The Long Road Home 

One Man’s Journey from Residential School to Reconciliation  

On June 21st, we mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day of celebration, reflection, and gratitude. 

Today Larry is proud of who is he, but that pride did not come easily. It was earned through decades of pain, survival and a long, slow walk toward healing. 

“I am First Nation,” he says. “I was a drunk and I’m a survivor from residential school. Larry William Joseph. First Nation and I’m proud to be First Nation now. I’ll tell you why, pal.” 

A survivor’s story 

Larry grew up on Turner Island, off the coast of British Columbia. As a child, he was taken to residential school – one of thousands of Indigenous children separated from their families, their language, and their culture by a system designed to erase who they were. What happened in those schools left wounds that took a lifetime to carry. 

For many years, alcohol was how Larry survived the weight of it. He drank to forget. He drank to cope. He drank because the pain was real and the tools to face it had been stripped away before he was old enough to know what he had lost. 

But Larry is also a cancer survivor. And somewhere along the road from Turner Island to Port Hardy, he found sobriety. He found himself. And he found a place that would become home – because home, as Executive Director Michael Winter puts it, is simply where your two feet are.

Eight years 

Larry has been coming to the Mount Waddington Community Ministries Centre of Hope for eight years. In that time, he has built something rare – a genuine friendship with Michael, who has been in Port Hardy since 2013. 

Michael knows this community the way you only can when you have stayed through the hard seasons, when you have sat across the table from the same people year after year and watched them fight for their lives. Larry is one of those people. And their relationship is one of the things that makes the Centre what it is.

“He started walking around,” Michael recalls, “saw The Salvation Army, and asked if there was a place to stay.” 

That was the beginning. Eight years later, Larry is still here. Still sober. Still showing up. 

Forgive yourself first 

When Larry talks about what he has learned, he does not speak in abstractions. He speaks from the ground of his own experience – the kind of knowing that only comes from having lived it. 

“Forgive yourself first,” he says. “Now I’m a little angel.” 

There is humour in that. There is also something profound. Reconciliation, in its truest sense, is not just about governments and policies and formal apologies. It is about a man standing in his own skin and deciding that he is worth something. That his story is worth telling. That the people who tried to take his identity did not succeed. 

Larry William Joseph is First Nation. He is a residential school survivor. He is a cancer survivor. He is eight years sober. He is a friend. He is, as he says, a little angel.

A place built for this 

The Centre of Hope, operated by The Salvation Army, was built for people like Larry – and by people who understand that healing is not a program. It is a relationship. It is showing up, day after day, year after year, until someone knows they are not alone. 

“It’s not just about providing services,” Michael says. “It’s about how we interact with people and relate with people, because these are human lives.” 

This National Indigenous Peoples Day, we honour the survivors. We honour the ones who chose to stay. And we honour the places – and the people – that made staying possible. 

To learn more or to support the Centre of Hope in Port Hardy, visit waddingtonhope.ca or donate online at donate.salvationarmy.ca/page/62742/donate/1 

By Sipili Molia