Mohawk Institute Residential School reopens as a museum

Among the very first group of visitors to walk through the doors of the old Mohawk Institute − the former residential school that officially reopened as a museum this week − was 68-year-old Beverly Albrecht. Unlike most of the visitors, Ms. Albrecht didn’t require the assistance of signs or a guide to find her way around.

That’s because every inch and step of this building was imprinted on her from the time she was a child. From 1966 until 1970 – from the time she was seven until about 11 – Ms. Albrecht, a member of the Cayuga Nation, was a residential school student here. And it’s where, in the 1940s, Ms. Albrecht’s mother, too, was a residential school student.