The Survivors Speak

Fear, loneliness, and emotional neglect
“Homesickness was your constant companion.”
A majority of the former students who spoke to the Commission emphasized a general
atmosphere of fear that permeated their school lives. Despite being surrounded by dozens
of children, they were lonely and deprived of affection and approval.
Raymond Cutknife recalled that when he attended the Hobbema school, he “lived with
fear.” As he grew older, this turned into anger and bitterness.
The abuse that I went through and then I grew with anger, as I grow a little older, and
that stayed with me for a long, long time. Anger into bitterness as I grew a little older
again and you know at the, and it’s about the mid-grades or going into Grade Nine,
and then the last part of my experience with my life, that reflected on hatred, with
such intense hatred that I never thought what it meant but when I think about that,
you know it, as I grow older even today when I think about it you know, I didn’t realize
how close I came to destroying my own life spiritually speaking, that is. 382
Of his years in two different Manitoba schools, Timothy Henderson said:
Every day was, you were in constant fear that, your
hope was that it wasn’t you today that were going
to, that was going to be the target, the victim. You
know, you weren’t going to have to suffer any form
of humiliation, ’cause they were good at that. You
know and they always had nasty, nasty remarks all
day long. There was never, you never heard a kind
word; I never heard a kind word. 383
William Herney, who attended the Shubenacadie
school, recalled the first few days in the school as
frightening and bewildering.
Timothy Henderson.
And you had to understand, you had to learn.
Within those few days, you had to learn, because
otherwise you’re gonna get your head knocked off. Anyway, you learned everything.
You learned to obey. And one of the rules that you didn’t break, you obey, and you
were scared, you were very scared. You, you don’t know what to come up with next. I
was scared. I was, like, always afraid, always looking over my shoulder. 384