The discovery last month of the remains of 215 Indigenous children - students of Canada's largest residential school - has prompted nationwide outrage and calls for further searches of unmarked graves.

It has also stirred a need to learn more about the history of our nation. Canadians questioning how we learned about residential schools.

Many have turned to a free course found available through the University of Alberta including a former resident of the Foothills, Alyshia-Grace Hobday.

Currently residing in Manitoba, she completed the certificate in Indigenous Canada late last year through the University. Having grown up in the Foothills she knows the education about residential schools in Canada just isn't there. 

"The things that I learned. It's not taught in our education system at all. I had no idea about the history of Canada and colonialism."

Her interest initially came from meeting her partner and musician William Prince in Manitoba.  

"William is a First Nation man from here in Manitoba and treaty one territory, and he grew up in a church environment and Christianity was used as a tool of colonization, and so through these times of Covid stepped back to the songs that healed him and what he knew and where he learned to sing. So that's kind of where it started but it brought on this conversation about the history of Canada and where these songs come from. So it's a really interesting story."

The Indigenous Canada course is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies that explores

Alyshia Grace Hobday and William Prince. Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada.

Taught from an Indigenous perspective, the course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations.

She says the knowledge of what really happened had, and still has, an effect on her.

"There's this moment halfway through the course when I really kind of broke down and I had different ideas and different thoughts about what I thought that I knew. I feel like I'm almost like deprogramming how I feel about Canada, and that's not a bad thing. It's OK and it's important."

Together we must push for the discovery of 215 children to be a tipping point for greater accountability and justice for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. 

Her partner William Prince was nominated for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year and English Songwriter of the Year at this year's Juno Awards, where he and Alyshia performed "The Spark" with Serena Ryder.