'This is their legacy': Schoolhouse becomes home for Squamish Nation Language Nest

A 111-year-old schoolhouse is now the permanent home for The Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) Language Nest program.

Inside the yellow schoolhouse, the next group of Squamish leaders are taking their first steps while learning the language of their ancestors.

They're the first generation in 90 years to learn it as a first language.

“A very historic day in a very historical building,” said Syexwáliya Ann Whonnock, a Squamish Nation spokesperson

Henry Hudson Elementary opened its doors in 1912 on the edge of Kits Point, near a Squamish village known as Senakw. 

It took a village to bring the wooden elementary school from Kitsilano to the North Shore, where it now serves as an important cultural space for Shamentsut Amanda Nahanee’s toddler.

“I feel like he’s going to be having this whole new experience that I didn’t get to have when I was his age,” Nahanee said. “He’s going to have a stronger foundation because of that.”

That foundation is being built on a language that almost went extinct. In 2010, there were only 20 fluent speakers of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim, or Squamish language.

Now there are more than 100, thanks to spaces like the Language Nest and the resilience of those who lived through residential schools and day schools, where speaking their own language was forbidden.

“This is their legacy,” said Samaya Jardey, the director of language and cultural affairs with the Squamish Nation. “This is a prayer answered for them to hear their language again echoed by our people.”

The schoolhouse is meant to feel like home. Language Nest teacher Cherie McFadyen likens it to going to an elder's home, because what’s happening here is much more than a language lesson.

“It’s giving our people as a whole our self-identity as being Squamish,” she said.

Nahanee agrees, as she watches her toddler embrace the language.

“He will be a future leader in this community,” Nahanee said. “It’s his responsibility. So he has to learn where he comes from. He has to learn his language.”