BOBBY BIRD BALLAD
‘The song wrote itself ’: Bergmann
A punk rock icon has penned a ballad to a Sask. boy who froze to death almost 50 years ago.
A Canadian punk rock icon has penned a ballad about a Saskatchewan boy who froze to death nearly 50 years ago after fleeing a residential school.
Art Bergmann hopes the song will honour 10-year-old Bobby Bird as well as thousands of other children who died while attending the schools.
“This is tragic, but it’s a beautiful story. The song wrote itself,” Bergmann, 62, said in a telephone interview from his home near Airdrie, Alta. “Bobby represents all of those vanished, damaged kids.”
Bobby’s family said they were honoured to have someone like Bergmann take an interest in the story. Bergmann sent them a copy of the song and asked for their blessing.
“It’s a really good song. I hope people will listen,” Bobby’s brother-in-law, John Masuskapeo, said from his home in North Battleford.
Bergmann also hopes the song, which is part of a comeback nearly 15 years in the making, will cause Canadians and their governments to ask themselves some tough questions.
“I have so much rage. Our society is built on theft and genocide against First Nations. You cannot turn every square inch of the world into money,” Bergmann said.
Bergmann was inspired after reading a StarPhoenix story about Bobby called Cold and Alone, which also appeared in the Calgary Herald. In the fall of 1969, Bobby went missing from the Timber Bay residential school, approximately 200 kilometres north of Saskatoon.
A limited search was unsuccessful and for decades no one knew for sure what had happened to the gregarious little boy. A Montreal Lake Cree Nation hunter discovered human remains in a bush several kilometres north of the school, but again, there was no way to be sure they were Bobby’s.
The dogged work of current and retired RCMP officers and University of Saskatchewan professors finally allowed Bobby’s family to get the answer they suspected after specialized DNA results came back. The remains were Bobby’s.
The family believes he died attempting to return home to north of La Ronge, more than 200 kilometres away.
Bergmann read the story several times and immediately put pen to paper. He read anything he could find about residential schools, including testimony from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After making several revisions to the song, he shared it with the family. Bergmann is now planning to release the album.
The Juno-award winning musician was a fixture in the North American punk rock scene in the late-1970s and ’80s. More than a decade ago, he went into a self-induced exile, the result of both his bitterness at consumer culture and his failing health. His spine is deteriorating, and he said it won’t be long before he can’t walk.
“My body’s disintegrating. If I want to say anything more, I have to do it now,” he said.
“This is my last kick at the can.”