“We Survived the Night”: Remembering and Resisting Erasure - 10.13.2025

Julian Brave NoiseCat’s We Survived the Night is a haunting and profoundly moving work that reclaims Indigenous history and survival from the shadow of colonial genocide. A member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation, NoiseCat weaves together personal memoir, family tragedy, and investigative journalism to expose the enduring trauma of North America’s residential schools.

His father, Ed Archie NoiseCat, was found as a newborn in a garbage incinerator at the Catholic-run St. Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia—one of hundreds of such institutions designed to erase Indigenous identity. Through both his book and Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane, NoiseCat confronts this legacy of abuse and silence, and challenges the Catholic Church’s refusal to fully acknowledge its systemic crimes.

The phrase “We survived the night,” derived from a Secwepemctsín morning greeting, captures generations of resilience—those who endured disease, forced assimilation, and cultural erasure yet continued to survive. NoiseCat’s work reminds us that truth and remembrance are acts of resistance, and that Indigenous survival is not just history—it is the living heartbeat of this continent.