Dear Canada: These Are My Words

by Ruby Slipperjack

  Monday, April 10

  Mother fixed my bed again yesterday morning, before we headed off to her work at the Band Office and me to school.

  I usually just straighten out my bed in the mornings at Grandma’s. Here, there is a cotton sheet around the mattress and a quilted blanket on top. But Mother had always insisted that I fold my blankets under the mattress whenever I was here, and I never asked why. Now I recognize that she is still trying to do what she was trained to do at Residential School. So I deliberately left my blankets hanging down. When I came back from school today, they were tucked in under the mattress. Mother had remade my bed while I was at school. I ripped the blanket off and left it hanging down again.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Tuesday, April 11

  Mother did not remake my bed again. It was as I had left it this morning.

  We had macaroni mixed with canned tomato soup with square chunks of canned Klik mixed in. I made a face at Izzy when Mother’s back was turned, and he grinned and winked at me. I really think I am going to have to learn to cook. I can’t wait to get my hands on that cookbook! I didn’t get a chance to go to the library when we passed through Sandy Bay on the way to the airplane base.

  Wednesday, April 12

  There was a gang of girls here that used to make my life miserable. They’d catch me coming or going from school. They never touched me, they just made up songs and teased me about Izzy not being my father and asked where my own father was and what his name is. The leader was a big girl with a huge nose. Big Nose has apparently married a boy from another Reserve, so she had to move there, so now there is no gang of girls. I am very happy about that.

  Sunday, April 16

  We are back at Flint Lake.

  Mother and I got here yesterday. It is so nice to visit Grandma! I finally had time to visit Rob and his wife and baby. I arrived with my first attempt at making a pot of chili. It tasted really good, I thought, but I was not sure if it tasted too spicy for them. After a taste, they said that it was very, very good! His wife’s name is Sarah and the baby is Matilda. She is also expecting another baby.

  I spent my time telling them about the Residential School and about the daily activities. They were full of questions, as they too had gone to Residential Schools, and also their siblings.

  I was very surprised to hear that Emma was home. I asked Grandma why she came back, and she said that she heard Emma had been really sick in the city, but that is all she knew. I thought that I could go visit her, but we have to catch the evening train and then sleep overnight at a hotel in the next town before catching the plane back to the Reserve.

  Izzy wasn’t too happy, as this was a rather expensive trip just to visit and get my cookbook. I wanted to see Grandma really bad too, and this time remembered to pack my moccasins.

  Mother and Grandma laughed when I was thumbing through all the recipes that I was going to cook.

  Sunday, April 23

  After Church today, people came up to say hello and some welcomed me back home. It doesn’t feel like home though. I’d rather be back home at Flint Lake with Grandma. I asked Izzy on the way home why everyone was so friendly to me all of a sudden. He winked and said that now that I was a young woman, every parent was looking me over as a potential daughter-in-law. My mouth fell open and I think I had better leave as soon as I can!

  Monday, April 24

  I don’t feel like writing like this every day now. It feels like there is no purpose anymore. At Residential School, I was basically writing to Grandma, and now there is no need.

  So far, I have baked some cookies, raisin pie (my pie crust was a bit hard), made meatballs, French toast, brown beans, shepherd’s pie (had to use hamburger — recipe says beef chunks), spaghetti with meat sauce, casseroles (I had to put in other stuff for some stuff they don’t have at the store). I haven’t tried bread or cakes yet.

  Later

  Mother and I went to the store after school and I noticed that some of the food packages have recipes at the back or under the labels too. The storekeeper noticed me looking at the boxes and cans and writing down the recipes in my notebook. Then he asked me if I’d like to work there after school and on weekends to clean up spills, sweep the floor and dust the place. He does have a caretaker, but the guy just mostly keeps the meat and dairy section clean and mops the floor.

  He asked Mother and she said sure and how much would he pay me. She was really happy when he said how much he’d pay. That was one thing I learned at Residential School — how to clean things properly. I have my first paying job!

  June 1967

  Sunday, June 4

  I go to Church every Sunday now. Most times by myself, since Mother and Izzy are usually busy getting fish or hunting for meat. I can also sing to my heart’s content here. There are only a few old ladies who sing from the Cree syllabic hymn books, although they speak the Anishinabe language. They still do not have Anishinabe-language hymn books. We don’t care — there are some young girls who sing from the English hymn books with me, and the old ladies join us in Anishinabe. It sounds really funny — the words are different but the music is still the same. We have a great time. The Minister lives on the Reserve and he is old with white hair, but he’s nice. He just nods and smiles. I’m not sure he makes any more sense to me than the Minister down south.

  Monday, June 5

  I just found out that me and six other kids are going to be sent to a city in the south to go to high school there in the fall. There was a meeting at the school gym and we were told that we would be staying with white people in their own homes in the city. It would be just like the place Emma lived in while she went to high school, I guess.

  I don’t really know what it will feel like to live in white people’s homes. Based on what I experienced with the white kids at King George School, I don’t know about that. But I really have no choice and no say as to where I am being sent or where I will stay. They will just get us on a plane, then onto a train and then into a city to be dropped off at white people’s homes, where we will stay while we go to a city school. I’m really not happy about all this, but I notice the other kids are all excited about going into the city! Idiots!!!

  Mother says Izzy is getting fat and she’s blaming it on my cooking! I got the storekeeper’s wife to show me how to make bread, but I haven’t tried it yet. I am kind of scared to try because I might end up with a big blob of dough!

  July 1967

  Monday, July 3

  We are back at Flint Lake and I am staying with Grandma for the summer!

  Izzy bought a brand-new shining aluminum canoe for Grandma at the next town. They loaded it in the baggage car and Grandma had tears in her eyes when she realized it was for her when they were getting it off the train. Mother had bought a second-hand canvas tent from someone at the Reserve. After work on my last day, I asked the storekeeper how much the fishnet was in the corner. I told him that I would like to take it to my grandmother and he just pulled it out and handed it to me, saying that it had been taking up space in the store for a long time anyway. I couldn’t believe it! I got it free for Grandma! I am looking forward to camping and fishing with Grandma all summer. For now, the tent is set up outside Grandma’s cabin where Izzy, Mother, Lyndon and Eliza have moved in to stay for the week.

  This is my last entry. I left my last sewn-seamed pages on top of Grandma’s pillow.

  Epilogue

  That fall of 1967, Violet began her trip from the Reserve to the city with two other students. She had some money in her pocket. She also had a solid green suitcase that Izzy had bought for her. This time, there would be no one to take it away from her. Everything she had packed would be hers.

  She boarded an airplane at the Reserve with two boys about her own age. They landed at the nearest town, stayed at a hotel that night, and very early the next morning, they walked to the train station across the street.

  When they got to the train station, Violet found three girls sitting on one
of the benches. The three had no luggage. They had slept on the benches in the station waiting room all night, not knowing where they were supposed to go. The girls had been told to get on the train by the storekeeper, who had the only phone in their community, but they were not told where to go once they reached the station. There was nothing open yet where they could have bought something to eat.

  The ticket agent told them all at sunrise that the train pulling in was theirs. They got on the train and settled in for a long ride, as it would be stopping to deliver supplies and pick up freight all along the line to the city.

  Around lunchtime, the six were very hungry, but there was nothing to eat on the train. They watched the small communities go by, one after the other — lakes, rocks and more lakes, surrounded by the many beautiful fall colours.

  The four girls sat together. The two boys, in the opposite row of seats, seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  Later in the afternoon, Violet realized that none of the girls had much to say. They answered her when she spoke to them, but otherwise they just looked out the window. She asked their names and soon discovered that none had ever left home before. They were scared, not knowing what to expect and what it would be like where they were going.

  For the first time, Violet realized that she had more experience than any of them, and had a better idea of what life would be like in the city. So she told them what she thought it would be like to live in white families’ homes and what the inside of the house would be like, based on her babysitting experience while she was at Residential School. That was the only white person’s home she had ever entered. She also explained what the city high school might be like, and the bus they might have to take to go to school.

  Violet listened to the girls telling each other about their lives and the loved ones they had left behind. When they tried to draw her in on their conversation, she found that she couldn’t think of a thing to add, other than what she had already told them. She realized then that she didn’t know how to talk to other girls her age. She had never had any friends her own age. She had no trouble, however, in telling them what they must do and what they should watch out for in the city.

  At the first home Violet stayed, there were three other Anishinabe girls. Violet soon discovered the house rules. The girls were not allowed to sit outside, because the homeowners’ neighbours might see them. They were not allowed into the living room to watch television. After school, they were to stay in their room and do their homework. Then they were called to supper, where they ate in silence. Their offer to wash the dishes was turned down. They were told not to touch anything, and to go back into their bedroom and get ready for the next school day.

  As promised, Violet began her diary for Grandma on the first day of school, this time in a new shiny red diary that Grandma had given her. This one had a tiny gold lock. Never trusting anyone, Violet kept it locked in her suitcase at all times and took it out only when she wrote in it just before bed every evening.

  The high school was large. In her homeroom, Violet found that there were eight Anishinabe students in a class of thirty. At lunchtime, she met twenty-five Anishinabe students and they all sat together in the cafeteria.

  One day, as she was boarding the bus for home, Violet noticed two boys from the school who always hung around together. They got on the same bus as she did and sat down across the aisle from her. The older boy leaned over, saying that they were going downtown before heading home. He asked where she lived. She told him the street name, but then they couldn’t talk anymore as other people got on.

  When they reached downtown, Violet waited for the bus she would need to transfer to. The boys hung around with her, talking, until her bus came. They were brothers named Steve and Dave. Steve was older and the talkative one. After that day, they took to riding downtown with Violet to see her onto her next bus.

  Toward the end of September, an announcement came on the school intercom that all Anishinabe students were to report to a particular room and wait there. Seven students from her class made their way down the hall with Violet, to find another group of students already standing there.

  Violet asked one of the boys what this was about. He looked at her and told her firmly, “You are not to answer true. Just give any answer at all, but not the truth. Pretend you don’t understand and pretend you don’t know! We all do it.”

  Violet was puzzled. One by one, the students were called in. When it was her turn, Violet sat down where she was told. A man sat there with forms in front of him and a pen held poised. He began showing her weird squiggly lines on a page, then asked her what it was. On and on he went, from one page to another. Violet began to enjoy giving opposite answers to what she thought the lines might be, or just making answers up as she went along. Finally, she was told she could go. When she came out, she asked another girl, “What was that all about?” The girl smiled. “The intelligence test,” she said.

  The girls Violet lived with stayed for about two weeks at their first home before they had to move again. It would be the first move of many.

  As Christmastime neared and it was almost time to go home, Violet began having anxiety attacks and could not sleep. She was beginning to dread that something was going to happen to prevent her from getting home to Grandma again. Her mother and Izzy had agreed that she was to go to Flint Lake for Christmas, and they would see if they could visit her there at Grandma’s. The Indian Affairs Student Counsellor agreed to the arrangement because it was simpler travel for Violet than going to her mother’s Reserve.

  But Violet did get to go home this time. After a long bus ride through a rough bush road, Violet’s bus arrived at a town. She and three others got on a train from there. When the train stopped at Flint Lake, Grandma was there to meet Violet.

  A huge storm prevented Violet’s mother and family from coming to see her at Grandma’s. After a joyous reunion with Grandma and a week spent chopping wood and ice fishing, Violet was back at the city high school. She kept writing in her journal, waiting until she could get back to Grandma. In all, she moved five times to different homes with her green suitcase that first year.

  Violet stayed with her grandmother at Flint Lake every summer holiday for the next four years. In February of Violet’s final year of high school, her grandmother died, alone in her cabin. Violet was devastated and took a long time to recover from her grief. Her grades began to slip. Finally, after struggling for weeks to catch up with her school work, she managed to pass her year and leave school behind. She never saw Steve and Dave again.

  Violet never returned to Flint Lake. After her high-school graduation, she began work as a clerk at the Hudson’s Bay store on the Reserve where her mother lived. Izzy had managed to build an extension to the home so that Violet could have her own bedroom.

  When she turned twenty, Violet married the Grade 3 teacher who lived on the Reserve. They had four children. With them lived an all-black dog named Blackie.

  To this day, the children of the northern First Nations must live in cities and towns, usually far from home and family, to attend high school.

  Historical Note

  This complicated part of Canada’s history cannot be fully explored in the following paragraphs, and the existing research includes some variation in dates and numbers from different sources. But the sending away of Indigenous children from their families, often for years at a time, is so important we must make the attempt.

  In the years between the early 1800s and mid-1980s, many children from as young as four years old were taken from their homes and sent to residential schools across Canada that were run by various church organizations and the federal government. The last federal residential school closed in 1984; the last residential school closed in 1998.

  Changes to the Indian Act in 1894–1895 and in 1920 included compulsory education for Indigenous children, with the purpose of assimilation. This allowed the government to forcibly remove children from their parents and usher them into bush planes, trains a
nd vehicles. Many parents were threatened with imprisonment or having their children permanently taken away if they protested.

  For the most part, the children were to be taught how to integrate into the general society and therefore had to be taught and trained in skills, religious studies, domestic work, farm labour and various trades. Some authors have called the practices of households, farms, businesses and industries using these children as labourers, under the guise of training, “child and youth slavery.” The students’ mornings were normally reserved for book learning and religious instruction, and the afternoons given to domestic work, farm labour and trades.

  In earlier years of the residential school program, the students usually lived and went to school in the same location: the residential schools. In later years, in the 1960s, the students living at residential schools were integrated into city and town public schools, taking their classes with the general population of students, as is the case in this story.

  It is estimated that over 150,000 children attended the 139 residential schools across the country. What took place within these institutions is a disgrace in Canadian history. The children were psychologically, physically, emotionally and even sexually abused, and many died from contagious diseases or while trying to get home. At some residential schools, the children were poorly clothed and inadequately fed, and suffered from malnutrition. The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission states that at least three thousand children died in these schools. Chair for the Commission, Chief Justice Murray Sinclair, has said that, “seven generations of aboriginal children were denied their identity through a systematic and concerted effort to extinguish their culture, language and spirit.”