Four weeks after school was interrupted by gunfire at the La Loche Community School's Dene Building, the halls are beginning to stir with students and school administrators.
Sneakers squeak against the gym's hardwood floor as the boys’ volleyball team practices playing pepper — a game of bump, set and spike. In the library, school administrators sit around a table talking. A few metres from the high school’s entrance, two women sit at a counselling sign-up table. A poster on the door outside tells people who don't want to enter the school that there's a phone number they can call for counselling.
“It was a big tragedy that happened in our community. However, we are a very, very strong community,” says Leanne Gailey, vice-principal at the nearby Ducharme Building, the town’s elementary school.
“There's no 'I' in this process. This is a 'we' effort and we are pulling through each day. We're going to come out very strong.”
Gailey is from La Loche and has worked in the northern Saskatchewan community’s elementary school for six years. She’s sitting at a table in the main hall of the Dene Building with the high school’s vice-principal, Donna Janvier.
The table is scattered with markers and pages from colouring books. The two vice-principals are discussing the journey to reclaim the high school.
“We're resilient and we have all the support we need right now,” says Janvier.
“That's our ultimate goal: reclaim our high school and reclaim our school and get back to some sort of normalcy,” adds Gailey.
The high school was the scene of a mass shooting Jan. 22. A shooter allegedly killed two brothers at a home in the town before storming the school where a teacher and a teacher’s aide were fatally shot and seven other people were injured.
An 18-year-old, who can’t be identified because he was 17 at the time of the incident, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of attempted murder and one count of unauthorized possession of a firearm.
The students, Janvier and Gailey say, are a source of inspiration as the community works to recover.
Across town, laughter and cheering is heard outside the community's hockey rink. Children race against a clock to pile wood, carry bags of flour and hammer a nail into a log. It's a competition and just one part of La Loche's five-day winter festival.
Inside the rink, boys and girls play hockey.
“It's really fun. It's my favourite sport, so I like playing it,” says Logan Gailey.
La Loche has a winter festival every year, but for members of the community, this year's event seems more special. It's a chance for families to come together as students prepare to head back to class for the first time since the shooting.
“They're still hurting, but you can still see a lot of growth,” says Farris Lemaigre, a worker at the La Loche Friendship Centre.
“A lot of kids are getting together, talking, laughing, crying together. It's just everybody's growing.”
Pauline Fontaine, an elder in the community who helps at the school, says the town must pull together.
"We have to move on, and the kids, they have to, too. They have to be at school and they have to bring up their education because they need it. It's not only today. They have to have that,” she says, sitting in her kitchen.
Mitts decorated in beads lie on her table. She teaches beadwork and several other skills at the school.
"It won't be easy, but I told them they have to keep on trying. And I hope they will do that," she says.
The town is organizing a “Reclaiming Our School” walk for Wednesday. No official date has been set for when classes will resume, but school officials say security will be present in both buildings.
Staff are set to return to the Dene Building on Monday — the same day the accused shooter, who is in custody at a Prince Albert youth facility, is scheduled to return to court in Meadow Lake.
