The Survivors Speak

Arrival • 33
And then after I had the shower they gave me these clothes that didn’t fit, and they
gave me these shoes that didn’t fit and they all had numbers on them. And after the
shower then I was taken up to the dormitory. And when I went to, when I was taken
up to this dormitory I seen many beds up there, all lined up so neatly and the beds
made so neatly. And then they gave me a pillow, they gave me blankets, they gave me
sheets to make up my bed. And lo and behold, you know, I did not know how to make
that bed because I came from a place of buffalo robes and deer hides and rabbit skins
to cover with, no such thing as a pillow. 73
Marthe Basile-Coocoo recalled feeling a chill on first seeing the Pointe Bleue, Québec,
school.
It was something like a grey day, it was a day without sunshine. It was, it was the
impression that I had, that I was only six years old, then, well, the nuns separated us,
my brothers, and then my uncles, then I no longer understood. Then that, that was a
period there, of suffering, nights of crying, we all gathered in a corner, meaning that
we came together, and there we cried. Our nights were like that. 74
Pauline St-Onge was traumatized by just the sight of the Sept-Îles school. She fought
back when her father tried to take her into the school. “I thought in my child’s head I said:
‘you would… you would make me go there, but I will learn nothing, nothing, nothing.’” 75
Louise Large could not speak any English when her grandmother took her to the Blue
Quills, Alberta, school in the early 1960s.
My grandma and I got into this black car, and I was kind of excited, and I was looking
at the window and look. I’d never rode in a car before, or I might have, but this was a
strange person. I went to, we drove into Blue Quills, and it was a big building, and I
was in awe with the way it looked, and I was okay ’cause I had my grandma with me,
and we got off, and we went up the stairs. And that was okay, I was hanging onto my
grandma, I was going into this strange place. And, and we walked up the stairs into
the building, and down the hallway, going to the left, and there was a room there, and
two nuns came.
As was often the case, she was not used to seeing nuns dressed in religious habits. “I
didn’t know they were nuns. I don’t know why they were dressed the way they were. They
had long black skirts, dresses, and at that time they looked weird ’cause they had these
little weird hats and a veil, kind of like a black bridesmaid or something, and they were all
smiling at me.”
She was shocked to discover she was going to be left at the school. The nuns had to hold
Louise tight to stop her from trying to leave with her grandmother.
And I wasn’t aware at that time that my grandma was gonna leave me there. I’m not
ever sure how she told me but they started holding me and my grandma left and
I started fighting them because I didn’t want my grandma to leave me, and, and I
started screaming, and crying and crying, and it must have been about, I don’t know,