Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The history • 83pertained the weeding of the garden and the house work on their side of the school,and I must say, that this summer none denied our watchword, ‘No idleness here,’ as allwork was exclusively done by the pupils.” 245From the time the schools were opened, parents and inspectors raised concernsabout just how much work students were being required to do. Inspector T. P.Wadsworth claimed in 1884 that the boys at the Battleford school generally enjoyedtheir chores, but added that he would protest “against forcing these little fellows tohaul water every day and all day from the river in winter, as was the case last year.” 246In 1886, Qu’Appelle school principal Joseph Hugonnard wrote, “During the summerthey have more manual labor and recreation. The parents cannot understand that thepupils are here to learn how to work as well as to read and write, we therefore cannotat present devote too much time to the former.” 247 Inspector Wadsworth returnedto the issue of overwork in 1893, when he said that much of the farm work at theMiddlechurch, Manitoba, school was too much for the boys. The girls were also set towork in the laundry at a “tender age.” 248 Gilbert Wuttunee, who attended the Battlefordschool in the first decade of the twentieth century, recalled, “They didn’t do any farmwork or any kind of work until you got to, at that time, standard three, whether youwere nine years old or fifteen years old.” After he turned nine, he “never saw anotherfull day of school until I left.” By then, the school had drastically reduced the numberof trades it taught: “There was just blacksmithing, carpentering and farming.” 249According to Lillian Elias, each fall, a barge would arrive in Aklavik, loaded with logsfor the school furnace. The students would form a long chain leading from the bargeto the furnace room and, with the assistance of the school staff, unload the barge. 250The work was inadequately supervised and often dangerous. There are accountsof students’ getting hands caught in power equipment in the school laundries, thekitchens, workshops, and fields. 251 Principals tended to place the blame on studentcarelessness and neglected to report such injuries to the government. Severalinjuries were recorded only after the student’s parents complained or the governmentreceived a bill for the hospital treatment of a student. 252 In December 1935, amangle (a type of clothes wringer) at the Qu’Appelle school crushed several fingerson Florence McLeod’s right hand, which were amputated. The school principal, G.Leonard, stressed that “this mangle has been in use at this school for several years andall the girls are familiar with its operation.” Indian Affairs secretary A. F. MacKenzieconcluded that “all the necessary precautions were taken, and, while the accident toFlorence McLeod is regretted, it was through no fault of the school management.” 253The school’s failure to protect its students can be seen in the fact that McLeod’s father,Henry, had been injured in a similar fashion when he was a student at the sameschool. 254 In 1941, a twelve-year-old boy lost all the fingers on one hand in an accidentin the Brandon, Manitoba, school barn. 255 Eight years later, fifteen-year-old RodneyBeardy died in a tractor accident at the same school. 256 A student at the Edmonton