addition to the 28 quilts that have been donated, several more are under construction, Nooski says. Each is marked with a number, the name of the quilters guild that created it and the emblem of Quilts for Survivors, an Ontario-based charity that also provides quilts for survivors.

It’s unknown how many survivors and other witnesses will be asked to share their stories. So far, 25 people have been identified. Based on conversations she’s had with Williams Lake First Nation, which is undergoing its own search of the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School, Terry says she expects that number to grow.

As for Ken and Jim, their friendship endures. Over the years, they’ve stayed in touch, working together at the local mine and a nearby mill, often commuting to their jobs together.

Ken says the relationship has been transformational.

“We always had respect for each other,” he says. “It changed my mind about what people thought about us, as Indigenous people.”