CAF Story | Survivor - robbed of her Indigenous childhood!
Video / September 28, 2022
Transcript
(D) When I was in a residential school, it was like... Even, I had my brothers there, I wouldn't see my brothers. It's only on Saturday, you will see your brothers. Other than that, you won’t see them. You see them in a hallway, going to the classroom. Even though you're only about 3 feet apart, there's your brothers going that way to kindergarten, you're going to high school.
And you are walking there, and you can't even look at them and say: "Hi, how are you?" You can't do that. And it was very hard because being in a residential school is... don't talk your language, that was it: only speak English. And we would all be like twins, like cutting our hair like that. Nobody has long hair. All the girls had short bangs, and all the way like that. The boys, even though they had long hair, it was all shaved. So, they're all twins. We were out in the lake, a very beautiful lake, reindeer lake, where I was raised. One day, a plane lands. And the pilot gets out of there, they come to the shore, and they talk to my mom and dad. They said that your child has to be taken out. So, they put me on a plane, on that floater plane. And they keep giving me candy so I couldn't cry. But when they started landing somewhere I don't know, got to this huge building. First person I'd seen was a person dressed in white. I kept crying. And there was another kid with me. And they were gonna take us apart. I grab him and I start crying. When they took us apart, I cried for him. 'Cause I didn't want him to be taken away from me. They told me I was sick, but I didn't understand English. And I was put in this big huge building. And they would give me medicine for my TB. Every day, I would get it. But I never knew why, but I stayed there a year and a half. Then I stayed one year, in 1963, and half of that year, they said:
"You're going home." I was very happy when they said: "You're going home." Home means go see your mom, your dad, if you had brothers and sisters. Yes, I was happy. Then, they bring me to this building, another building. Block, a big block building. And I thought: "This is not my home. That doesn't look like my home." But when I got to that front door there, there was one person standing there dressed in black. And he had a cross right on his side here. And I thought: "That's not my home." And she says: "Come here." And she puts me right in front of this girl here, this big tall girl there, and then, she tells me to sit there. And then, I find everybody is getting up. So I get up, and then everybody is like that. What are they doing now? And then, this girl next to me, she says: (Speaks Cree). That's Cree.
(Speaks Cree) means Cree. So, I looked at her and I thought: "Oh, I'm home", but I didn't know who she was. So, that is what I did. I understand that language right away. So I did the same thing with the girl and all the kids did. And when we're eating in residential school, we are not allowed to talk to the person next to us or anybody. So after that, that was it. I've never seen her again. But later on, as I was going to school, I learned that she was my sister. But the Ranger program has helped me, really, really help me with my grieving. And I'm so, so... how do you say? Thankful for all the people that were on the Ranger program, and the ones that help the Rangers. I'm very, very thankful for that. If only Canadian Rangers or other military people out there who speak a little bit of our language, even one word, that would be a blessing for us. One little word.
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