St. Eugene strikes right balance between difficult history and bright future

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Silhouetted by the setting sun, the white teepee in the meadow surrounded by bunkers puts an exclamation mark on the round: This is no ordinary golf resort.

From the beautiful but imposing main building to the small interpretive centre, St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino, north of Cranbrook, B.C., showcases its Indigenous roots for guests flocking to the championship course.

It’s impossible not to know you’re on First Nations land when you tee up your ball. Historic signs scattered around the property indicate its past as a former residential school. From 1912 to 1970, the Kootenay Industrial School operated a large farm and housed 5,000 children who had been removed from their families on Ktunaxa, Secwepmc, Syilx, and Blackfoot nations. It was one of 130 schools founded across the nation as part of a federal government policy to assimilate Indigenous people and deny their language and culture. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has since called the policy and actions at this time “cultural genocide.”

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After the property closed, it sat abandoned for 22 years. But some were determined that wouldn’t be the end of their story.

“Since it was within the St. Eugene Mission School that the culture of the Kootenay Indian was taken away, it should be within that building that it is returned,” advised community Elder Mary Paul during debate over what to do with the property. Her words are now memorialized on a plaque in the lobby.

Former chief Sophie Pierre, a former student of the school, was inspired by those words and, a century after opening, the local Ktunaxa people took back the building. In doing so, they reclaimed their culture and turned a tragic story into a powerful economic one. In June 2017, St. Eugene Resort became solely owned by four area Ktunaxa bands and the Shuswap Indian Band.

“What got passed down from generation to generation is one of the backdrops of how they determined their traditional territory,” says Cindy Currie, events and booking co-ordinator with tkamnintik Children’s Truth and Reconciliation Society. “So when you look at the Creation Story, they had names for all the places already, all the way to Yellowhead Pass down to Missoula.”

An interpretive centre in the lower level of the mission building houses displays of early tools, baskets, furs, and black-and-white photographs of children in uniforms. A documentary running in a side room tells former students’ stories, and occasionally an elder will be there to speak about the mission and help guests understand what happened there.

Article content Article content Article content Today, the property has been repurposed with 125 guest rooms: 25 in the mission building and the rest in a newer lodge building. The mission rooms have historic touches such as original brick walls, antique furniture and penny tile in bathrooms.