By Lasia Kretzel

Saskatoon 60s Scoop victims open dialogue on lost generation

Jun 14, 2015 | 11:57 AM

Lynn Thompson will forever remember the day a group of white social workers came to take her and her sisters from their home on the Pine Creek First Nation in Manitoba. 

She remembers the smell of the trunk of the van where she and her sisters were stuffed into and whisked away from their families. 

“I remember being told to run to the bushes as fast as I could. I wasn’t able to run fast enough with a little girl on my back and a little girl on my arm,” she said.

The then three-year-old Thompson was one of 70 children taken from Pine Creek over the course of a couple days.

Between 1960 and the mid-1980s, and estimated 20,000 First Nations kids were yanked from their communities and either placed in foster care or adopted by Caucasian families in what has become known as the 60s Scoop.

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Thompson spent 14 years moving between some 30 foster homes and two adoptions and endured physical and psychological abuse to the point where she shot herself. She said she never received proper care for the physical and emotional wounds.

Now fully grown, survivors are trying to find a way home, acceptance from their First Nations communities and a balance between their two worlds. 

On Friday, Thompson hosted what she hopes is the first of many speaking events at Station 20 West. Survivors shared the history of the scoop and their personal stories to educate Canadians and start a process of healing.

“We’re often referred to as the stolen generation or the lost generation because First Nations people haven’t even allowed us back and our white world, we just don’t often fit in it,” Thompson said, adding she hopes First Nations groups will allow scoop victims back into the community to relearn the heritage, language and culture they lost.

Growing up in an ever-changing home environment, Thompson said many scoop victims, including herself, are very nomadic and don’t settle for too long.

Thompson also helps run the 60s Scoop support group at Station 20 West. She said before she began to share her story, she thought she was the only one who had been taken from her home.

“It was nice to see other people live almost the same life as I had lived. It was like we become family,” she said. 

Author Jackie Maurice wrote a book entitled Lost Children, documenting the stories of scoop victims. A victim herself, she said she lost everything from her culture to her medical history.  

She said she feels the scoop is still ongoing, given the disproportionately high number of aboriginal children in foster care across the country.

“The tragic thing about that is that many children have fallen through the cracks of the system,” she said. 

Maurice said Friday’s event helped create an environment of openness and trust and is a step towards support and dialogue about the issues that persist to this day.

Last week, Manitoba became the first governmental body in Canada to officially apologize to the 60s Scoop victims. Originally from Manitoba, Thompson said the apology is a good first step.

“We’re finally acknowledged. We’re some thing,” she said. 

For the past 20 years Thompson, along with her family in Manitoba, have been working to spread awareness about the scoop. She said it has been hard to watch movements like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission push forward while her cause feels left behind. 

Thompson is also part of a national class action lawsuit against the federal government for the pain endured by families and victims. She said the lawsuit is still in its infancy, but if successful, she would use the money she earned to get counseling and open a house for people with HIV and AIDS.

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