It took many years for the pair to develop a mother-daughter relationship
WARNING: This story contains distressing details
Tauni Sheldon remembers the first time she saw her biological mom.
Sheldon was 23 years old.
It was 1993 and she was in the Winnipeg airport, having just flown in with her adoptive parents, Jim and Pam Sheldon.
Her birth mom was waiting at the bottom of the escalator.
"She had flowers and she looked up at me … and she just said, 'Wow, you're very tall,'" said Sheldon with a chuckle, adding that her mother is legally blind, but can see shapes and features.
Sheldon says she towered over her mother's petite frame as the two cried and tried to process what was happening.
"I was afraid and I was happy and excited, but I was also scared and angry, and I think it was a whole mix of 'Holy cow, like, this is real now,' and I think it was the same for her," said Sheldon.
CBC is not identifying Sheldon's birth mother after being unable to speak with her directly.
In 1970, Sheldon's birth mom was flown from Inukjuak, Que., to Thunder Bay, Ont., to give birth.
Sheldon was taken from her just hours after birth, and for more than two decades, her mom had no idea where she was.
Sheldon was adopted by a white family in southern Ontario. She was part of the Sixties Scoop — a period when Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their birth families, those families often having no idea where their children had gone.
As one of the estimated 20,000 survivors across Canada, Sheldon has since worked to build a relationship with her biological mother and move past the anger and trauma that tainted their relationship for decades.
Advertised for adoption in Toronto newspaper
In 1970, Sheldon's photo was posted in a column in a Toronto newspaper, the Toronto Telegram.
The advertisement included a description — and used an offensive and outdated term to describe Inuit, highlighting the racist attitudes surrounding the Sixties Scoop.
Sheldon compares it to a car ad.
"Little Miss Eskimo can't crawl yet but she moves around anyway, pulling with her arms and pushing with her sturdy legs. She's big for her age and has lovely almond-shaped eyes and round cheeks," read the column.
Ten months later, Sheldon was adopted.
Although she describes her adoptive family as "very loving," Sheldon says she grew up feeling as though she didn't truly belong in the southern Ontario town of Milton where they lived.
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