NWT Art Centre Initiative paints promising picture for Akaitcho Hall site

Bob Overvold attended Akaitcho Hall student residence in the early 1960s, and notes while it wasn’t a “residential school per se, not like the ones in Aklavik, Fort Providence and Fort Resolution” you still had students who came from out of town and were away from their families for 10 months of the year.

During a ceremony on October 1st to bless the empty lot next to École Sir John Franklin High School to allow the NWT Art Centre Initiative to start pre-construction work, Overvold praised the organizers for “going out of their way to try to do this properly … so I commend them and I applaud them for that.”

In a two-hour ceremony on an overcast fall day, emcee William Greenland explained that Akaitcho Hall operated from 1958 to 1994, housing students from across the Northwest Territories attending Sir John Franklin High School.

The site is associated with the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, although Greenland emphasized that Akaitcho Hall was a residence rather than a residential school.

“We’re here to honour the land before work begins towards a new art gallery on this location,” said Greenland. “This is a ceremony for everyone, for people who lived at a Akaitcho Hall, people who work on the art gallery project, and also this is a ceremony for all of us as a community.

“Maybe we have walked by this place many times, wondering what’s with this place here? This ceremony is for you. Also, people that come into Yellowknife from different communities across the Northwest Territories that are familiar with this area. This ceremony is for you too.”

Art Centre proponent Adrian Bell described the initiative, created in 2022, as a private, non-government project to develop a non-commercial gallery and visual-art community centre.

The proposed space would showcase artwork, particularly Indigenous artwork from across the Northwest Territories, support young Northerners, and include a residential school resource space.

“The NWT Art Center Initiative began as a possible answer to a well-known problem — the NWT is full of talented artists, but the beautiful and meaningful things they create don’t stay in the North,” said Bell, a prominent real estate agent and former city councillor.

“Most of them, for many, many years, have flown south. We don’t have an adequate space to display and to appreciate the work of our own artists. Young Northerners don’t have a chance to be inspired by the artwork of our own artists, and the artists that came before them, and our visitors don’t get a chance to hear the stories of the people as told through the visual arts.”

As for funding, at the very start of the project, the group connected with a private foundation that offered financial support to get it off the ground. Another private funding source is in the wings, as the next steps in securing public funding are nailed down.

“When our board was presented with this former Akaitcho Hall site as a possible location, they were immediately struck by the importance of the opportunity,” said Bell.

“This was a chance to create something beautiful and respectful in a place with a very challenging history, and within the new building, to include displays and spaces that will not only acknowledge the legacy of the residential school system, but will help to ensure that future generations never forget about it.”

Thursday’s ceremony attracted dozens of supporters, students and teachers from the neighbouring high school, and curious community members to watch drummers and Elders explain the reasons for the event and the significance of the area.

Former students representing different decades, from the 1960s through the 1990s, spoke and Dene Elder Beʼsha Blondin performed the blessing as her son, Grant, smudged the mound of rocks and brush covering the former site of the hall.

The former school residence site has stood vacant since the 1950s-era building was demolished in 2007.

The GNWT and Friends of the Northwest Territories Art Gallery, operating as the NWT Art Centre Initiative, signed an MOU to allow for pre-construction work to take place on the site.

The GNWT controls the site and holds it for use by Yellowknife Education District No. 1, which is supportive of the proposal.

The MOU sets out the work that must be completed before any land transfer can be made.

This includes completing required consultation, completing environmental assessments of the site, addressing any environmental or other liabilities, and completing any required surveying, rezoning, subdivision and land title work.