WARNING – THIS MAY TRIGGER TRAUMA
I no longer Identify as a Catholic. I have adopted Buddhist philosophy and practices which, I've come to believe, is closer to being Dene, an Indigenous person. I alone am responsible for my life. I have full agency.
Dene drummer is my brother-in-law John Mercredi
There is no worshiping of idols, or of a God; only the deep respect and appreciation for Natural law and karma. What that means for me is to respect nature, the trees, the water, the wind, the sun and all living beings. More importantly, to actively do what I can personally to grow, spiritually and mentally. My belief is that being an authentic Indigenous person is respecting the teachings of the Dene, my parents, my grandparents and my ancestors. We tell our story with our drum. This image, a Dene drummer is my brother-in-law John Mercredi.
Residential school did not take away my identity as Denesuline. I am grateful my parents didn’t attend residential school and continued to speak our mother tongue and to practice our culture.
I have always understood spirituality as being in harmony with nature, a lesson I observed from my Dad, Isidore Deranger and other Dene hunters in the hamlet of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.
The recent devastating discovery of 751 souls in unmarked
graves on the grounds of a former residential school in Saskatchewan has
shocked all Canadians. And this is less than two months after another discovery
of more bones on former residential school grounds in British Columbia. I feel an even greater urgency to distance myself
from being Catholic. These discoveries are sickening.
To be clear, it is not because I am ashamed. It is because I feel survivor’s guilt that I came out of residential school for the most part unscathed. It took me years of careful introspection to reach this conclusion. I have read a good deal about similar guilt experienced by survivors of the Holocaust. But of course the survivors did nothing wrong.Is this a reckoning? Reckoning and release are impossible when we operate under a code of denial or delusion. Perhaps what is needed is to designate an annual month to the remembrance of children who perished in residential schools.
I spent seven years at Holy Angels Residential school in northern Alberta, I was not beaten, starved, abused or electrocuted. I am grateful that I was born 15 years late, and at the time I attended Holy Angels Residential school in the mid-60s and early 70s, approximately 15 years before it was closed, and the building was demolished. By the time I was a student at residential school the culture in the school was different. Perhaps it was because of the leadership of our principal Father Mousseau OMI or the changes in the church after Vatican II, but for whatever the reason I was spared some of the degradation of former students, including contemporaries of mine and some of my own siblings.
At the time I was there, a young priest, Father Mousseau was instrumental in making some positive changes. We who lived in Fort Chipewyan were allowed to go home on the weekend; we could speak our native language, and in truth a number of nuns and priests spoke Dene or Cree. He played Beatles songs blaring through the speakers on weekends and in the summer months. He also opened his office so we could come read comics or books in summer. I continued to have a positive friendship with him until his death in the early 2000s.
On balance, I believe I was treated humanely. I have come to understand that it is okay to speak the truth about my positive experiences. I have also acknowledged that many former students had horrible devastating experiences, some even from my own immediate family. With the discovery of unmarked graves there is no denying that something unthinkable happened to these children. The question then becomes: what do we do about it?
Lately, as more former students become comfortable in telling their truth I discovered that two former students from Holy Angels were committed to a mental institution for nothing other than not being compliant or running away home. My older sister who is 8 years older than me was one of them. Learning about this I wondered, how many more former students were sent away to a mental institution for no reason, to be stigmatized as mentally ill? What care were they given?
On June 24, 2021 751 students buried in unmarked graves at Cowessess First Nation at a former residential school in Saskatchewan were discovered. Both these discoveries, the first one in BC and the latest in Saskatchewan touch people’s humanity. Many tears have been shed by people who were not in residential school at this confirmation of what many people might have regarded as unfounded rumours.
I find it difficult to believe that no one knew about this. This news came less than a month after a discovery of 215 bones of former residential school in BC former residential school, Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation BC. The shocking news led to efforts to employ ground penetrating radar at all other former residential school sites across Canada.
The disbelief and horror of the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, is amplified with the news of another 751 remains discovered last week. It is inconceivable to me that no one knew what was happening in those schools. Estimates have been made that thousands of unmarked graves exist in former residential schools. These estimates – mere statistics – did not move people the way these discoveries. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought an addition to its mandate to get better data on child graves at residential schools. The federal government turned them down.
I am convinced that as more ground penetrating work is being conducted it will uncover more bones on former residential school grounds. I pause in silent contemplation of this horror. This is Canada! We have a right to be angry. We can be wounded and accountable. We can grow and heal as we move on as a society.
The Church knew, and the government certainly also knew. People in the communities must have demanded answers why their babies didn’t make it home. My own mother put her 14 year old son on an airplane to the hospital in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. She never saw him again. Is he in an unmarked grave, waiting for radar to disclose his bones? My very own brother…
The Catholic Church does not have Indigenous spirituality and humanity. The Church called us savages and create policy to eliminate our identities but also take our land. They were so negligent that they did not provide proper care. They acted as if we were disposable, not worthy of normal human dignity or their compassion. Their policies literally murdered us. And the government of Canada, always penny-pinching when it came to our needs, did not provide adequate nutrition or medical care. They did not think to provide the very human need to the bodies of students who passed away in residential schools home for a proper sacred burial or consider their families need for closure. They treated us as less than human. All of this callous brutality in the name of “civilizing” our people.
WHAT DO DO NEXT?
1 DESIGNATE JUNE AS AN INDIGENOUS HEALING MONTH
2
FUND INDIGENOUS CEREMONY IN EACH COMMUNITY TO HONOR THE CHILDREN
3
DEVELOP CURRICULUM K-12 TELLING THE TRUE STORY OF RESIDENTIAL
SCHOOLS IN CANADA
4
CULTURAL HEALING ACTIVITIES IN EACH OF THE FIRST NATIONS
ACROSS CANADA
5
DNA IDENTIFYING FAMILIES OF THE STUDENTS FOUND IN UNMARKED GRAVES
An Indigenous Health Month would be filled with Indigenous
cultural activities, including the development of curriculum in K-12 in the
schools identifying, and telling the true story of residential schools in
Canada. That is how we should honour the students who perished in residential
schools across Canada. To that end, funding should be provided to all First
Nations across Canada to develop this curriculum and create a campaign in their
communities in honour of residential school children who died. This is how we
take back what was lost and move away from victimhood and retain agency in all our
lives.
How do we move forward as a society that allowed this horror to take place? We must first acknowledge what happened. For some reason the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tried to do this by revealing some of the horror stories but yet the swift condemnation from people did not come. And records from residential schools were not released even after court order. What they could provide was statistics.
This devastating news of uncovered bones has rekindled pleas for accountability from the Catholic church that ran most of the schools, and the removal of all monuments of Canadian leaders whose set up residential school system. Where does that leave reconciliation?
APOLOGIES AND REMOVING MONUMENTS
In my opinion the time for apologies and removing monuments has passed. Those gestures are meaningless in light of these horrific discoveries and simply does not do enough to correct what happened.
Personally, as a former residential school student, I looked to my ancestors who came before me and thank them for showing me that we carry the blood of survivors and we can always live free, never to live as a victim of anyone or anything.
What has helped me over the years is the idea that I am not a victim and I have the agency to create the life I have. I made a conscious decision to step out of victimhood so that I can see the possibilities of a better future for me and my children, just as the parents, brothers sisters, aunts and uncles are feeling after these horrific discoveries.
We have plenty of evidence that shows Indigenous peoples in Canada are resilient. Our peoples have faced many generations of attempts to erase our cultures, language and identities. We have survive the dispossession of our lands. The Indian Act still governs much of our lives. Yet we persist.
