In 2008, Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, issued a Statement of Apology - to former students of Indian Residential Schools.
This apology stated: "The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities."
Commending those who spoke of their experiences, the Prime Minister thanked the individuals for displaying resilience and strength.
One of these individuals who continues to share their experiences is elder Armand McArthur of Pheasant Rump. He had been forced to attend St. Paul's High which had been located in Lebret and has recently begun speaking to students at schools in the area about his experiences. Though McArthur says he is unable to speak of many happenings, he is willing to share with local schools some of his experiences and provide youth with a general idea regarding residential schools.
"It's too difficult to speak about my story completely," McArthur told The Observer, "So this [presentation] is more of a day in the life of a residential school student based on what I went through, but I'm only one of over 180,000 residential school student survivors."
"Our experiences are all the same, but different."
McArthur was introduced on Friday, Oct. 17, to the Manor School student body to speak.
Giving the students context to his experiences, McArthur explained the residential schools were tied into the Numbered Treaties and the Indian Act of 1876, as well as a report created in 1879 by Nicholas Flood Davin "Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds," which is more commonly referred to as "The Davin Report."
The Davin Report called for Prime Minister John A. MacDonald to fund residential schools. Essentially the Government of Canada was told to utilize already established missionary schools and fund a certain number of pupils to attend.
"Once these schools were completed and built the next question was, 'How are we going to get the students?'" McArthur posed the question to the Manor students.
The answer: "They gathered all the children from age six and up. They scooped them up and put them in industrial schools or residential schools, industrial schools is what they were first called. They gathered these children without their parents' consent."
In 1958, at the age of 10-years-old, McArthur was taken to St. Paul's High, a residential school in Lebret. He was being raised on White Bear with traditional values and culture, but was taken to be educated that fall.
"It was totally and completely different from the world I was used to," McArthur stated. "It was a shock to me."
"I had a free way of living in my community at that time and I didn't want to go."
Upon arrival at the residential school McArthur remembers the girls and boys being separated, followed by further categorization with the boys being split into three different age groups. Being 10-years-old at the time McArthur was placed in the youngest group, the six to 12-year-old group.
In this room, McArthur said the first thing he noticed was that the door had been locked. The boys were going nowhere, but where the nuns and priests told them to go: "Then they took us to the shower room, so off we went to the shower room. At that time there were nuns and sisters... so as we went through we were told to remove all our clothing and step into the shower... Once you'd gotten wet you were told to step back. There we are, young guys standing there in the showers, naked, no clothes on, in front of people we didn't know and we were trying to cover up."
After the boys went into the water and stepped out, they were told to remain in a line. A delousing solution was poured over their fronts and backs.
"It burnt," stated McArthur. "And you weren't expecting it too so you might not close your eyes and it burnt. There you are burning, some in your eyes. Sometimes the water from the shower head was too hot, sometimes too cold, but when that stuff was burning it doesn't matter what kind of water you have."
Stepping into the water they rinsed off the solution and were taken into another room where they were told to dress.
"I went to get my clothes and I go to the table and they weren't there. They were gone. They brought me clothes and on all of them, my shirt, my socks was a number. My number coincided with the year I went there, my number was number 58. I never forgot my number."
Everywhere McArthur went he found his number. It dictated where he was to sit, what clothes were his, and which bedding belonged to him.
He didn't have a name, he was just a number.
Taken to the dormitory the nuns then showed the boys how to make their beds. This was shown to them once and the next morning it was expected they make them perfectly before inspections were done.
"She had a little penny and she threw that penny on the bed. If the penny did not bounce then she tore that whole bed a part and you'd have to remake it. I remember we had some six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds trying to make the bed the way she wanted it and they were having great difficulties trying to make their beds the way the nun wanted them made... this little guy was trying to make his bed and we couldn't go help that little guy... if we went and helped them we would get in trouble with the nuns, but we didn't know that when we first got there."
Although the nun let this go for a few days, she then cracked down on the young boys forcing them to remake all the beds in the dormitory saying they had to learn and would do so even if it meant missing breakfast.
At 6:30 a.m. the students would then all be taken to chapel to pray.
"We had to pray for a whole half hour, we weren't allowed to sit in the pews, we were told to kneel down and pray for half an hour. Well when you come from the wild country and you're told to pray you don't know what to pray for..."
Breakfast followed at 7 a.m. Utensils for eating including the plate and cup were metal. They had scrambled eggs and oatmeal every morning. Due to the size of the pots and pans, and the large amount being cooked at one time meant much of it was only partially cooked.
"If you made a barfing sound, they put more on your plate. And no wasting food. So how do you do that, how do you get your food down? Well I learned a way, you tighten your stomach. As the food is going down you tighten your stomach. I learned how to cook that half cooked, cold scrambled eggs and the half cooked lumps of oatmeal."
Classes then began at 8 a.m. sharp. Tardiness was not tolerated and the only reasons for being late had to be along the lines of being near death.
After classes finished at noon, the students had work to do: "Some worked in the garden, we had to clean the barn, somebody had to feed the cows, somebody had to milk the cows, some of the boys had to work in the bakery, and the creamery. The girls had to work in the seamstress shop and do all the cleaning."
If McArthur saw his sisters during this time he wasn't allowed to speak to them. This had to be reserved for Christmastime, if they were lucky enough to go home, otherwise they would have to wait until June.
At this time McArthur said that First Nations people also required a travel permit issued by the Indian Agent.
"If you lived on White Bear and wanted to go to Carlyle to get groceries or other needs you had to first make your way down to the Indian Agent's office and obtain a pass to travel," said McArthur.
This meant parents were unable to visit their children once the youth were taken to the residential schools.
This also led to issues surrounding lonesomeness and homesickness amongst residential students.
"When you're eight yrs old, seven yrs old, and you haven't seen you haven't seen your mommies or daddies for a long time what's going to happen? They're going to get lonesome and when you get lonesome you start to cry. No matter how old you are, you can be lonesome. And all you hear in the dark is slapping sounds and the slapping sounds are coming from the little boy who was crying because he was lonesome."
"And when you're lying there listening, you can't do anything, you cover your head with your pillow."
The few times McArthur was allowed to go home, he attempted to tell his parents about his experiences, but they would not believe him. There was the belief that religious people such as nuns and priests would not do such things.
McArthur's unhappiness at the residential school led him to attempt to run away in the spring of 1960.
"I ran away, but they caught me... And they took me back to the boys room. They called all the boys to the room and they whipped me. They pulled down my pants in front of all the boys and they whipped me with a strap. A big strap, the funny part about the strap was that it had a nice handle on it... I always wondered why they made it so nice."
"They started whipping me, the other boys were telling me to cry. I thought no, I've got to be tough, but I saw them telling me to cry, so I cried. After it was done, when the nun had her satisfaction, that boy told me when they beat you like that you cry and they'll stop."
During his time at the residential school, McArthur recalls the nuns attempting to make him into an altar boy: "They were going to teach me how to be an altar boy, they wanted me to speak Latin. They wanted me to speak Latin, but they didn't want me to speak my language."
McArthur spoke two lines of Latin to the students, sang it as it would be done in church, but explained that although he had perfected how to say the words he still has no idea what they mean.
Though injustices were done to those in residential schools, McArthur says: "After all these years I've learned how to forgive and I've learned how to live with the pain."
However, he did explain he would not go into further detail of his experiences as the memories are difficult to deal with.
"I will not tell you what really, really happened to me. The judicial hearing I had to relive that, what really happened to me, which is very personnal. My story is only one of 180 some thousand residential school survivors in Canada. Our experiences are all the same, but different."
