Gertrude Pierre    
i‘yal-xwema’t 
Shíshálh First Nation

I have to tell my story

I have to share what has happened to me and not keep it a secret anymore. Because I’ve held onto it for too long. It’s how we all start our healing journey.

I was only six years old when I went to Residential School.

Before that, life was all about family, all about being around our grandparents, our parents, our brothers and sisters. 

A lot of the stories that were told to me through the years, revealed extremely harsh and hazardous living conditions at the residential schools; this included hunger and malnutrition, poor heating and sanitation, inadequate clothing, and exposure to contagious diseases. Many students suffered sexual, physical, mental, spiritual and emotional abuse by the priest, brothers, sisters and other staff who were at the school.

The traumas of the abuses that we suffered at Residential School caused the dislocation and loss of our cultural heritage and our language. A lot of alcohol and drug addiction, violence and family breakdowns are the continuations of the effects caused from Residential School. Many of the descendants of survivors have experienced and continue to experience intergenerational effects as 
a result of unresolved trauma they carry with them today. 

I have attended funerals and walked up to the graveyard and seen all the elders, and the young men and women who died and never had a chance to tell their stories of Residential School. It saddens me to think that they could still be here with us if they had experienced the spiritual healing that they needed to help them live.

Once I went to Residential School, family wasn’t family any more. Before I went to Residential School, it was the happiest time of my life.  

 

Eric MacPherson
Gitxsan Nation

People have to wake up to the true history.

And I see it as not just the healing of the people but the healing of the country, it’s healing of the institutions, it’s healing of ways of doing things. 

Residential School was just getting the Native people out of the way, so others could continue to extract resources out of traditional Native lands. It really disrupted the community, the clans, the nations.

I think the most important thing in reconciliation work is the listening. You know, is the government, are the churches listening, to Native people? This is a very difficult part, it’s a sore part, it’s a hurtful part. We’re working with people who haven’t been listened to. Now they are getting a chance to be heard.

 

Seis^^lom
Government Name: Glen Williams
Lil’wat Nation

Many of us defied the rule about not speaking our language.

I’m very fortunate today. I think I may be one of the only ones in the family, including my cousins, who was able to retain the language. I was in grade four when I first arrived there at the old school, in 1959. I was there for about three years and then I heard talk about going to a new school because the old school was falling apart and it was so cold in the winter. 

We need to get back on track with our own way, our own land base and our own philosophy, and live with what we’ve got left. We can be our own worst enemy when we don’t acknowledge that we do have something to offer. 

We need to raise our own consciousness and own the fact that we are not poor people, we are not victims. 

 

Louis Joseph   
Tlowitsis Nation

They took my parents away when I was only six years old.

The Indian agent was trying to come and give me new clothes and everything, you know. Trying to cheer me up, and I just turned around and threw the clothes back in their faces and said, “I don’t want this. I want my mom and dad.” 

That’s what you call hardship. 

There is another thing. The government was trying to cut us off from culture, Indian dance and potlatch and everything like that. They were trying to stop us from doing that; you know we kept on going anyway. I survived all that, through all this. And I’ve seen the ones that grew up in Residential School back home, they’re all gone now. I’m still here to tell that story. I know what tough times 
are all about.

 

Anissa Innes
St’at’imc Nation

 Survivors want everybody to know how strong they’ve become.

They’ve spent years coping. We need to hear their side of the story. Aboriginal Youth are affected by Residential School today. Our language is almost gone, it’s not being taught to the youth, it’s not being spoken enough nowadays. 

 

Cory Robinson  
Cree Nation 

Participate. Talk to your elders and ask 
your family questions.

Learn as much as you can around the government or Residential Schools.  Be forward thinking, and learn more now and then later down the road you’ll be that much more knowledgeable. We as First Nations people are picking ourselves up.

 

Patricia Tuckanow   
Cree Nation

As a Residential School survivor, I  was like a scared animal.

When I first got out I didn’t know where I fit in or whether I belonged. I first started to be friends with some of the police officers because they sort of helped me. My focus was to try for better relationships between our people and that’s how I become involved with youth and elders and different walks of life, like street people. 

And only then could I learn to forgive what had happened to me with the abuse I suffered through the Residential School. 

It was hard for me to have a positive attitude toward a lot of things. It was only after going back to my culture and opening my heart truly and honestly with all earnestness and believing in my teachers, my elders, my people – I realized I was of a very meaningful, wonderful, powerful people that I should be proud of. 

I had to learn how to be a human being first.

 

Ruth Alfred   
Namgis Nation

Parents had their children ripped from their arms.

It often involved police and government workers, social workers. And it impacted the parents in a way that many of them turned to destructive alcoholism. It broke some people. 

Before my grandmother and people of her era went to Residential School, they did a lot of different things, like hunting and fishing, travelling to each other’s villages. They did things like that with their parents and grandparents. You know, it was a good family life for all of them, until the Residential Schools came into play. 

I know there was a lot of disruption because children were taken away from their villages. Families were broken apart as a result. 

I think people should know of the abuses that went on in Residential School, and the way they were run. There were a lot of disciplinary measures that shouldn’t have happened. 

 

Jolene Andrew 
Wet’suwet’en and  Gitxsan Nations 

 Familes never gave up on their children. They cried for them, fought for them, searched for them, dreamed of them, worked hard for them, tried to find a better way. My poor grandmother died from pneumonia, that’s what the doctors said. She had 13 children. My mom was the youngest and never got to see her mom growing up. My grandmother died before her children could return from Residential School. Maybe she died of heartbreak.  

 

Ambrose Williams  
Gitxsan Nation

You know, I always thought the Residential School system was very similar to the foster care system today. I’ve heard things in class where there are now more Aboriginal kids in the care of the Ministry than there ever were in the Residential School setting.

They shut down the schools, but they’re still taking the children.

 

Paul Alexander
St’at’imc Nation

Youth of today are affected by what they were taught from their parents.

My dad went to Residential School. My mom told me stories about her brothers and sisters that went there. Children were removed from their families. Most children were abused, sexually abused, their hair was cut. What Aboriginal people went through is still in their everyday living. Flashbacks – they drink to forget – yet still remembering.  

 

Brittany Stewart
Sliammon Nation

Aboriginal youth are still affected because when I had attended regular public school I witnessed the students still dividing themselves by nationality as well as the colour of their own skin. I still heard negative racial comments about being Aboriginal. I believe Canadians should understand that it’s still going to be a long process for the Aboriginal Communities to heal the broken relationships that still exist. 

 

Susan Powell / Inyanskawin     
Oglala Lakota

It has been a relatively short time in history that Aboriginal people in Canada have been in such a difficult place, due to the oppression of colonization. 

The prophecies of many of our people spoke of a long, hard winter.

But they also said that there would be springtime. And they told us that this time, right now, is that springtime where we would be reclaiming our strength to live life the way we choose, according to the cultural teachings of our ancestors.