The Survivors Speak

Life before residential school • 11
I would spend time with my parents, but not a whole lot. So, mostly my grandparents
raised me. My parents never hit me, my grandparents. I didn’t know what, what it
meant to be hit, physically abused. All I needed was one stare, or one look from my
dad, or my grandfather, and my grandmother or my
mother would always say “wâpam awa” 20 [look at
that one], then I would stop what I was doing,
because I knew how to respect my grandfather and
my dad, didn’t have to hit us, just, just took one
look. [laughs] And so I grew up with that. And if we
were acting foolish, or anything like that, or
misbehaving, or whatever, they, they would just,
they would just tell us in a good, kind way not to
behave like that, and or if we were acting too silly,
or whatever, they would tell us to calm down. They
would always tell us that if you’re gonna hit a high
like that, you’re gonna hit low, and I’ll always
Noel Starblanket.
remember that teaching, ’cause I tell my grandchildren
the same thing. When they get too excited, or too animated, or laughing too
hard, or tickling, or whatever on an emotional high, I’ll just tell them what my
grandparents said, and I’ll never forget that. 21
Patrick James Hall was born in 1960 and grew up in what is now called the Dakota Tipi
First Nation.
And, I remember, I remember a lot of times, I guess, with my grandfather, my
grandmother. One of them in my mind, I remember. My grandfather used to haul
wood on a sleigh. He had horses. And, so, my older brothers would go with him, too,
and we just, he’d take us for horse rides. And, he used to talk with us all the time in
Dakota. I mean, we used to, we used to remember what he said because we’d always
be laughing, having fun, and.… My grandpa was very, very active guy. He, he always
made sure, you know, he made sure that we had everything for the family. We used
to go hunting, deer hunting and fishing, trapping. And, my mother, too, she was a
very hard worker ’cause she used to be hauling water, cutting wood. And that was just
during the winters. It was very hard ’cause we have to cut wood, and break the ice for
water, and heat it up for the stove. 22
Growing up in Sandy Lake, Saskatchewan, Leona Martin learned how to live off the land.
But my granny taught us some valuable lessons on, I didn’t really know what they
were until I got older, that she would. And my dad too, used to wake us up at 5:00 in
the morning and we used to go snaring rabbits. He told us, “You have to get up before
the animals,” he said, “and you’ll, otherwise they’ll take your whatever you snared the
rabbits or hogs … the prairie chickens,” that, “you had to get up early, don’t be lazy.”