The Residential Schools Locations Dataset in shapefile format contains the locations (latitude and longitude) of Residential Schools and student hostels operated by the federal government in Canada. All the residential schools and hostels that are listed in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement are included in this data set, as well as several Industrial schools and residential schools that were not part of the IRRSA. This version of the dataset doesn’t include the five schools under the Newfoundland and Labrador Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
The original school location data was created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and was provided to the researcher (Rosa Orlandini) by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in April 2017. The data set was created by Rosa Orlandini, and builds upon and enhances the previous work of the Truth and Reconcilation Commission, Morgan Hite (creator of the Atlas of Indian Residential Schools in Canada that was produced for the Tk'emlups First Nation and Justice for Day Scholar's Initiative, and Stephanie Pyne (project lead for the Residential Schools Interactive Map). Each individual school location in this dataset is attributed either to RSIM, Morgan Hite, NCTR or Rosa Orlandini.
Many schools/hostels had several locations throughout the history of the institution. If the school/hostel moved from its’ original location to another property, then the school is considered to have two unique locations in this data set,the original location and the new location. For example, Lejac Indian Residential School had two locations while it was operating, Stuart Lake and Fraser Lake. If a new school building was constructed on the same property as the original school building, it isn't considered to be a new location, as is the case of Girouard Indian Residential School. When the precise location is known, the coordinates of the main building are provided, and when the precise location of the building isn’t known, an approximate location is provided.
For each residential school institution location, the following information is provided: official names, alternative name, dates of operation, religious affiliation, latitude and longitude coordinates, community location, Indigenous community name, contributor (of the location coordinates), school/institution photo (when available), location point precision, type of school (hostel or residential school) and list of references used to determine the location of the main buildings or sites.
The geographic coordinate system for this dataset is WGS 1984. The data in shapefile format [IRS_locations.zip] can be viewed and mapped in a Geographic Information System software. Detailed metadata in xml format is available as part of the data in shapefile format. In addition, the field name descriptions (IRS_locfields.csv) and the detailed locations descriptions (IRS_locdescription.csv) should be used alongside the data in shapefile format.
(2019-05-10)
