Pain brings hope to residential school students

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It appears that Aboriginal people who spent time in Canada's residential school system are ready to let the healing begin.

A workshop held in Lethbridge on Nov. 20 was, for many of the 250-plus participants, the first step in helping people come to terms with their experiences in Canada's 200 residential and industrial schools which housed tens of thousands of people from the 1880s and the 1970s.

Memories and stories from the residential school years were brought out, sometimes painfully, at the workshop. Organizers believe the event will lead to more conferences in the future on what is said to be the dark period' for Aboriginal people. A time when the government, through attempted assimilation of Natives into a white society, legislated the enrollment of all Aboriginal children into residential schools.

Peigan First Nation Chief Peter Strikes With A Gun was one of the students. Memories of abuse, isolation and loneliness plagued him and led him down a path of destruction.

"I thought I had an alcohol problem and a drug problem, but I had a living problem," he told a silent room of 250 people.

Some of his problems, he said, stemmed directly from his time in residential schools.

"The child in us was taken in those institutions," he said.

Other problems came from a generation of other family members who had been put in the schools. It is those problems, the handed down ones, which still plague the youth of today, he said.

"I went to a residential school and I still live with it," he said, as do our children.

Several presentations during the workshop linked the high percentage of Native people in jails to the legacy of residential schools. Many other social issues were directly related to the residential school experience.

Ann Shouting, a Blood Reserve member, told the room about her struggle to start the healing from her days in the St. Mary's Residential School. From the moment she was taken to the school her life changed.

"I had the loving warmth and security and safety [at home] because mom and dad were there and then one day in 1956, I was taken to that school. I was seven years old," she said in a shaky voice.

"I remember walking slowly up these wooden steps to this gigantic brick building I had never seen before. It seemed like it was going to swallow me up as the front double doors screeched open to receive me. . ." she read from an essay she wrote to help her deal with her pain. "The men wore long, black dresses and the women wore strange looking contraptions on their heads. They reminded me of our team horses that wore eye shades so as not to be easily distracted. . . The nun floated down the hallway to a huge recreation room filled with little girls. I had never seen so many little girls in all my life. I was definitely scared. . . There were rows and rows of tiny, neatly made beds. I quietly asked [the nun] how we could all possibly fit together on those things. She whispered that I would have a bed to myself. . . I wanted out. I wanted to go home. I had never slept alone before. I was always flanked by my siblings. . . I lay down in bed, crying silently into my pillow, feeling so alone, so abandoned and so scared, just hoping that when I awoke, I'd find myself safely at home. . . This experience left deep scars, but wait, that was just my first day at boarding school," she said to a tear-filled room.

The following years tore away her identity. She said she was physically and sexually abused.

"Right from the start I lost my identity. I was given a number and that's who I was. I was dirty and sinful and spiritually, I was scared to pray."

She witnessed the Catholic priest punishing young girls by publicly whipping and beating them. The scars run deep, she said.

It wasn't until a few years ago that Shouting began to let her feelings out. For years, she was a shell. She was hollow.

She was angry for years and that affected her family, her children. She didn't know what the probem was. In her words, she had locked her memories away inside her head. Eventually Shouting had to confront her demons.

"I went inside myself, through the corridors of my mind. I saw a door that was firmly bolted and I knew I had the key. I opened it," she said quietly. Out came emotions of fear, hatred, shame and loneliness."I shut the door fast because it hurt me."

She has gone back to the door and opened it over the years, emotions taken one step at a time.

"I had begun my healing journey. I had to, otherwise I wouldn't be here today," she said.

Despite the experiences she faced at the hands of the priest, Shouting said it has been spirituality which she has grasped even stronger during her healing.

"Today, physically I feel good about myself. I am somebody beautiful and I am somebody important. All this because my Creator gave me life.

The success of the workshop has led organizers to start planning for a follow-up conference.

Organizers said the comments from the Lethbridge workshop show the importance of keeping the healing strong. They believe that the time is now for people to come forward and let their healing begin.