Notable Quotes

Below are a number of quotes from various sources that help us understand the effects of residential schools.

“This is not an aboriginal problem; this is a Canadian problem.” Murray Sinclair - head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, now a Senator
“He (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) cares about the people way up north that we were trained our entire lives to ignore. What’s going on up there ain’t good. It may be worse than it’s ever been.” - Gord Downie - The Tragically Hip
“They tried to convert me in there. They took away my ceremonies, my rituals and my language. They tried to assimilate us. They told us our religion and rituals were the devil’s work. My father put me in there in 1942. He assumed it was a good place because I was going to get an education but they took away my language, my own spiritual beliefs, and my culture. Not for a minute would he have sent me there if he had known.” - Geronimo Henry (Mohawk) Mohawk Institute resident - 1942 - 1953
“The education of Indians {should} consist not merely of training the mind but of weaning from the habits and feelings of their ancestors and the acquirements of the language, arts, and customs of civilized life.” - Dr. Egerton Ryerson - head of education in Upper Canada
“In my years at St. Margaret’s, girls and boys did most of the physical work. The girls did the laundry, cooked and cleaned, ironed, and took care of the younger children. They wove fabric and sewed clothes for the students. I worked in the barn with cows and pigs. I learned how to plant and harvest the huge fields where we grew food for animals and the children such as oats and barley. I could make soap. I cut all the students’ hair when I was 16 in my last year at the school.When I left the school, no one would hire me on the Canadian side of Rainy Lake. I went to the United States side and found work. People over there were more open to working with Indians.” - Dick Bird (Ojibway) - member of Couchiching First Nation
“Our Aboriginal Elders are the most respected members of the Mi’kmaw community because of the wisdom and knowledge collected from their entire life experiences. One of the principal ways of teaching young children is through the telling of legends that embody thousands of years of experience and living off the land. The storytellers emphasize living harmoniously with the two-legged, four-legged, the winged ones, and those that swim in the waters, all our relations. Even the plants are said to have a spirit and are our relations. When we have our sacred ceremonies, like the sweat lodge, we end it by saying, Msit no’kmaq, which means ‘All my relations.’” - Isabelle Knockwood, Mi’kmaw Elder
“My daughter asked me, ‘If there were 250 children in the school and only four supervisors, why didn’t you rebel and take over the school?’ I told her, ‘They had so much control over us that people couldn’t stop them if they tried.’ At Fort Alexander school, we were far from home, at least five miles (eight kilometres). When I was in high school in Winnipeg, we wrote letters to our family, but they never got mailed.” - Bertha Fontaine (Ojibwe) attended Fort Alexander Indian Residential school and Assiniboia Indian Residential School in Manitoba, 1953 - 1965
“Cuprex was an extermination liquid applied to the children’s heads to remove lice and nits, whether they needed it or not. I took this photo of Cuprex bottles in the abandoned Brandon Indian Residential School. They reminded me of my grandmother, Beatrice Xerxa Kenny (Ojibwe), who went to St Margaret’s school in Fort Frances, Ontario. On her first day there, only five years old, on January 11, 1940, they cut off her ringlets and scrubbed what was left of her hair with kerosene in case she was infested with lice.” - Trish Cullen-Watt - granddaughter.
“I did not have a name. I had a number. My number was six. The only time I was called by my name was when I got in trouble, which was quite often because I always stood up for myself and the other girls. I have no good memories, except the memories we made among us girls. There was no such thing as respect, but we taught ourselves to have respect.” - Angie Crerar (Métis) - Fort Resolution Indian Residential School, Northwest Territories
“I was in a state of shock or in awe about the school when I was first brought there. I gave out a type of scream that I had never ever given out in my life. I learned that there is a name for that kind of scream. It’s called a primal scream. That is a cry that a person gives, a cry of distress that comes from the centre of the soul.” - Ronald E. Ignace (Secwepemc), Kamloops Indian Residential School, British Columbia
“By the time I got to the school in the early 1950s, the Jesuits started to be a little more civilized. Strapping was still common, only now it had changed from a whip to maybe a stick. At one time there were four of us brothers in the school. My older brother was always shushing me. I’d say something in Ojibwe and he’d be saying, ‘Be quiet, you’re gonna get it.’” - Gordon Shawanda (Anishinaabe/Ojibwe), St. Charles Garnier College, Spanish, Ontario
“We were the first ones to arrive. They took our own clothes and put them away and that was the last time we saw our clothes. They gave us socks, shoes, shirts, pants, and bedding. We were told where to sleep in the big dormitory. We were not used to sleeping in beds. So my brother Joe said, ‘Let’s throw our mattresses on the floor.’ So we did, and we got into bed, clothes and all.” - Simon Baker (Squamish), St. George’s Indian Residential School, Lytton, British Columbia
“Every week in elementary school, we each got ten tokens, which were pieces of paper. Students could take a token from you if you spoke your language. At the end of the week, whoever collected the most tokens got a reward of some kind. I think it was candy but I spoke Cree, lost all my tokens, and I never got a reward.” - Christina Sewap (Woodland Cree), Guy Hill Indian Residential School, The Pas, Manitoba
“There was never enough to eat. We got oatmeal, toast, maybe soup at lunch. Supper was made with potatoes or whatever was left over at lunchtime. Meat was mostly on holidays, on Sundays. Us fellows who worked in the greenhouse stole potatoes from the root cellar. We roasted them in the furnace. We stole a small pig and took it down to the Grand River and cooked it. Everyone stole something to eat. As long as you didn’t get caught, you were alright.” - Ron Styres (Cayuga), Mohawk Institute, Brantford, Ontario
“We picked potatoes for four weeks in the fall. For six weeks every spring, boys and girls piled wood for the school furnaces. The classroom was on the back burner. Our school library was a little cupboard that was always locked. Our best reading materials were comics brought in by ex-terns. They were Métis and other day students who lived nearby and went home at night.” - Larry Loyle (Cree)
“I had a relatively good experience in residential school. I felt lonely and abandoned at times but I got over it. Once I left, I kept busy and developed a better outlook on life. I was born an optimist and that really helped.” - Shirley Horn (Northern Cree)
“It was an impersonal environment where I was just a number. I expected something positive but all I got was scolding, yelling, slapping, humiliating, spanking, and calling us down if we strayed even just a little. In later years, I wondered why I lacked understanding and compassion for others. This is my legacy from my residential school years. Today we are the Elders of our communities. We survived and we have a story to tell.” - Elder Ralph Paul (Cree) Beauval Indian Residential School, Beauval, Saskatchewan
“In my grade three class, if there were 20 boys, every single one of them would have experienced what I experienced. They would have experienced some aspect of sexual abuse.” - Phil Fontaine (Ojibwe) Fort Alexander Indian Residential School, Manitoba
“The priest caught a runaway and shaved his head. At suppertime, a young boy was teasing the runaway and a fight started because of that. The next thing I saw was the priest and the runaway fighting under the table. It scared me because I was just a little guy. The kids today need to know where we are coming from.” - Gordon Shawanda (Anishinaabe/Ojibwe) St. Charles Garnier College, Spanish, Ontario
“A boy gave me a note for another girl. The nun saw it and read it out loud to all the kids. The note said, ‘I love you and I dream of you every night.’ All kinds of love talk and everybody laughed! For taking that note, the nun made me stand in the corner for a week at lunch time with only bread and water to eat. The girls used to make me a meat sandwich and sneak it to me. One donated a slice of bread, another gave me a slice of meat.” - Violet Rosetti Okimawa (Carrier) - Lejac Indian Residential School
“I’m not First Nations, so I went to a public school and lived at home. When I was in elementary school, our hockey team went to an away game to play against the Fort Frances Indian Residential School team. I remember a feeling of sadness there in the kids. You see, us kids were brought to the game by our parents, and the residential school kids were alone. They held back, they didn’t open up to us.” - Douglas G. Anderson, Fort Frances, Ontario
“This one time in class we were praying altogether and we were saying, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.’ We were all stressing the ‘s’ in us and the Sister (nun) didn’t like it. She got upset and told us she did not want to hear the ‘s’ the way we had been saying it. So when we started praying again, we said, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for u-.’ and that’s where we stopped. Nobody wanted to say the ‘s’ in us. We must have sounded funny because even the Sister got a chuckle out of the incident.” - Randy Badger (Cree) St. Bruno Indian Residential School 1957-1964
“We were flown to the school on a DC-4 or DC-6, I’m not sure which. Whenever I see a DC plane now I shiver. When we were on the DEW Line, they would pick us up. I stopped crying after two years. You got to be tough, you got to be strong, to help the little girls. Some of the little girls cried all night.” - Navalik Helen Tologanak (Inuit) - Sir Alexander Mackenzie School
“Early on in the healing movement, ‘spiritual’ wasn’t a driving word. Yet. But that’s what the residential school issue is about - the destruction of our most inner sense of self.” - Chief Dr. Robert (Bobby) Joseph (Kwakwaka’wakw) 11 years at St. Michael’s Indian Residential School, Alert Bay, British Columbia
“I’m the third generation affected by residential school. Three generations who could not show love or caring. I’m learning to love now. If I don’t, I will always be lonely.” - Raymond J. Tuccaro (Cree) day student at Bishop Piché School, Fort Chippewayan, Alberta
“All through my school years, I heard, ‘You’re dumb. You’re never going to amount to much.’ I heard this every day from the teachers. After 15 years at school, they told me to get out. I had to scramble to know where to go. I ended up an alcoholic, on the streets for 20 years. The drinking took my pain away. One day I woke up and realized, this is not me. I’m going to prove those guys wrong. I went back to school in my early forties, got a good education, had a career. I wanted to help my people and I do that in my work today. I’m married with four grandchildren. I’ve never been happier.” - Roger Ellis (Northern Tutchone) Carcross Indian Residential School and Yukon Hall, 1954 - 1969
“It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered. It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures. Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the Government of Canada.” - Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Stephen Harper, June 11, 2008
“I remember Mom and Dad’s arrival in 1956. I was playing outside our yard when I was called to see someone. I saw an older, Native man and woman smiling at me with their arms stretched out to hold me. I remember seeing Mom and Dad but I could not remember who they were. They kissed me and hugged me, lifting me and squeezing me so hard. I remember this, but I felt strange, not knowing them because I was so young and hadn’t seen them in years. I was unable to communicate with them due to our language barrier. By that age, I was already programmed not to speak Dene, not to feel, and not to cry.” (Alice Blondin (Dene)
“The impacts of the legacy of residential schools have not ended with those who attended the schools. They affected the Survivors’ partners, their children, their grandchildren, their extended families, and their communities. Children who were abused in the schools sometimes went on to abuse others. Many students who spoke to the Commission said they developed addictions as a means of coping.” - Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada - Volume One: Summary p. 183 - 4