Canada's Indian Residential Schools

The Canadian Indian residential school system was created in order to remove indigenous Canadian children from their families and cultures. Over the 100 years of the school system's existence around 30% of indigenous children were removed from their homes and placed in residential boarding schools. The last of these schools was closed in 1996.

You can view all 132 of these schools, located throughout the country, in Visualizing Canada's Indian Residential Schools. This interactive visualization by Sam Vickars starts by plotting the life journeys of some of the survivors of the Canadian Indian residential school system. These stories starkly expose the horrifying effect of the system on the individual lives of indigenous children.

If you scroll to the end of any of these individual story maps you can view all 132 schools in the system visualized on a map of Canada. If you select any of the individual schools on the map you can view information on its history and the numbers of indigenous children who were forced to live there. Where available you can also view information about reports of sexual abuse, physical abuse and other incidents made against the selected institution.