Poplar Hill Development School
My Northern Home
(Self Released)
Poplar Hill, ON
originally released: 1972

english
français

From the feverish mind of Charlotte:

Located near the Manitoba-Ontario border is Poplar Hill, home to the Anishnaabe (Ojibway) Poplar Hill First Nation. Many of the children there attended the Poplar Hill Development School, an Indian Residential school that operated between 1962 and 1989. A quick Google search shows that many survivors have spoken openly about their experience, the good and the bad, but no one mentions the audio record of the experienced pain. To mark its tenth anniversary, the school released a 12-inch vinyl record called My Northern Home, which features fifteen recorded songs that had been sung by the children of Poplar Hill Development School between 1969 and 1972. Yet, as I scavenged for even a hint of information about its recordings or release, its existence seemed doubtful except for the fact that I had held the vinyl in my own two hands and heard it playback through my speakers as the needle took a plastic ride through history.

Of the fifteen songs, two were sung in Cree, a surprising feature considering the total suppression of Indigenous languages in residential schools, but even the … Read More »