WHAT SURVIVORS REMEMBER
Alongside its recommendations Tuesday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a compendium of stories from some of the survivors of the residential school system. Here are some of their voices:
ON USING THEIR OWN LANGUAGE
“A sister, a nun started talking to me in English and French, and yelling at me. I did not speak English, and didn’t understand what she, what she was asking. She got very upset, and started hitting me all over my body, hands, legs and back. I began to cry, yell, and became very scared, and this infuriated her more. She got a black strap and hit me some more. My brother, Eddie, Edward, hear me screaming, and came to get me.” Marcel Guiboche, at Pine Creek School. “Just for saying thank you to someone who gave me something in the school. I was caught by a brother of one of the workers, and I was strapped so severely that when we went to supper, my cousin Ivan had to feed me because my hands were so swollen from the straps.” Alan Knockwood, punished for speaking his own language at Shubenacadie.
ON LOSS OF IDENTITY
“My name was Lydia, but in the school I was, I didn’t have a name, I had numbers. I had Number 51, Number 44, Number 32, Number 16, Number 11, and then finally Number 1 when I was just about coming to high school. So, I wasn’t, I didn’t have a name, I had numbers. You were called 32, that’s me and all our clothes were, had 32 on them. All our clothes and footwear, they all had Number 32, Number 16, whatever number they gave me.” Lydia Ross, a student at Cross Lake. “I didn’t know I had an older sister until I was I think probably 13 years old and somebody came and introduced us and said that we were sisters.” Sheila Gunderson, who went to residential schools in the Northwest Territories.
ON BEING REMOVED FROM THEIR HOMES
“They load(ed) us all up on a bus and took us. And I remember my mom had a really hard time letting us kids go, and she had, she had a really hard time. She begged the priest, and the priest said it was law that we had to go, and if we didn’t go, then my parents would be in trouble.” Maureen Gloria Johnson, who was taken to Lower Post School in northern British Columbia in 1959. “I was kidnapped from Port Renfrew’s elementary school when I was around six years old, and this happened right in the elementary schoolyard. And my auntie witnessed this, and another nonnative witnessed this. ... These are two witnesses trying, saw me fighting, trying to get away with, from the two RCMP officers that threw me in the back seat of the car and drove off with me. And my mom didn’t know where I was for three days, frantically stressed out and worried about where I was, and she finally found out that I was in Kuper Island residential school.” Howard Stacy Jones “We got taken away by a big truck. I can still remember my mom and dad looking at us, and they were really, really sad looking. My dad’s shoulders were just hunched, and he, to me, looked like his spirit was broken.” Alma Scott, taken to the Fort Alexander, Man., school when she was five.
ON ARRIVAL
“As soon as we entered the residential school, the abuse started right away. We were stripped, taken up to a dormitory, stripped. Our hair was sprayed. ... They put Oxfords on our feet, ’cause I know my feet hurt. They put dresses on us. And were made, we are always praying, we were always on our knees. We were told we were little, stupid savages, and that they had to educate us.” Elaine Durocher, taken to the Roman Catholic school in Kamsack, Sask. “You know, to get stripped like that by a female, you know, you don’t even know ... it was embarrassing, humiliating. And then she’d have this, you know, look or whatever it was in her eyes, you know. And then she would comment about your private parts and stuff like that ...” Brian Rae, given a physical inspection by female staff at the Fort Frances, Ont., school.