Homecoming: Reconnecting Survivors with Land, Culture, and Community

Ontario Akwesasne, March 31, 2026
For many Sixties Scoop Survivors, the journey toward healing includes reconnecting with the places, cultures, and relationships that were disrupted through displacement. The Homecoming Project led by Kermode Friendship Society creates space forthat reconnection by welcoming Survivors back into community through ceremony, culture, and shared experience.

Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre


Inspired by a powerful homecoming gathering held in Haida Gwaiiin 2007, the project follows a similar spirit of return and belonging. In that gathering, individuals who had been fostered away from their home communities were invited back for several days of cultural celebration, feasts, and ceremony. The experience created an opportunity for people to reconnect with family, culture, and land some for the first time in decades.
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Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre


The Homecoming Project brings that same vision to participants living in and around Terrace, offering Sixties Scoop Survivors a chance to strengthen cultural identity and community ties. Cultural Teachings and Ceremony Throughout the program, participants take part in activities that reflect traditional cultural practices of the region. These experiencesmay include regalia making, traditional singing and drumming, storytelling, and learning about clan systems and family structures. Participants may also beformally welcomed and seated with their Clan such as Bear, Whale, Eagle, or Frog and their Wilp (House) during community feasts and gatherings.
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Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre

Hands-on cultural learning is an important part of the experience. Participants may engage in traditional food preparation, such as smoking salmon or drying eulachon, as well as harvesting medicines and creating items like Devil’s Club salve and traditional teas. Other teachings may include moose hide tanning, cedar hat making, and the sharing of oral histories and traditional knowledge.
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Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre


These teachings reconnect participants with practices that havebeen carried forward by generations of Indigenous Peoples in the region. 

A Return to Place and Identity 

For many Survivors, returning to cultural spaces can be deeply emotional. Participants often describe the powerful feeling of being welcomed home of knowing where they belong and feeling connected to the land and the people who have lived there for thousands of years.The program recognizes that these moments may bring both joy and grief. Alongside celebration and cultural revitalization, there can also be reflection on the loss experienced through colonial policies such as residential schools, foster care placements, adoption, and the Sixties Scoop.
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Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre

By holding space for both healing and remembrance, the Homecoming Project allows participants to reconnect with identity while honouring the experiences that shaped their journeys. 

Building Community Through Healing 

The Kermode Friendship society has long supported Indigenous individuals and families through cultural programming and community services. The Homecoming Project continues this work by creating opportunities for Survivors to rebuild relationships with culture, land, and community in meaningful ways.

Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre


Through ceremony, shared meals, storytelling, and cultural learning, participants are reminded that they are not alone in their experiences. They are part of living communities that continue to honour tradition while supporting healing for future generations.
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Photo courtesy of: Kermode Friendship Centre


For many Survivors, homecoming is more than a visit it is a step toward reclaiming identity, restoring connections, and strengthening the bonds that carry culture forward.
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For more information on the National Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation of Canada, please visit our website here: https://www.sixtiesscoophealingfoundation.ca/
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