Going Away to School

I was in the boarding school in Nain in ’49 and ’50. There was no school there in Nutak, but they had school in Hebron.

We had to go to school because when Joey Smallwood was elected, children got what they called a family allowance. But it was only six dollars a month. If we didn’t go, our family wouldn’t get it. It wasn’t very much, but it was a help. I guess they thought it would be good for us to get some learning. I didn’t really find it too bad. Sometimes it used to get quite lonesome and stuff, but…

The two years we went to the boarding school, we went on the Winifred Lee. That’s the boat we used to go on. It would be in October. The first time I went on the boat I think I was 11. There were quite a few of us on the boat. I think there was

Reflections from Them Days

12 or 14 of us one fall from Nutak. That’s only the ones that didn’t have nobody to take care of them in Nain, who had to stay in the boarding school. A lot of boys and girls from the community used to go to school too, just daytime school. You knows, it was hard first going that fall, going away to boarding school. It wasn’t so bad for some of us, we were older, but the younger ones, like seven and eight years old.… Oh my, crying. Getting to Kiglapaits going to Nain, they’d still be crying. Skipper Joss Winsor was the captain and I suppose he only said it to quiet them down, I don’t know—he said he’s going to have his dinner and whoever’s left crying, he’s going to throw them overboard. Well, you should have heard them sobbing and trying not to cry.