The Residential School System (RSS), as defined by the Federal Government, was limited to 139 schools that operated across Canada between 1831 and 1996. This definition is controversial and excludes provincially administered schools, as well as Hostels and Day Schools. Residential Schools existed in almost all provinces and territories, and in the North also took the form of hostels and tent camps. The earliest recognized and longest-running Residential School was the Mohawk Institute, in Brantford, Ontario, which operated from 1831 to 1962. The last federally-run school, the Gordon Indian Residential School in Punnichy, Saskatchewan, closed in 1996 and was subsequently demolished. Grollier Hall in Inuvik, NT, was run by the Anglican Church and was in operation until 1997. Although this marked the end of the Residential School era, Day Schools, and Government child apprehension policies, placed them into non-Indigenous homes and began a new era where many other horrific experiences happened to Indigenous children, with generations of families continuing to be negatively impacted by these experiences.
