I first talked about this story in 2021 – but given that there still seems to be an inability to figure out what reconciliation means, on the part of Canada (both collectively and individually) or worse yet, resistance to wanting to figure out what reconciliation means; this story is as important today as it was four years ago.
In the same way that the Canadian government established the residential schools system, for the express purpose of getting “rid of the Indian problem” (Duncan Campbell Scott – deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932) through unequal, and forced assimilation; the same thing was happening to the indigenous peoples of the United States, and in particular Alaska. It is important to note that a majority of the Indigenous peoples of Alaska had been Orthodox Christians for almost two hundred years. One of these children was a 12 year old girl – Sophia Tetoff.
Sophia Tetoff was an orphan, and in 1896 she was taken from the people and home she knew on St. Paul Island, Alaska to eventually live in a boarding school (the American version of residential schools) in Pennsylvania, where she died 1906 from TB. A time consuming process of locating and returning Sophia to her home was undertaken by Andrew and Lauren Peters (distant relatives) where she was greeted by the whole of the community of St Paul’s Island. Her funeral was one she would have understood – sung in her own language, with traditional melodies and with customs she would have known.
There is much we can learn from the work to honour Sophia, as we strive to understand what reconciliation looks like. May the Lord inspire us to bestow such dignity and respect, for those who had their dignity, respect, family, language and culture taken away from them! Truly may we strive to honour the lives of these children, like Sophia Tetoff, and commit them to the mercy and love of our Lord, and the Kingdom of Heaven.
A beautiful piece that documented this journey can be viewed at https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/uc-davis-family-rematriates-their-ancestor-alaska-native-school