Fort Chipewyan’s Roman Catholic church has been destroyed in a fire that police are treating as suspicious. Alberta RCMP say emergency officials were told of the fire at 2:34 a.m. Thursday
When police, firefighters and Alberta Forestry workers arrived, the fire had spread throughout the entire building and could not be saved. Eventually the priority became stopping the fire from reaching nearby fuel tanks. The church’s rectory was not destroyed.Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Calgary Herald, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
Community members say some people are appalled at the church’s destruction while others are happy to see it gone. Plenty of elders in the community witnessed and endured physical and sexual abuse at the school. Indigenous and educational leaders in the community have said for years that trauma was passed down to other generations.
Alice Rigney, an ACFN elder, called the church’s destruction an “attack on the community’s history.” Rigney was another survivor of physical and sexual abuse during her 10 years at the Holy Angels Residential School. She remembers cheering when she watched the demolition of the residential school, calling it “a place of Hell.”
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