The Survivors Speak

16 • Truth & Reconciliation Commission
did not want us to go they were too afraid of the police, too afraid to stand up to the
police. I am one of the lucky ones because my father did say no when they wanted
to take me. He told them he would bring me himself once the ice had formed. I
was brought here after the children who had been rounded up by boat had already
started. That first year my parents came several times to take me home but they were
refused by the area administrator. My sister told me that my parents were very sad at
that time.
Rather than be separated from their children, his parents moved to Pond Inlet. “After
two years had passed my family decided to move to Pond because they knew I had to go
to school.” 39
In some cases, parents reluctantly sent their children because the residential school
represented their only educational option. Ellen Smith’s father attended the Anglican residential
school at Hay River in the Northwest Territories. She believes that his experiences
at the school led him to oppose her being sent to residential school. However, her grandfather
believed it was necessary that she get an education.
My dad reluctantly let me go to school because my grandpa said that “in the future
she will help our people; she needs to go there.” And that struggle occurred with my
dad over the years. For eleven years, that I went to residential school. But my grandpa
was the one that said, “They have to go. She has to go.” 40
She was sent to the Anglican school in Aklavik in 1953. She eventually attended three
other residential schools.
Some parents wanted their children to gain the knowledge they believed was needed
to protect their community and culture. When Shirley Williams’s father took her to catch
the bus to the Spanish, Ontario, girls’ school, he bought her an ice cream and gave her four
instructions: “One was remember who you are. Do not forget your language. Whatever
they do to you in there, be strong. And the fourth one, learn about the Indian Act, and
come back and teach me. So with those four things, he said that ‘you don’t know why I’m
telling you this, but some day you will understand.’” 41
One student, who attended the Gordon’s, Saskatchewan, school, recalled the ways in
which the churches competed against one another to recruit students.
But when we look at the residential schools, you know, and the churches we recognize,
you know, at least I’ve seen it, you know, that we’ve had these two competing
religions, the Anglican and the Catholic churches both competing for our souls it
seemed. You know, I remember growing up on the reserve here when they were
looking for students. They were competing against each other. We were the prizes,
you know, that they would gain if they won. I remember they, the Catholic priests
coming out with, you know, used hockey equipment and telling us, you know, “Come
and come to our school. Come and play hockey for us. Come and play in our band.
We got all kinds of bands here; we got trombones and trumpets and drums,” and all
that kind of stuff. They use all this stuff to encourage us or entice us to come to the