Survivors and those with family members who attended the schools stand to be recognized. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

NDTR in Meadow Lake

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With a microphone in her hand at the Meadow Lake Civic Centre, Vitaline Read shared a story with school children, community members and other survivors of her time in the Beauval Indian Residential School.

In the spring of 1951, Read had just completed her year at the school and was told by her auntie who was also at the school, that she was going home – only the young girl of seven didn’t know where that was.

“All of a sudden, the kids were getting excited. They were getting brave – like the older girls – the older ones were taking back to the nuns,” she said.

When that day came, the little girl, her friends and peers walked down a hill carrying schoolwork they had done over the year. At the bottom of the hill, a barge was waiting for the children to climb on board. As the barge made its way, children were met by canoes that would take them onward to their communities.

Handprints. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

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“My auntie kept telling me, ‘You’re going to see your mom and dad’ but I just thought ‘Where are they,’” Read said, noting she had been apart from them for 10 months.

Finally, with the shoreline in view, her aunt pointed out her parents amid the others waiting.

“I remember as the barge got [close] to the shore, somebody walking in the water and picking me up,” she said, pausing with emotion.

“It was my dad.”

The audience, a sea or orange, sat with rapt attention – as Read, who would spend another eight years at the school, spoke of her experience.

Vitaline Read shares her story. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

In Meadow Lake, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was spent listening, hearing and understanding through stories from Elders, teachers and community leaders.

One of those leaders, Marcia Mirasty, Meadow Lake Tribal Council Senior Director of Health and Social Development, spoke to the school children in attendance about the importance of September. 30.

“This is a day that we acknowledge our history, it’s a day of truth telling of things that happened a long time ago in residential school,” she said.

“It’s about laws that were made that put our people – as Indigenous people, First Nations people – on reserve and then later made laws to take our children.”

As she looked out from the podium, Mirasty spoke of the intersectionality of the loss of culture and language shared both by Indigenous people and the Scottish highlanders; the latter of whom also lived by laws which made it illegal to own or wear tartan, speak Gaelic or hold gatherings following the last Jacobite Rising in 1745, thus shattering highland culture.

“That’s what happened to our people. We lost our songs, we were told not to wear our regalia, and it broke us down,” she said.

Blaine Sylvestre-Moberly, 22 months, plays. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

Speaking of their teachings, Mirasty spoke of Creator Law, natural laws, and man-made laws.

“One of our teachings is that we’re all equal,” she said, noting it doesn’t matter what colour a person is.

“In our teachings, we even say that we’re cousins – that means that we’re related.”

When MP Gary Vidal came to the podium, he wanted to share something different. He spoke of a speech the late Chuck Strahl, former minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada made in a small event in British Columbia.

“He says, ‘I was the minister of Indian Affairs when the first meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission took place at The Forks in Winnipeg,’” he said, noting Strahl had sat in a sharing circle.

Reading the late minister’s words, Vidal said the circle was comprised of about 15 people, most of whom were Indigenous, but some were members churches, government and schools.

“He said, ‘Each person was a witness, either by giving testimony about what happened at the schools or hearing it for the first time and therefore bearing witness to what was said,” read Vidal.

MP Gary Vidal. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

As Strahl listened to the survivors testify to their experiences, he was taking it in and thought he was doing well until one man – an airline pilot – directly to his right, shared his story.

“During that time, he flew a float plane into isolated areas. I too, had been a pilot during my logging days, Mr. Stahl says, ‘And I could visualize what he was saying like I had done it myself” he read.

The man landed on a lake in the middle of nowhere. His task was to pick up two young Indigenous children and fly them to town so they could go to residential school.

“I drifted over to a log by the shore where this little family waited. There were just four of them – mom, dad and two children. The kids were maybe six and eight-years-old and had never been close to an airplane, let alone in one,” he said.

Those children, who didn’t speak a word of English, clung to their parents, and their father had to pry their hands loose and help them into the plane.

“I took off from the lake and I saw the parents standing on that log, trying to get one last glimpse of their children and I thought ‘What have I done?’”

Once the pilot landed and pulled up to the dock, there wasn’t anyone to greet the children and take them on to the school, so the man called a taxi.

He never saw them again.

That story stayed with Strahl the rest of his life and for 10-year-old Creeonna Calvert, it was one she too will never forget.

“I just imagine being those little kids and feeling that stress getting into a random plane and never even being near a plane,” she said.

Ten-year-old Creeonna Calvert said she’s glad they learned about the past. Her theory is that if they know about the past, they’re less likely to repeat it. (Julia Lovett-Squires/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

“I don’t think I could make it. I’d probably be balling.”

Patricia Main, Cree fieldworker for the Residential School Project with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council said it was an important day for the community.

“Having the elders raise the flag in the (city) of Meadow Lake I think was very significant and very historical,” she said of the acknowledgement of survivors.

“It’s a time of healing and restoration, a time of rewriting history.”

Main said this event was to teach the community the history of the Beauval school as it operated just an hour and a half from Meadow Lake.

“We have so many of the survivors, their children and their grandchildren that either go to school in Meadow Lake or live in this region,” she said, adding they now have understanding and awareness.

Main said it was the dawn of a new day for their people.

“We’re no longer victims but we’re warriors and the warriors are rising up in love, rising up in hope and rising up in courage.”

The National Indian Residential School Crisis Line provides 24-hour crisis support to former Indian Residential School students and their families toll-free at 1-866-925-4419.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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