When looking into and exploring Canadas history, most Canadians have come to believe that it is a history mostly characterized by that of peace, with the country achieving its independence from Britain peacefully. This not accurate, however, when looking into the significant dark history associated with the poor treatment of Canadas Aboriginal Peoples by the Canadian white settlers and government. The purpose of this document analysis was to analyze an aspect of this history in Ontario and how it holds historical, social, and cultural significance. With this, the document under investigation is a photo taken in 1960 of the Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium in what is now Thunder bay, Ontario. The Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium and other Indian Hospitals like it amounted to a total of 22 hospitals with more than 2,200 beds, [and operated] mostly in Ontario, to racially segregate Canadian Aboriginal patients from the general population, mainly treating those suffering from tuberculosis which plagued the Aboriginal population. The implicit historical, social, and cultural implications of this facility are increasingly noteworthy and are important when exploring
its significance to post-World War Two Ontario. The historical significance of the Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium and other Indian Hospitals like it can be analyzed through the initial reasons for the creation of these facilities, highlighting the purposes they served; and relating it to the prevalence of tuberculosis in the Aboriginal population as opposed to the non-Aboriginal population, which led to the former developing a negative/unfair/and unrealistic stereotype. Additionally, the cultural significance of the Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium and other Indian Hospitals like it, can be similarly tracked by analyzing their true purpose, analyzing what grounds determined ones admittance to these facilities, in addition to how their use is almost universally tied to the modernization of Canadas National (white) Healthcare. Finally, the social significance of the Fort William Indian Hospital Sanatorium and other Indian Hospitals like it can be analyzed by highlighting the practices of these facilities, looking into the experience of its Aboriginal patients, in addition to what our society today thinks on the significance and implications of these facilities.