A new project from award-winning journalist Connie Walker aims to create an archive of testimonies of abuse at residential schools before the accounts are destroyed in September 2027.  "It just made me feel like we should be doing whatever we can to preserve as many survivor accounts as we possibly can," said Walker, who is a member of Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan.   "There are 38,000 records of survivors that are set to be destroyed … and I think that a lot of people don't know that this is about to happen." Her Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's looked into her father's experience at a Catholic-run residential school in Duck Lake, Sask., and was a profound experience, according to Walker. She said she hopes the archive will allow people to develop the same understanding of other schools.

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Funny Haha meme I did of my ocs, well, at least the ones that can own a cellphone or already do. Some are in pj-oct and some are just debuting here.

Connie in a soft color palette!! Here they are

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We found 15 staff members, 13 nuns and 17 Oblate priests accused of sexual abuse at St Michael's. Against these 45 adults, we counted 219 allegations, which means the majority of these alleged abusers had more than one allegation against them. And in many cases, the allegations did not refer to a single incident, but abuse that continued over weeks, months or even years.

-Connie Walker, Surviving St Michael's, Episode 7

How Connie Walker Got Us Listening

The Pulitzer Prize–winning podcaster is changing journalism as we know it

True crime podcasts typically aim to solve a mystery by finding an ending, by uncovering new evidence or pointing a finger at the likely killer, like a campfire story meant to thrill and frighten. Indigenous stories, too, are often reduced to their tragic endings: a brutal death, a haunting absence. But Walker goes in the other direction, by showing who a person was before they became a statistic, emphasizing the complexity and humanity of her subjects while avoiding the genre’s tendency to sensationalize the most lurid details of their deaths. And she reaches back even farther, to show how their life and death were shaped by the complex legacy of colonialism that ripples across generations.

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Read the March/April 2024 issue of The Walrus now at thewalrus.ca!

4 Totally Addictive Podcasts You Need in Your Life ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ @MyTherapistSays ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ https://mytherapistsays.ca/4-totally-addictive-podcasts-you-need-in-your-life/

We all love a good podcast. Whether it’s true crime and or celebs interviewing other celebs, we’re here for it, and we know you are, too. So we rounded up four amazingly addictive podcasts that you need to listen to, like, right now.

  “The Dropout”

If you haven’t already listened to this one, put it at the top of your list. Not only is the story of the deception and downfall of Theranos’ founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes compelling, but host Rebecca Jarvis’ amazing storytelling will have you binging the whole series.

  “RedHanded”

“My Favorite Murder” fans, listen up! This true crime podcast, hosted by two lovely British women named Suruthi and Hannah, explores gruesome, grisly and just downright sad murders. It’s dark and, at times, graphic, but the amount of research these ladies put in is on-point. Start with the episode on Gypsy Rose Blanchard, if you’re just as obsessed with The Act as the rest of us.

  “Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo”

This is not a light-hearted podcast by any means, but once you start it, you’ll be completely drawn in by Cleo’s story and the mystery surrounding what happened to her. Cleo was an indigenous girl from Canada who was adopted into an American family in the “Sixties Scoop.” Her biological family believed she had been raped and murdered when she was just 13 while trying to return home to Saskatchewan. What the family and investigative journalist Connie Walker find is not at all what they thought they were going to discover. If you are fascinated by true crime and lesser known parts of history, make this podcast your next binge.

  “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard”

For all the eavesdroppers out there, this will be your jam. Dax Shepard lets us be a fly on the wall as he interviews celebs about deep topics while somehow keeping it light. Start with the Dr. Phil episode for a surprisingly candid interview that is both funny and deep.