The City of Terrace is proud to support the many mural installations around our community, including a new one slated for installation during this year’s Riverboat Days—and the base coat is going on tonight!

The Skeena Salmon Arts Festival Society is working with world-renowned artist Roy Henry Vickers to paint the “Wall of Children,” which will honour those lost to the Indian Residential School system that operated in Canada until the 1980s. The image was inspired by the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, an event that brought forward the issues of residential schools to all of Canada and led to the ongoing discovery of many other unmarked graves at other residential schools across Canada.

The mural will be located on Kalum Street in front of the basketball/pickleball courts. Currently, this location has become an impromptu memorial to those lost to the ongoing toxic drug crisis. The City of Terrace recognizes that the mural location on Kalum St. has become an impromptu memorial to those lost to the ongoing toxic drug crisis, and that direct connections exist through the intergenerational trauma of residential school, drug and alcohol addictions, and associated deaths. We hope that this art installation will foster compassion and dialogue, and help bring healing to those that have been affected by residential schools.

Follow the Skeena Salmon Arts Festival Society for more information on this project.