The Survivors Speak

Truancy • 135
occasions from schools in Sioux Lookout and Kenora. In part, she simply wanted to see her
family. “It is a long year, only time we came home was summertime. We never went home
for Christmas or we never went home for Easter.” But she also wanted to get away from
bullying at school. “I remember getting bullied by kids, and I remember getting abused
by former students.” She and her sister were always caught, returned, and punished. “I
remember getting straps on the hand. I remember my sister getting a strap too when she
ran away with me.” 467
Students might run away for an adventure and then return. William Garson left the
Elkhorn, Manitoba, school in the 1940s. “I went to Brandon; jumped on the freight train, …
trying to get away from school. I jumped on the freight train and went to Brandon for [the]
circus.” When the circus was over, he returned to the school on his own. 468
In some cases, students ran away even though they had no expectation of making it to
their homes. They simply could not bear residential school life any longer. Walter Jones
attended the Alberni school in British Columbia. He ran away several times and was
harshly punished in front of other students on his return. “We were all thinking we’re not
gonna cry when that happens. Come to my turn, too, all three of us, one after the other, I
cried, they cried, and all the other ones cried.” Despite this humiliation, he continued to
run away. “We knew it was, we might not be able to get where we come from, but we didn’t
think of that, you know, we’re just running away because we were, wanted to run away,
you know, ’cause we were, didn’t, we couldn’t stay there.” 469
Marguerite Wabano, who was born in 1904, was the one of the oldest former students to
provide a statement to the Commission. While she could recall little of her own time at the
Fort Albany school, she had a strong memory of three boys who were never found when
they ran away. “Yes they did run away for good. And they went missing for good. Yes and
they didn’t talk to anybody though they saw them.” 470
Even when it was not fatal, running away was frightening. Isaac Daniels ran away from
the Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, school with two older boys. Their escape route involved
crossing a railway bridge. Partway across, Daniels became too frightened to continue and
turned back.
And it was already late, it must have been about 11:00, 12:00 o’clock. So, I said to myself,
well, I’ll go back, I’ll go back, follow this track all the way, I’ll go back to residential
school.
So, so that, that was already the sun was coming up by the time I got back to the
residential school. And I was just a young fella, you know. So, anyway, I couldn’t get
in. Dormitory locked, doors were locked, so I went around the corner, and I slept on
the, by my window there. I just have a window, and I used to sneak in and out from
the, through the window there. So, I must have sat down there, and I must have fell
asleep. 471