The Survivors Speak

Student victimization of students
“You had to watch out.”
Statements from former students from across the country indicate that student victimization
of other students was a common problem. The statements highlight the difficulties
that some students had in getting staff to address bullying, and help explain why other students
did not raise the issue with staff. In their statements, many former students recalled
how bullies contributed to the atmosphere of fear and violence that prevailed at many of
the schools.
William Garson recalled that at the Elkhorn, Manitoba, school, “we were always like
hiding in the corners; you know away from any abusement. From other, older, from older,
elder boys, students.” 601 Percy Thompson said that at the Hobbema, Alberta, school, “one
bully used to come at me and he’d pretend he was going to talk to me and all of sudden
hit me in the belly. And of course I gag, gag, and he’d laugh his head off and, you know,
to see me in such a predicament.” 602 Alice Ruperthouse spoke of “the cruelty of the other
children” at the Amos, Québec, school. “It was, you know, like in a jungle. Like in a jungle,
you don’t know what’s going to come out but you know you had to watch out.” 603 Albert
Elias felt that the classroom at the Anglican school in Aklavik “was the safest place to be
in ’cause that’s where nobody could beat me up. I dreaded recesses and lunches and after
school, I dreaded those times.” 604
Bullying might start shortly after arrival. In some schools, all new male students were
put through a hazing. Denis Morrison gave the following description of arrival at the Fort
Frances school.
It’s almost like every kid that came in, the new kid
that came in, like, you almost had, that’s like being
a new, they call us new fish, eh, the new fish and
coming into the tank. They used to initiate you, like,
they would beat the hell out of you, the other kids
would. It wasn’t anybody else, it was the other kids,
the older ones, eh. It’s like they, it was like the normal
thing to happen. You were the one that had to
get beat up now, eh, and so you, you went through
the getting beat up. 605
Timothy Henderson said that the boys at the Fort
Alexander school were forced to fight.
Denis Morrison.