Dear Canada: These Are My Words

by Ruby Slipperjack

  My Anishinabe conversation is still okay. It was just the names of things that I was starting to forget. I just keep talking to myself so I don’t lose the words. I pretend that I am telling a story to Grandma.

  I twisted my ankle on my way from school this afternoon. It is pretty swollen. I’ve been limping around all evening and will probably have to limp around all weekend too.

  Saturday, March 11

  My ankle is not too bad this morning.

  I made a sketch of Grandma ice fishing. She’s kneeling down on a bed of spruce boughs. Her ice chisel is sticking into the snow beside the water hole. There’s the toboggan beside her and she’s holding a stick with her fishing line tied to the end of it. As always, she has her kerchief over her head and her thick scarf around her neck. I drew her shadow beside her but I then had to make shadows of all the other objects around her. I thought I was all done, but then noticed that I had missed the shadow of the chisel.

  I think she’ll laugh when she sees the size of the trout that’s lying on top of her toboggan.

  Monday, March 13

  There was an announcement on the intercom when we got home after school.

  We are being sent home for Easter!

  We are going home for Easter!!! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait!!

  Tuesday, March 14

  I just had a horrible thought. What if they find this diary and then, as punishment, what if they don’t let me go home? What if they find this before I can get away?

  I wish there was somewhere safe where I can hide it, but there is nowhere!

  Miss Tanner doesn’t pay much attention to us younger girls. It’s the oldest girls that she’s always on about. She found a pack of cigarettes in someone’s shoes yesterday. The girl was sent to the office. Don’t know what happened to her, but when she came back into the dorm, she looked like she had been crying.

  Friday, March 17

  It is St. Patrick’s Day today. I have no idea who St. Patrick is either. They say Saint, so he must have something to do with Church, like the man with the angels around him in the coloured windows at the Church. Maybe he is St. Patrick. But the angels look like little round naked boys — like the Cupid on our Valentine’s cards — that are flying around him. I have no idea. But then how would that have anything to do with the green clovers and green stringers they put up at the school? That makes no sense to me — at all!!

  We had shepherd’s pie for supper. Can’t figure out why they call it a pie when it is just hamburger with peas and corn and topped with potatoes! It was good anyway.

  I have nothing else to write about.

  Monday, March 20

  When we got here after school, the kids were hitting each other with snowballs. I was just about to run inside when the door opened. I glanced back and I saw Johnny with his eyes on me, so I ducked, and the snowball exploded right on Miss Tanner’s face as she was coming out the door! Everyone froze. She wiped the snow off her face and pointed to Johnny and pointed to the main door. She never said a word, and Johnny walked in front of her, with his neck buried in his shoulders, to the main door where the Principal’s office was. A few kids giggled when the door closed, but I ran inside and up the stairs to write this. That was quite funny actually!

  Tuesday, March 21

  Going home tomorrow!

  All the girls are bustling around, all very nervous and anxious to get out of here!

  We were given a pair of black pants and sweaters to wear home.

  We are not allowed to take anything else with us.

  Wednesday, March 22

  After breakfast, we were given a sandwich bag for our lunch. I shoved my diary booklets and my Blackie story, along with a pencil tucked between the pages, inside the front of my pants, and pulled the sweater over them before we lined up to go downstairs to get our jackets and boots on.

  I am on the train now and there are three of us girls. There are a lot of people coming and going along the aisle whenever the train stops.

  We ate our sandwiches whenever we got hungry. I shoved my papers into the empty paper bag. It was around noon when we had to get off to change trains. I remembered this place. It was where we had to spend the night in September. It seems like ages ago, in another lifetime.

  Finally, we are on the way home.

  One of the girls got off the train just around supper hour. I remembered her the first time I saw her at the park, when she arrived with bright red fingernails! That was the last time I saw nail polish on her hands. She was one who stopped talking altogether. I used to call her Paris in my mind.

  About an hour later we were getting very hungry.

  It is quite dark now and there are soldiers on the train, making a lot of noise, and they’re getting drunk. They are singing one song after another. I wish they would shut up!

  I just recognized the train station we pulled out of. I will be home in about half an hour. That was the place that Grandma and I used to come for the rummage sale at the Church!

  That young soldier is leaning over my seat again. I feel like punching him in the face!

  I just look out at the moonlit hills, trees, lakes and rock cliffs. He has just left again after wanting to know what I was writing. Beast! I notice that I get very angry quickly now.

  Thursday, March 23

  I didn’t get a chance to write anything when I got home. We were busy being so happy!

  I woke up this morning and lay there with my eyes closed, waiting for the wake-up bell. Then I opened my eyes and saw the logs in front of my face. I was never so happy!!!

  I am home!

  Grandma is outside somewhere, and I just had to write down what a happy meeting it was when I got off the train and found Grandma standing there! We moved away from the group that was getting on the train and we just stood there holding on to each other. I thought I could actually hear her heart beating, we were hanging on to each other so close together! Then the train pulled away and soon there were just the two of us there. She seemed smaller and she told me that I was bigger and taller.

  When the red tail lights of the train disappeared around the bend, we stepped onto the tracks. Grandma guided us along the railroad tracks with her flashlight. It was absolutely quiet, only our footsteps on the snow and our breathing, and we kept looking at each other and smiling. Soon we were off the tracks and onto the little trail to her cabin. The moon was bright and I could see the cabin and its shadow loom up in front of us as we came out of the bushes. It was so good to be home!

  I was very hungry and she dished out a bowl of macaroni in tomato sauce with diced bologna in it. She buttered a chunk of bannock for me too. It was delicious!

  She sat at the table beside the lamp and told me all the news that had happened since I left. Then she told me that she had sent me five dollars five times. I never got it! Only the one time! That really made me angry, because she must have had to go without something else to spare me the money.

  I noticed the Valentine’s card that I sent her tacked with a small nail on the window frame. She said it was really pretty. I asked about the letter and she said that there was no letter with it, just the card.

  After a breakfast of porridge, Grandma wants to take me to the store and see what we would have for our lunch and supper. She liked my glasses. She laughed when I told her that I had no idea that there was something wrong with my eyes. Then she rummaged around in one of her pockets and stuck a pair of glasses on her nose. When she turned and looked at me, I almost choked when she blinked from huge buggy eyes through the lenses. I laughed so hard, I had tears in my eyes when she came and sat down and said that they were “reading glasses.” She only puts them on when she reads.

  That was funny! She is lying on her bed now, reading a book that the new teacher gave her.

  Just before lunch, we set off to the store. As we came around the corner, I could see Blackie by his dog house. He stood up and slowly walked toward us. He gave a soft woof and then his tail started wagging and th
en he ran toward me and jumped up. He almost knocked me down and his sloppy tongue got me on the chin before I could push him down. I petted his head and he was very happy. His whole back end was just wiggling back and forth. Bill came out of his cabin with an axe in his hand and he turned and saw us. He said, “You’re back. Someone’s happy to see you.” I smiled and said hello. He was on his way to split some wood beside his cabin and he called Blackie and he watched us go by.

  There were quite a few people at the store. Everyone wanted to take a good look at me, saying to Grandma that I had grown up. That was embarrassing. Grandma bought some salt pork and dry beans, a chunk of bologna and some flour. When we got home, we had fried bologna sandwiches made with some leftover bologna from yesterday.

  We are going ice fishing this afternoon.

  Friday, March 24

  It is Good Friday today. I don’t much care why it is called Good Friday. Something to do about Jesus, maybe.

  We just had breakfast of porridge and we are sitting around the table. Grandma is making something from moose leather and doing beadwork. I decided to write this note in my diary. I didn’t get a chance to write anything when we got back from ice fishing yesterday. It was slushy so we couldn’t sit down on the ice. So we had to lean over the ice holes. We managed to get only one jack fish. She fried that and served it with some rice. We were hungry and it was wonderful!

  It’s softly snowing outside. We have enough wood stacked by the door so we don’t need to cut more for a few days anyway. It’s nice and warm in here and the teapot is on the stove, keeping warm.

  Grandma said that a Minister was supposed to arrive to have a Good Friday service at the Church, but he got sick. He usually makes his rounds to the small communities along the railroad tracks during special religious holidays.

  I feel very peaceful now and the tight ache across my chest that I always had at Residential School is gone.

  Saturday, March 25

  Grandma was looking over my diaries, placing them in order of dates. She said she would read them when she was alone. I didn’t ask her why. Maybe she didn’t want me to remember what I was feeling at the time I wrote them.

  I asked her whatever became of her own diaries when she was a young girl. She said that she had kept them in a box and one day when she was alone after they had sent Mother off to Residential School, her cabin had burnt down and she lost everything that she had, except for a shed at the back that managed to escape the fire. She was alone in the bush at the time. She found some clothes in the shed and she dressed in layers and made her way back here to the village.

  There was an abandoned cabin at the other end of the community that she was able to fix up and made liveable. People gave her what they could of things that she could use.

  That summer, just before Mother came home from Residential School, the men of the community all came together and built her this cabin that she still lives in.

  Sunday, March 26

  We went ice fishing again today. It is getting very slushy, worse than on Thursday, but we got four trout. We had a lot of fun. Now Grandma is cooking potatoes in the pot with the trout. She also has canned peas in the small pot heating by the stove. There are no fresh vegetables at the store in the winter time. Just potatoes and carrots.

  I know how to clean the fish, I just don’t know how they made the things I ate at the Residential School. I bet I would be able to find a cookbook in Sandy Bay. It actually has a library there.

  This is really funny! I just noticed that there is a message on the back package of the flour Grandma bought from the store. I turned it over and it said that if you want a recipe book, you just have to write to them with your address and they will send you one!

  I showed it to Grandma and she gave me an envelope and a sheet of paper. I’ll send in my mailing address to the flour company. Grandma was laughing at me.

  Monday, March 27

  We had fried rabbit with rice for supper. It was very delicious.

  I got into the habit of writing down what I had for supper at Residential School.

  I had also got into the habit of feeling very angry all the time while I was at Residential School too. Now I do not feel that at all. It is like it has all been washed away. This is the longest I have gone without feeling angry.

  Easter Monday today. I would have totally forgotten about Easter, but a special Minister got off the train this morning. He is the Bishop, they say. Grandma and I went to the Church when the bell rang. I was curious. After the service, the Bishop stood at the door and shook hands with everyone. He was telling some older girls and their parents to stay and they stood just inside the Church. When it was my turn, he also pulled me aside and asked us to wait with the other girls and their parents. There were no boys our age there. When everyone was gone, the Bishop explained to us about Confirmation. Since us girls had not been confirmed yet, he asked us to stay. He had a couple of hours before the train came, when he would get back on again. When the Confirmation was explained, the parents and the girls gathered outside and they all nodded and Grandma asked me if I wanted to be confirmed, I said no. So, Grandma turned around and I followed her home. There were five girls that stayed.

  Tuesday, March 28

  I am supposed to go back to Residential School tomorrow.

  Grandma just asked me if I wanted to go back and I said no.

  Wednesday, March 29

  Grandma just went to the store to call my mother. She says I can’t stay here because I would be sent back to the Residential School anyway, since the Indian Affairs guys know where I am. If Mother comes to get me, I could go to school at the Reserve for the rest of the year. I guess that’s better than going back to the Residential School.

  I got on the Residential School list because I got to Grade 5 at Flint Lake Indian Day School. I could just join the rest of the Grade 5 students on the Reserve for now, even though we will be sent somewhere for higher grades anyway, after we finish Grade 5.

  Friday, March 31

  We had boiled partridge with dumplings for supper and it was very delicious.

  Mother is going to come and get me sometime next week.

  I guess I could hide out in the bush somewhere if someone shows up to take me back to the Residential School. They’d have nowhere to stay until the next train comes in anyway. Grandma and I would just have to go somewhere for the day.

  Emma is not here because she already came home at Christmas and she won’t be home until school is over in June.

  April 1967

  Monday, April 3

  Mother just arrived on the train this afternoon. I ran to the train tracks when I heard the train come in. Grandma was busy making lunch. When the train went by, I waited to see Mother come along the tracks after the rest of the people moved off, and then I saw her. I ran to meet her and she dropped her suitcase when I gave her a big hug. It was so good to see her! We are getting on the train tomorrow to head off to the Reserve. She works, so she can’t get much time off. I’m going to miss Grandma when we leave.

  Rob came to the cabin asking if Grandma had any suggestions about their sick baby. The baby girl has a bad cold and has trouble breathing. He thought he’d come and ask Grandma first before his wife had to take the baby to the hospital, which is over three hours away by train. Grandma rummaged around in her “healing box” as I call it, before she wrapped a bundle of herbs and went off with him.

  Mother and I just finished playing cards and she’s gone to take a nap on my bed. Grandma is not back yet.

  After supper

  Grandma said she made a steam tent with herbs for the baby to breathe, and then a cedar poultice for the baby’s chest. She thinks the little girl will be all right in a few days.

  I hate to leave Grandma. I would much rather stay here, but I know that I have to go back to the Reserve.

  Tuesday, April 4

  Mother slept on my bed beside me last night. I’m so used to sleeping by myself that I had a very hard time going to sle
ep. We’re just sitting around at the table drinking tea. It’s another hour yet before the train comes.

  Saturday, April 8

  We’re at the Reserve now. Mother talked to the teacher and he’s going to allow me to join the Senior classes on Monday.

  We had fried pickerel and canned spaghetti for supper. Eliza was really excited when I got here. Lyndon just looked at me and shrugged.

  Lyndon’s dog is really cute! No wonder Mother couldn’t tell me his name because it is “Maangoons” — Little Loon — because he has a black head, and the black hair stops around his neck and the rest of him is spotted in white. He does look like a loon! All he wants to do is play.

  I have to share a room with Eliza but that’s okay. She has her own little bed in one corner and I have a single bed in the other. There’s a window on my side and I can feel the wind from the window. There is only a plastic sheet covering it. There’s old linoleum on the floor and it gets very cold. I have to wear thick socks all the time. I don’t know how I forgot my moccasins at Grandma’s. She had made a pair for me when I was at Residential School. She said that she meant to give them to me at Christmas.

  Too bad I couldn’t stay with Grandma.

  Sunday, April 9

  Grandma called and left a message at the store saying that she would call again at a certain time, so Mother and I went to the store at that time, and sure enough, the phone rang and the storekeeper handed us the phone. A package had arrived for me! Mother laughed when I told her what it probably is. My cookbook! We just had to go to Grandma’s to get it! It was an excuse to see Grandma again.