The Survivors Speak

Discipline • 145
When, when something would happen, like one of the girls would get into trouble
or somebody would, or somebody, or somebody would get into trouble, they’d haul
us all down to the playroom and we’d stand in these lines, we had to stand at attention.
And you would walk around, we would, we would be forced to stand there until
somebody, whoever did what confessed. And, and I guess the, the memory that I
have is like, we stood there for so long, I saw girls falling; that’s, that’s how long we
had stood there. So I guess it was really a battle of wills. 510
Gerald McLeod recalled being subjected to group punishments at the Carcross, Yukon,
school.
And another place where, where we used to play downstairs, they call it the play area
… where they make us stand up in line, and if one guy got in trouble, all of us would
have to stand there ’til we confessed who did, like, stole candy from the candy place,
or whatever went wrong, or something, we always all got punished for it. 511
Students might also be punished if it was felt they were withholding information about
the activities of other students. Eli Carpenter recalled that the principal of the Presbyterian
school in Kenora in the early 1940s was very strict. On one occasion, Carpenter was
strapped because the principal believed he was not revealing information about the destination
of a boy who had run away. Carpenter said the boy had not shared his plans with
him. 512
Mary Vivier saw her brother publicly flogged at the Fort Frances school.
I don’t know what my, what my brother … what
he did. All I know is that it was, we were all in the
dining area when they brought him in, when they
brought them in. They had, I don’t know, I was just
pretty small, but it looked like a big, long rod to me,
maybe it was smaller. That’s when they were hit in
front of all the students. Maybe it was a lesson for
us, or scare tactic, I’m not sure, but I was, I cried. I
had one of the nuns holding me down, so I don’t
go running to my brother. They had another one by
my sister. I remember that day. I cried, I cried and I
cried. 513
Mary Vivier.
Daniel Andre was disciplined in front of other students
at Grollier Hall, the Roman Catholic residence in Inuvik.
All I remember is being singled out, and the centre of attention, and being abused
physically. And when he couldn’t make me cry, or, or weaken me that way, he would
get all the students to call me all different kinds of names, and, and laugh at me,
forcibly make them laugh at me so that I cried, and I cried every single time when it
happened. I couldn’t help it. 514