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The article is titled “Curve Lake’s day school history reveals Indigenous activism in the face of colonial schooling.” It was originally published on September 29, 2025 and is authored by Jackson Pind, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Methodologies, Chanie Wenjack School of Indigenous Studies, Trent University.

Chief Elsie Knott, the first female chief of a First Nation in Canada, disliked the Indian Day School system from her own childhood experiences and wanted something better for the next generation.
As chief of what’s now called Curve Lake First Nation, 25 kilometres northeast of Peterborough, Ont., she bought a retired hearse. Knott used it to drive children from Curve Lake to the public school in Lakefield, Ont. That eventually became a community-run bus service that still operates to this day.
This was one of many powerful stories I encountered in researching my book Students by Day: Colonialism and Resistance at the Curve Lake Indian Day School.
This is the first Ontario book to focus on the history of an Indian Day School, an institution that shaped the lives of generations of Indigenous children but has received little attention compared to residential schools.
This book grew out of my doctoral research, but it was also built on years of working directly with Survivors, families and community leaders in Curve Lake First Nation.
The stories and archival records reveal not only the harms of day schooling, but also the persistence, creativity and resistance of a community determined to care for its children despite the colonial system imposed upon them.
Gaps about colonial schooling
Most Canadians have at least heard of residential schools, but far fewer know about day schools. Yet more Indigenous children attended day schools than residential schools.
These institutions operated in communities across the country, run by churches and funded by the federal government. They combined underfunded education with assimilationist policies designed to erase Indigenous languages, cultures and governance systems.
The federal settlement for day school Survivors was only finalized in 2019, over a decade after the residential school settlement.
Even today, there has been no formal apology from the churches involved, and no commission of inquiry dedicated to day schools. That gap in public understanding is what motivated me to write Students by Day.
Researching with Curve Lake
I grew up with ties to Curve Lake First Nation and began this project with the support of then-Chief Emily Whetung and council in 2020. With their guidance, I worked through roughly 10,000 archival files at Library and Archives Canada and paired that record with oral histories from Survivors who wanted their stories told.
Like many researchers during COVID-19, I adapted when in-person visits were no longer possible. But when I could return to Curve Lake, five Survivors came forward to share their stories. Their courage and generosity in speaking publicly about difficult experiences made this book possible.
The archives are full of letters from Curve Lake dating back to the 19th century, demanding better pay for teachers, requesting Indigenous teachers and even asking for their own school boards. Leaders actively worked within the constraints of the system to make schooling serve their people as best as possible.
Stories of resistance
What emerged from the research is not only a record of harm but also of resilience.
A letter written by an Indian agent in the 1920s complained:
“[O]ne of the chief holdbacks of the Chemong (Curve Lake School) is the determination of parents to stick to their own language, with a few expectations. They are quite jealous of it, and and will not favour the use of English by the children when at play.”
Parents constantly resisted the imposition of English-only language education and instead fostered the Ansihinaabeowin language outside of the school.
This kind of community-organized resistance complicates the narrative of Indigenous schooling as one of only trauma. While lasting harm did occur, there were also acts of agency, resilience and a vision to keep their culture into the future.
Reconciliation with Day School Survivors
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called attention to inequities in education. While today, Curve Lake’s school for children has been locally operated since the early 1980s, funding formulas still leave First Nation schools grossly underfunded in comparison to their peers in the provincial education system.
The federal government has begun digitizing over six million Day School documents, with about 800,000 already accessible. These resources will be invaluable to communities seeking to recover their histories.
As part of the 2019 class-action settlement with Indian Day School Survivors, a $200 million legacy fund was created for healing, language revitalization, commemoration and truth telling.
However, there is still lots of work to be done across the country in examining the lasting impacts of these institutions within First Nation communities.
As Survivors remind us, reconciliation is not just about documents or apologies. It’s about action. Understanding the role of Indian Day Schools, listening to Survivors and addressing ongoing inequalities are all part of Canada’s unfinished work.

Curve Lake’s day school history reveals Indigenous activism in the face of colonial schooling

September 30, 2025 • My Project Name

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