August 12, 2021—Ha-Shilth-Sa—Page 3
School discoveries spark memories in former students Orange Shirt Day is now a national holiday, but a support worker says the true healing will take generations By Eric Plummer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor Calgary, AB - The wave of discoveries this summer of unmarked graves at residential schools sparked a distant memory in Bernard Jack. He recalls attending Christie Indian Residential School on Meares Island as a young child, where a gravesite could be seen outside of a church that students were taken to for services. “All I seen was pegs at the end of a grave,” said Jack, who attended Christie from 1968-73. “The other kids that had been there longer than us already [said], ‘Just look away, keep going’,” he continued. “We knew they were there. That’s one of the things that we did not talk about in the school. You would be really, really punished for that.” A member of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, Jack was taken from his home in Yuquot on Nootka Island at the age of six. He thought he was going for short airplane ride, but his first trip in the air ended with Christie’s priests and nuns waiting at the dock. “Not being able to speak English, and being strapped for that, that was the start of being punished for speaking your own tongue,” recalled Jack. Over his time at the school a current of terror ran through the air, upheld by the constant abuse and sexual molestation Jack encountered. He remembers the bunk room, where at times children were being strapped at one end for wetting their beds, while at the other end sexual abuse was occurring. “The kids deliberately wet their beds so that they could deal with the strapping [rather] than the molesting,” Jack said. “While they were screaming away, the other kids down the room were being molested. When the priests or nuns finished they would come up to the other kids that were being strapped. ‘You kids say anything, you guys are going to be next’.” According to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, a total of 23 students died while at Christie, which operated from 1900-83. But Jack believes that far more students never returned home from the residential school. For generations the deaths and abuse weren’t acknowledged – even among family members who attended residential schools, recalled Jack. “They don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “It’s like opening up an old wound.” But now this belief is being confirmed, starting with the discovery in late May of the remains of 215 children at the former site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Through ground penetrating radar, similar discoveries followed. In June the Cowessess First Nation in southern Saskatchewan uncovered 751 unmarked graves at a residential school on their land, then a week later the Lower Kootenay Indian Band announced the remains of 182 were found at the St. Eugene’s Mission School site. Most recently in mid July the Penelakut Tribe publicized the uncovering of 160 unmarked graves at the Kuper Island Residential School site east of Vancouver Island. Work is underway in Nuu-chah-nulth territory, with the Tseshaht investigating the grounds of the Alberni Indian Residential School, while the Ahousaht First Nation is looking into former sites on Flores Island and where the Christie school once stood, calling on the provincial and federal governments for
Photo submitted by National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
The Christie Indian Residential school operated from 1900-83. The institution was on Meares Island before moving to Tofino in 1971. ing to solve everything,” he said. “It’s an citing a 1996 study from the Nuu-chahongoing thing that’s going to last several nulth Tribal Council that calls for ingenerations down the road.” vestigations into the circumstances of Meanwhile the discoveries of burials at the deaths at AIRS and other residential former residential school sites continue schools. to trigger those who spent their childhood The last few months have been hard for at the institutions, causing them to reresidential school survivors once news experience things they were too young to broke of the unmarked graves. comprehend. The real challenge contin“It’s like they peeled back the scab,” ues to be how to leave such experiences observed Watts. “People were trying to in the past. heal, moving on with their lives. All of a sudden it got torn back again.” “We can hold on to stuff and let it eat us Many outside of First Nations commuup, or we can realise what it is, let it go nities have been left to wonder how such and move on,” explained Watts. a widespread injustice could happen in While contemplating this struggle the Canada. Besides committing $27 million Tseshaht member recounts a story that in federal and $12 million in provincial comes to mind. “There’s two wolves in your stomach. funding to help with the investigations, Sept. 30 has been made a national holiThey’re always fighting. One represents assistance – with hope that the remains of day. Orange Shirt Day is now officially love, happiness and all those things that some of the lost children might one day Truth and Reconciliation Day in comare good. The other guy: hate, animosbe returned home. ity, anger,” Watts recalled. “Which one is “Stories are shared of children who died memoration of former residential school students. winning? The one you feed the most.” while at these schools and parents were “We have advised provincial public-secAfter his adult battles with heavy not told the reasoning for the death,” tor employers to honour this day and in drinking and drug abuse, Bernard Jack stated the Ahousaht First Nation in press recognition of the obligations in the vast is working on his own healing, currently release. “Other stories share that babies majority of collective agreements,” reads living in a treatment facility in Calgary. were born to children at the school and a joint statement from B.C.’s Minister of “I’ve learned to pray in my own way, the babies were not seen after birth.” not kneel down and call, ‘Our father who Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Richard Watts, a resolution health art in heaven’,” he said, thinking of those Murray Rankin and Selina Robinson, support worker with Teechuktl Mental minister of Finance. “Many public servic- who have shown him compassion as he Health who assists former residential school and day school students, has heard es will remain open but may be operating works on his health. “It doesn’t always at reduced levels. However, most schools, have to be your uncle, auntie, cousin or of at least two children who were burniece. It can be outside, you don’t have to post-secondary institutions, some health ied in the 1930s under the McCoy Lake push all of that public away.” sector workplaces, and Crown corporabridge, near where the Alberni school “’There are people here that care and tions will be closed.” operated for almost a century. love you, Bernie,’ I started to think,” Amid this government recognition of “The people that buried them are gone continued Jack. “I just have to learn how what former students have known for now,” said Watts. “They were kids that to accept it. I’ve built up so many shells, their whole lives, Watts cautions that were forced to do it.” armour around myself that it’s hard to get healing will take a very long time. For years Watts has heard stories of out now.” “It’s not a one-time cash deal that’s goburial sites around the Alberni school,
“Stories are shared of children who died while at these schools and parents were not told the reasoning for the death”
~ Ahousaht First Nation press release
