Still on the healing path

In the cool, impersonal space of the Fletcher Challenge lecture hall, Chief Bob George sings his traditional family song to a rapt audience. The metallic fixtures in the hall resonate and buzz as George beats out a rhythm on a wood and skin drum. In what would become a highly emotional discussion of abuse and murder in Native residential schools, the serenity of the moment is healing.

The residential schools forum on February 9 was an SFPIRG- sponsored event at which victims and former staff of the Port Alberni residential school told of how the school scarred their lives. Many people in the mostly First Nations audience stepped up to the microphone to recount deeply personal stories of suffering during and since their experiences in the residential school system. Reverend Kevin Annett, the United Church minister at the Port Alberni school for three years, described how he believes that the location of the schools were premediated to allow non- natives eventual access to the natural resources of the lands.

Segregated boarding schools for First Nations children in Canada were first recommended in a report to the government in 1897, but compulsory attendance at the schools was not mandatory until an amendment to The Indian Act in 1920. In a statement to the House of Commons in 1920, deputy superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott said that the ideology behind the schools was "to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and there is no Indian department." First Nations students would not be allowed into the mainstream public school system until another amendment to The Indian Act in 1947.

Comprehensive measures were undertaken as part of the effort to assimilate the First Nations into European culture. The residential schools in B.C. were administered by the United and Roman Catholic churches, with the result that the students were forced to abandon their own religions. Students were severely punished if they were caught speaking their own language. And because the schools were far removed from the reservations and the students attended from August to June, students and their families were separated by great distances.

Because of numerous allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the 14 residential schools around the province, the RCMP commissioned a task force headed by constable Jerry Peters. Peters says that the task force has been extremely busy with the 140 complainants that have come forward so far. "Those 140 people name over 160 suspects. And those suspects are people who were employed at the schools, some of them were members of the clergy, and some of them were students themselves."

So far, the allegations have resulted in two convictions on several counts of physical and sexual abuse. But Peters feels that many of the accusations only amount to conspiracy theories. "I think what I've been finding is there's a lot of folklore surrounding death. There's information that after 30 or 40 years becomes very, very distorted."

In light of the work of the task force, Peters feels that the criticisms of the RCMP around this issue have been unfair. "We work in partnership with aboriginal organizations and our goal is victim-focussed and victim- driven and it always has been. And we've had tremendous positive response from the aboriginal community on this entire investigation."

Harriet Nahanee was five years old when she began attending Alhousaht residential school. Despite the span of several decades, her recollection of the events still evokes powerful emotions. But she is serious and composed when she steps up to the microphone. "I want to tell you about our culture before I tell you how it was destroyed. The well being of a nation depends on its leadership. Our people survived for countless thousands of years. Our ancestors governed themselves with a hereditary chief system. In this family, all children were raised with sacred..." Nahanee pauses as she struggles to pronounce a word in her native language. "You've got to remember, I lost my language, so it takes sometimes a little while to remember the words."

Having forgotten her spoken language since she was ten, Nahanee has large gaps of knowledge about a culture that is largely based on oral history. But she knows that when her society was organized under the hereditary chief system family, religion and ritual were foremost. Children, she says, were taught to preserve their environment for future generations. "They were taught to respect the earth. To respect each other. To respect the animals. They were taught respect, and with respect there is no need for laws."

Nahanee remembers her first day of school as being terrifying far beyond the usual kindergarten jitters. The RCMP were the truant officers at the residential schools, and the mandatory attendance meant that children went whether or not they wanted to. Nahanee recalls, "the RCMP deputies [came in] the RCMP gunboat. It had a gun mounted at the front. That's how we were picked up by the RCMP." She says that children tried to hide but were inevitably found and put on the boat. "Anyway, we were dragged onto the boat kicking and screaming. And the reason I remember it so well was my sister Nora screamed all the way. She cried for hours on that boat."

Nahanee was transferred to the Port Alberni school when she was ten. She says that the diets provided by the schools were inadequate and often left the children hungry. At one point, she was so desperate that she and her sister stole vegetables from a root cellar. She says that children who were caught stealing food were beaten while the informants were rewarded. Nahanee wipes a tear away when she remembers the divisiveness this caused between the children. "I hated my sister for years because I got the worst licking I ever had in my life for stealing turnips and carrots."

During her story, Nahanee stops repeatedly to wipe her eyes with a tissue. At one point, she takes a long pause and inhales deeply. Through a deep sob she says, "the worst thing that ever happened to us was the sex abuse. The sex abuse is something no one ever talked about.

I didn't bring it to my mind until my daughter committed suicide in 1984. And then I started to look at myself and see why I was addicted to alcohol. Why I wasn't a good parent." Nahanee went to a psychiatrist for a year but made little progress. During a process of self healing, she came to realize that her problems were also pervasive within the First Nations community. "It was all about to keep us dysfunctional--to keep us dependent on welfare. Some of us have shook our heads and said, 'Hey, we still hold the title to this land.'"

"I witnessed a death when I was 11 years old. I didn't consider it a murder, because when you're 11 it's just another painful memory." Nahanee says that she was punished for refusing to accept Christianity by being kept at the school during Christmas. On the night of Christmas Eve, she says she heard a commotion in another room. "I looked at the bottom of the stairs, I looked up the stairs, and there's two glass doors at the top of the landing. And it was [the principal] Mr. Caldwell and this Welsh woman who was the supervisor that sat in a little cubbyhole at the top of the stairs. I can't remember her name. But they were arguing about this little girl who was running up and down the stairs. And Mr. Caldwell was always drunk. You could smell the liquor on his breath all the time. He kicked her. She went down the stairs and she died. That's murder."

Harry Wilson was 14 years old when he discovered a dead body in the fields surrounding the Port Alberni school. Wilson says that the person was about 16 and was "lying dead, completely naked, and covered in blood. And there was blood everywhere." He then reported the body to the principal of the school, who assured Wilson that he would contact the RCMP. However, Wilson says that "I never saw them show up. And then the body disappeared, it was just took away."

In a move that Wilson believes was motivated to keep him silent about the death, he was then transferred to a school in Nanaimo.

Wilson is currently pursuing a class action lawsuit with several others against the United Church and federal government for the incidences of physical and sexual abuse at the school.

Reverend Kevin Annett was the United Church minister at the Port Alberni school from 1992-95. Annett says that there has been a cover up of the real agenda behind the residential schools. "I had to lose my job, I had to lose my livelihood. I had to lose my marriage and my children in order to begin to try to understand what we did, what we continue to do, where we live with lies, and how difficult it is to get at the truth when so many people and forces are brought to bear to keep that truth quiet."

During his three years at the school, Annett says that he uncovered documents which lead him to believe there were undisclosed motives behind the school's operation. "The residential schools were situated where they were for a simple reason, and that was to get the land and the resources. The United Church schools on Vancouver Island in Alberni and Alhousaht were situated on some of the richest resources in the area."

The land on which the Alhousaht residential school was built was provided to the United Church with the understanding that it would be retained for the community. But in 1953 the United Church sold a portion of the land to a private individual for the paltry sum of $2,000. In 1994, MacMillan- Bloedel became involved with their purchase of a portion of the remainder of the land, a deal that Annett believes is worth millions of dollars.

Annett wrote a letter to the United Church in 1995 stating that the land deal constitutes a violation of trust of the Alhousaht nation and that a reconciliation would be imperative. Four weeks after writing that letter, Annett says that he was fired without cause. "The simple fact is that the two critics of the land sale at Alhousaht, myself and Earl, were both forced from the church. And for us, that raised deeper questions and why that would happen. Why would the United Church spend a quarter of a million dollars driving me out of the ministry?"

In the question and answer period following, a number of people in the audience come forward to tell their own stories. Two people reveal that their experiences were so traumatic they are considering suicide. A concerned man from the audience steps forward with a feather and bestows a blessing on them both. Nahanee offers to counsel them both after the forum. In these gestures of mutual support, Chief George's opening words seem to find resonance: "After you let go of all the hurts and the pains and the anger that brought you to the drug addition and alcoholism, maybe you can heal from that and look back... but there's no way I can tell you that you're not going to have any more problems." He adds, "So dear friends, I congratulate you on what you are starting to do. And it's such a beautiful gathering here. And this tells me that you're all caring people, and this is good. This is what gives us the hope. As long as we love each other and we try to keep close at hand our unity, I know that our people will be here on this earth to the end of time. And even though we are still on the healing path, we know that we have won."

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