The Daylu Dena Council officially opened its new cultural and administration building in Lower Post, B.C. on Friday — an event marked largely by celebration, and a sense of reclamation in the wake of a horrific past.

Dene Kǫ^, meaning "People's House," sits by the Liard River, a bright wooden two-storey structure with 36 offices, meeting spaces, a commercial kitchen and a gymnasium. It's also just steps from the site of the Daylu Dena Council's last office — the former Lower Post residential school building, which was finally torn down in 2021. "It's a day of mixed emotions," Daylu Dena Council deputy chief Harlan Schilling said in an interview.

"It's been my whole life fighting to get rid of a building and so we were able to do that three years ago, and now, to be here today at the grand opening of our new building...

It's pretty emotional." The lobby of the main entrance of the Dene Kǫ^ building in Lower Post, B.C.

, photographed on June 21, 2024 from the second floor. The wooden beams across the ceiling are meant to resemble the back of a hand drum. (Jackie Hong/CBC) Indigenous children from across the Yukon and northern British Columbia attended the Lower Post residential school, which was operated by the Catholic Church and later, the Canadian government, beginning in 1951.

While the school ceased operations in 1975, the Daylu Dena Council, due to a lack of funding and available space, then used the building as its office until it flooded in 2020. A ceremonial dem.