Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

92 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionOttawa refused to fund the construction of an additional barn, which would haveallowed for an increase in milk production and the isolation of sick animals. 325 Evenwhen the dairy herds were producing satisfactorily, the students did not always getthe full benefit. Often, the milk was separated, with the skimmed milk served to thechildren. 326 The milk fat was turned to butter and cream, which was frequently soldto raise funds for the schools. Inspector W. Murison noted in 1925 that the cows atthe Elkhorn, Manitoba, school were producing enough milk for the school, but thestudents were not getting “the full benefit of this milk as I found that they were makingabout 30 lbs. of butter a week, and a great deal of the milk given the children is separatedmilk, which has not much food value.” 327In 1942, the federal government issued Canada’s Official Food Rules, an earlyversion of the Canada Food Guide. 328 Inspectors quickly discovered that residentialschool diets did not measure up to the Food Rules. Dr. L. B. Pett, the head of the federalgovernment’s Nutrition Division, concluded in 1947, on the basis of inspectionshis staff had done, that “no school was doing a good feeding job.” 329 It was not untilthe late 1950s that the federal government adopted a residential school food allowancecalculated to provide a diet deemed “fully adequate nutritionally.” 330 Even withthe increase in funding, schools still had difficulty providing students with adequatemeals. A 1966 dietician’s report on Yukon Hall in Whitehorse observed that althoughthe Canada Food Guide requirements were being met, “because of the appetite of thisage group, the staff are finding 66¢ per day per student is limiting.” 331 In 1969, an officialat Coudert Hall in Whitehorse wrote, “The $0.80 alloted [sic] per student for foodis not sufficient. In the north we find prices sky high.” To cope with the problem, theresidence sometimes had to buy “less meat and served maccaroni [sic] products.” 332A November 1970 inspection of the Dauphin, Manitoba, school noted that the “menuappears to be short of the recommended two servings of fruit per day.” 333In their home communities, many students had been raised on food that theirparents had hunted, fished, or harvested. These meals were very different from theEuropean diets served at the schools. This change in diet added to the students’ senseof disorientation. Daisy Diamond found the food at residential school to be unfamiliarand unpalatable. “When I was going to Shingwauk, the food didn’t taste very good,because we didn’t have our traditional food there, our moose meat, our bannock,and our berries.” 334 Dora Fraser, from the eastern Arctic, found it difficult to adjust tothe food served in the hostels. “We were eating canned food, beans, peas, red beans.The food was terrible.” 335 Even when traditional foods were prepared, the schoolcooks made them in ways that were unfamiliar and unappetizing to the students.Ellen Okimaw, who attended the Fort Albany, Ontario, school, had vivid memoriesof poorly cooked fish served at the schools. The school cook had simply “dumped thewhole thing, and boiled them like that, just like that without cleaning them.” 336