Survivors of the Christie Residential School set out in boatloads from Tofino on Thursday to set foot on the grounds they desperately wanted to run and swim away from as children.

Now grey-haired, in wheelchairs, and supported by family, they surrounded the building that has haunted them for 70 years and more and watched it get demolished.

“I have mixed feeling about it. It’s a painful place to grow up. I was just going on to seven years old, and I spent eight years here,” said former student Thomas Rush.

“I walked these floors and I walked these grounds when I went to school here,” said former student Thomas John, who is now 60-years-old.

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“It was quite a memory walking up the road today. I haven’t been here in many, many years and little memories come back

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