Residential Residential

ARTHUR FOURSTAR—PART 1 19
Birtle Indian Residential School, Birtle, MB,
and also the Prince Albert Indian Residence,
Lac La Ronge, SK
HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST WENT TO
BIRTLE?
I was five years and ten months old.
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOUR FIRST DAY WAS
LIKE?
It’s a bad memory. I was taken to residential
school on October 20th, 1944 and I’ve gotten
that date from my school records.
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT DAY?
What I remember is I was at home with my
mother and she was making bannock. I was
playing on the floor. My father was in the Second
World War so there was just my mom and me.
And on that day that I mentioned, all of a sudden
the door opened and an RCMP Officer and a
man whom I came to know as […] came in. The
RCMP Officer went over to my mother and held
her from behind and Mr. […]—it could be Mr.
[…]—came to me and just grabbed me and took
me out to the car and threw me in the car.
When the truck drove off I chased that truck but I
couldn’t catch up. Those students, they had their
hands out at the back. They were going to try to
pull me up onto the truck, I guess, if I could have
caught up, but I couldn’t.
Walking back to the residential school, a goose
crossed my path with little goslings behind it and
I was so angry I kicked that one gosling and I
killed it. [Speaker overcome with emotion.]
As a result of that Mr. [. . .] took me upstairs and
he filled a bathtub with cold water and he put
me in it. He left me there. I don’t know what my
skin looked like. He would come in and let me
get out of the water for a little while and then
would shove me back in there again. […] As a result
of my residential school I had a lot of anger.
A lot of that stuff those guys are talking about, a
lot of anger, revenge, hatred. I was charged with
noncapital murder and convicted of manslaughter.
I spent time in the penitentiary. That’s a
shameful part of my life. But I think it’s all a part
of my residential school.
I remember screaming. I remember my mom
doing the same thing. But the police officer held
onto her. When Mr. [. . .] threw me in the car, I
went out the other door and I ran. But he ran after
me and caught me. I like to think of the word
“abducted.” After he caught me he threw me
into the back seat again and they tied me with
my hands like this [indicating]. And we drove
away. […] That’s when the darkness began. They
kept me over there for five years without coming
home for the summer, year round, because they
couldn’t find my mother. I understand that today.
[…] I remember one time during the summer
holidays, the summer holidays started, they
used to load the students from Saskatchewan
onto a big truck with canvas over it. When they
loaded that truck with Saskatchewan students
to go home I wanted to get on that truck, too. I
was about eight then. But they wouldn’t let me.
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