The heart of one of Canada’s oldest and most notorious educational institutions is about to be renewed thanks to a forthcoming Indigenous center for cultural excellence called Mukqua Waakaa’igan on the campus of Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. 

Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Smoke Architecture are the team behind the plan to build the space that will serve as an important hub to the university. Its name translates to “Bear’s lodge” in Anishinaabemowin and is evocative of its use as a learning archive and place of healing for the Indigenous community. The architects say their proposal was developed in homage to the triadic directions of Memory, Present, and Future laid forth in a native text called The Sweetgrass Path. 

According to the university, Mukqua Waakaa’igan is meant as a showcase for the decades-long pursuit of “truth-telling work” undertaken by the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre. Aside from the archive, the center also features a home for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, according to Canadian Architect.

The university is located on the site of a former church-run residential school that was closed in 1970. Several children are buried in unmarked graves around the campus and the school is well known to have meted out many of the same abuses that typified life for students in residential schools across Canada. The nation is still in the process of coming to grips with the legacy of dehumanizing pain and daily atrocity that the system imposed on so many, which is an element the design team says motivated their desire to create a space geared toward sharing and social justice.  

“In carrying out this project with the utmost compassion toward victims of the aforementioned institution, as well as being conscious of the ongoing investigation currently happening there, our aspiration is to mark a step forward in the reconciliation process,” Moriyama & Teshima Architects said. “The project signifier, the bear, represents healing.”