Survivors' conference draws a huge crowd

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It was an emotionally charged time for dozens of Aboriginal people who made their way from every province and territory to the city of Edmonton to be part of an experience that many will not soon forget.

The event was the First International Residential School Conference, which proved a huge success as organizers over-extended their capacity limit of 1,500 delegates by 500. Still, the conference had to turn away hundreds more as survivors, relatives and other interested parties converged on the city's Shaw Conference Centre.

The first of its kind in Canada, the conference drew largely on the first-hand experiences of Aboriginal presenters who themselves were victims of a system that originated in the 1840s and, for the most part, carried on until the 1970s. A few schools lasted longer.

The schools have been the subject of much criticism over the past several years as many former residents have lodged claims of physical, sexual, mental and spiritual abuse.

On the opening day, guest speakers included Dr. Maggie Hodgson and Leonard Dick, as well as Chief Ted Quewezance from Saskatchewan who let loose with a litany of abuses suffered at the hands of residential school staff members by Aboriginal children. His scathing delivery dredged up innumerable sad and bad recollections for conference-goers. Many a tear was shed.

Nonetheless, the conference had a positive and productive effect on a lot of people. It provided an understanding of why many survivors and their kin act, feel and behave they way they do today. It also kick-started the process of grieving and healing.

Dr. Phil Lane's workshop, Healing the Hurt and Shame of Intergenerational Impacts, expressed the human need for people "to feel warmth, love and affection." These elements, he stated, were absent or, at best, barely negligible in the lives of residential school children.

Furthermore, he added, the ability for survivors to pass such emotions to their children is extremely difficult because they never learned to share their feelings.

Similarly, children were not allowed to cry, a natural healing process, so the victims developed strong interior and exterior mechanisms to survive. They could not be touched emotionally and sometimes were perceived to be anti-social and uncaring.

Another speaker who alluded to the intergenerational effect on survivors and their offspring was Arsene Tootoosis from Poundmaker's reserve. A 20-year veteran of counselling, therapy and training programs, Tootoosis explained the "loneliness" syndrome that so often accompanies survivors. Why he, himself, shut down emotionally at the age of six as a result of the school's effect on him. That included feeling "alone."

"People begin to panic when they're alone and want to get into relationships (too quickly)," he stressed. The normal grieving period for those who lose someone as a result of break-ups, he added, is two to six years.

One delegate broke down crying when he tried to recount his feelings about residential school. "I didn't like myself," he said. But, he also said he was proud to be at the conference with others, to find that he's not alone in his emotions and thoughts.

Tootoosis went on to explain that survivors frequently exhibit unconscious behavior that is generally viewed by others as negative. For example, they yell at children and want to be heard.

"What our brother did here today takes real courage," said Tootoosis. Don't be afraid to break down and talk about it; it's healing therapy, he stated.

While most workshops treated the residential school system that engulfed First Nations people, at least one of them was specifically directed at the Metis population.

The Silent Metis of the Residential Schools workshop by Tricia Logan attested to the fact that the Metis survivors can not and will not remain silent. Logan serves as project co-ordinator for the Manitoba Metis Federation in Brandon where she operates the Lost Generation Project. She said that the focus of the chools has been towards First Nations people. She is not against recognition and resolution for First Nations; rather, she objected to the neglect of the Metis.

Logan explained that the Lost Generation Project is trying to compile a list of "Metis attendees" of the schools. There've been a lot of problems associated with tracking Metis attendees because records such as those of the church and government are "so scattered and hard to locate or access.

"We are asking Metis people who were in the schools to come forward, to contact us," she said.

What the project strives for is to also establish links with the communities so it can lend necessary support to Metis people who experience personal and intergenerational effects as a result of the treatment they received at the schools.

The project, she added, also wishes to acquire the stories of survivors to help with healing and to put into historical accounts that Metis children were confronted by the same conditions, rules, experiences, abuses and intergenerational effects as their First Nations brothers and sisters. The schools' staffs and First Nation students looked upon Metis pupils as outsiders, explained Logan.

The church and government saw the Metis and non-treaty Indians as a means of bolstering attendance numbers, Logan said. Indian agents took not only three-year-olds and ill children but "Metis children in the place of First Nations children."

Presenter Norman Yakeleya who runs the Northern Addictions Services in Fort Simpson is a survivor from the Grollier Hall School. He was a survivor who couldn't handle his anger and the abuse he experienced. He was one of more than 350 former students to complain about abuse. The result is "29 supervisors were charged (And) 21 more are going to court."

Despite the people's request that the federal government compensate for the loss of culture and language, "only sexual and physical abuse" was considered said Yakeleya.

One delegate jumped up and said, "Lot of us will nevr heal. Why they put physical and sexual first, I don't know when mental abuse is the worst."

Another conference is planned for mid-April in Winnipeg.

As for the International Residential School Conference in Edmonton, co-coordinator Sharon Shirt said the sponsors will likely look at making it an annual event.