Once, my grandma pointed out a small island with a pine tree on it that you could faintly see from the top of the hill with the naked eye. It looked like a man being pulled by a dog team. She told me that, when she was younger, she would look out at the frozen lake and sometimes think that it was her dad on his dog team coming home from his trap line. “Grandma did you miss him when he went away?” I would ask her, and she would say, with pride, “Yes, he was a good father to me.” She told me how she would often worry about him when he was gone for long periods of time.
When the missionaries came to get her and her siblings, my grandma was forced to leave the island as a child. They were taken from the only home they knew to sit in a classroom and learn a new language, proper manners and how to pray, something that the nuns didn’t believe that the Dene people had already established for themselves in their own way.
My grandma was one of the many Indigenous children to be taken away from her family to learn how to be a “civilized” member of society. She seldom discussed what happened to her during her stay in the residential school, but she did share the experience of having to eat rotten fish and getting her hair cut short after the nuns had forcefully dunked her head in a barrel of coal oil because she was considered “unclean.”
She was spared from having to spend more than a year at the residential school. When she returned for the summer from her first year at school, she told her parents what happened to her there and asked her dad not to let them take her again in the fall. Since she was the eldest of her siblings, she was needed around the house to help her mother care for the younger ones while her father was out trapping, and it was for that reason alone that she was able to stay. When the missionaries came back later that summer to collect the children, her father met them at the shoreline when they pulled up in their canoes. He made the case that she couldn’t go, and they reluctantly agreed. Surprisingly, he was neither arrested, nor did they have to flee from their home like so many other Indigenous families had to do to spare their children.
When going through my grandma’s keepsakes, I came across an old photo of a place that looked like the residential school. I was too young to understand the weight of it all, but the picture told me something wasn’t right. It was in an old, rustic yellow colour and there were many children in the picture along the shoreline of the lake. Some were gathering wood; some were hauling water, but they all were in uniform and had the same sad look on their face. The nuns were also in the picture, but something was different about them. They were all looking directly at the camera with a serious look on their face. When I took a closer look it almost looked like they were floating, like they didn’t belong in the picture at all. I had to squint to make out their feet, but only saw the ground where their feet should have been. I ran and showed the picture to my grandma, and she just shook her head in silence. I don’t know what ever happened to that picture, but it was a very haunting glimpse into the shameful legacy that the residential schools left behind.
My grandma never did fully learn to read or write, but in her only year of residential school my grandma learned how to print her name so meticulously that, in her later years, she would take the time to write her full name including her middle name, Augustine, which I proudly share with her. Her signature usually took a full five minutes to pen out and she would always remind people of where she learned how to handwrite because it was the only learning lesson that she decided to take with her from her time at school. She could speak six different languages: Slavey, Chipewyan, Cree, Tłi¸cho¸, English and French, and the missionaries were never able to take her language away from her. She especially knew how to swear at me in Tłi¸cho¸ when she was mad. I never did learn how to speak my language. Both Tłi¸cho¸ and English were spoken equally in my home and I leaned more toward English because of the school system, but I knew what a swear word sounded like when I did something to upset her. For a long time, I did not understand why my grandma did not take the time to teach me our language. I don’t think my grandma realized how precious our language was and that it would one day be so highly regarded or that it would need to be saved. She would have probably taken more time to teach me if she knew that our Indigenous languages would be considered one of the most significant, valuable resources we have as Indigenous people. This is why we need to work diligently on reclaiming our languages through our stories and songs.
Catherine and her Grandma
My grandma would love to tell me stories of her younger years. She would tell me proudly of how she worked in the kitchen of the historic Wildcat Café for a dollar a day washing dishes and that a dollar a day was more than enough to get by in those days. But her time dishwashing was short lived. My grandmother was drawn to something else, something that was fulfilling for her. She was an expert seamstress by way of spending her time sewing with her mother while at home during the residential school era, and because most of her time was devoted to her craft she became the best at what she did. Sewing, like our language, is a large part of our culture; however, I don’t ever remember picking up a needle and thread to bead. My grandma never did force anything on me. She would only encourage me if I showed interest in something, and sadly I did not show interest in sewing. Instead, I would rather roll tobacco for my papa with his old-fashioned cigarette roller while I listened to my grandma tell me stories of her younger days.
Her sewing was so sought after that she was asked to sew a beaded sash for the Pope. It was a project that made her beam with delight. She was humbly honoured. She loved the Pope. She was a religious woman but never went to church except for once a year for the Christmas Mass at midnight.
I realized how faithful my grandma was one day when she got stuck in the elevator on the fourth floor of our apartment building. I would race her up the stairs while she took the elevator and the one time I beat her to the top was when she got stuck. She was yelling at me through the elevator door, “Catherine, get the holy water on my nightstand!” I ran to get the holy water, her precious saving grace, and repeatedly splashed it on the doors while praying frantically for her freedom. Our faith must have been strong that day, because it worked.
Whenever we moved into a new house, my grandma would always make sure to have an old jam jar or spray bottle full of holy water that she would splash around the house to bless the place. Both of my grandparents were very spiritual. They shared many losses in their lifetime. As parents, they suffered the loss of three of their sons. I am only able to gather bits and pieces of what happened to my uncles, because my family found it too hard to talk about those painful memories.
When my grandparents met, my grandma moved off the island to the community of Fort Rae (Behchoko). My papa worked for the government. He was not from the area; in fact, his father was from North Dakota and moved to northern Alberta where he met my papa’s mother, a Métis woman with Cree roots. My papa’s parents owned the historic Rex Café in Yellowknife’s Old Town, and my grandparents named their youngest son after it. Together, my grandparents had my aunt Clara, my mother, three boys, and my youngest auntie, Loretta, who came along when my grandma was later in life.
My mom took the loss of her youngest brother Rex the hardest; they were very close. To this day, my mom finds it hard to talk about Rex, and when I bring up his name, she turns her head to hide her tears and pretends to be busy doing something, anything, to not have to face the hurt. There is so much pain in our family from our losses, but I believe that talking about the hurt and the grief helps to heal us.
Through the years my grandma would hear reports of people seeing someone that looked like Rex in some small town along the Mexican border, or there would be reports of a body turned up somewhere and she would have to go through the process of providing blood samples and statements all over again. My grandma eventually grew weary of the rumours and the hopeless leads. She refused to believe that her son would have run away from his family never to be heard from again, and
after a while, my grandma just wanted to be left alone.
It was only when she was on her deathbed that our family finally received closure and knew he was at peace. My grandmother passed on away on his birthday, and it was a sign to our family that he came to get her from the other side.
Chapter 3
MY YOUNGEST AUNT, LORETTA, was more like a sister to me because a lot of my young life was spent living under the same roof as her. Yet, since she was my auntie she figured she could tell me what to do. She would threaten to put soap in my mouth when I talked back to her, but she never did because my grandma would always defend me and tell her to leave me alone.
Loretta mostly kept to herself and never had time for me unless I was getting on her nerves. Her space was off limits and her moods were sporadic, but when she was feeling up for company she would let me help her with one of her puzzles or take me for a ride in one of her boyfriends’ fast cars.
I dreaded my aunt Loretta’s going-out routine because it meant that my mom was going out too. When my aunt styled her bangs about three inches off her head and held them up with a ton of hairspray, I knew my mom and her were getting ready for a night out on the town. As they were on their way out of the house I would grab onto the sides of the door frame crying for my mom not to leave, while my grandma tried to hold me back by my feet. When my grandma would lose her grip on me, I would run after my auntie and try to attack her by pulling her long black hair. But it wouldn’t stop them; they would still go out and forget all about my desperation while they danced it up at the Strange Range.
My mom soon ended up with a new boyfriend after moving back to Yellowknife. Ron had strong, chiselled facial features and a pale complexion. He sported a mullet and had a noticeable limp when he walked. Ron and my mom moved into a low-income row house unit not long after they met, and the plan was for me to move in once they were settled. It did not take long for me to realize that Ron was a mean and dangerous man. I would often opt to stay at my grandma’s house because I did not like being around him. I remember one very vivid memory clearly because it was the day that I thought my mother had died. My grandma hadn’t heard from my mother in a few days, so my grandma and I went to the house to check on her. My grandma must have known more than I did, because she brought a bucket and some cleaning supplies with her.
When we walked into the house, it looked like something out of a murder scene. There was blood everywhere, holes in the walls and broken glass from where a back window looked like it had been kicked in. Smeared blood led us up the stairs into the bathroom. The shower curtain was closed, and I held my breath and braced myself for what I imagined I would see. To my relief, the bathtub was empty. I thought for certain that I was going to see my mother’s body beaten and left for dead. Instead, she was in the hospital suffering from a “fall down the stairs.” This was the first of many instances of domestic violence that I would witness, breaking my childhood innocence.
I don’t know why, but my mother stayed with Ron after that incident, and not long afterwards, we moved all the way across the country with him to a small town in northern Ontario, Ron’s old stomping grounds. I could not understand why they were still together, since they seemed not to like each other, and I tried to ignore the constant tension in our house. I tried to pretend that I was living in a normal household and I would hold fast to the good times, as few and far between as they were. I sang and danced to the sound of the drum songs from the North in the living room of our split-level rental when we finally settled on a place to live, after weeks of having to live in Ron’s mean mother’s house where I wasn’t allowed to make any noise and had to be on my best behaviour. It was exhausting not being able to be a kid. Ron’s mother was excessively strict, and I wondered if maybe that was why Ron turned out to be the way he was.
I made friends easily at my new school even though I had super-short hair, oversized glasses and a poor sense of style, not to mention that I was trying to hide a huge secret at home. My glasses were chosen out of the small back section of the eye glass store, the Treaty section. The section that no one wanted because they were cheap, plastic, unfashionable glasses. I hated wearing glasses and, every time I got mad, I would throw my glasses down on the ground and stomp on them in a rebellious refusal of both the system that bound me to a certain class and the fact that I had bad eyes. But my anger was of no use to me, because my glasses would be replaced weeks later by another cheap, oversized frame at no cost.
My life in Ontario was somewhat normal, despite the domestic disputes that were going on at home. My friends and I would play marbles and jacks at recess and make fun of our mean homeroom teacher, who was adamant on making sure our handwriting was perfect.
After school, I would run up and down the block with my friends until dark. My mom never seemed to worry about where I was. She knew I was either at a friend’s house, at the corner store buying frozen yogurt or climbing trees and jumping from roof to roof in back alleys. My friends and I would pretend to have mini concerts on rooftops and sing at the top of our lungs to our imaginary audience. I made sure I was always playing outside and never invited friends over, because I never knew when a fight might break out in my house. I began to subconsciously associate love with fighting and vice versa.
I kissed my first kiss on the stoop in front of my house. I prepared for that moment by practising kissing my arm one night. My friend told me it was the only way that I would learn how to do it properly. I felt so foolish trying to kiss my own arm, but it helped me to eventually build up the confidence to kiss my steady boyfriend after school one day. I spontaneously leaned over and kissed him. It was just a kiss on the cheek though, because I hadn’t worked up the nerve to kiss him full on the lips. He was all flustered and surprised and said, “I have to go home for dinner,” then ran for it, leaving me to wonder if I did it all wrong.
So, I had my freedom — but that meant that I was left alone a lot. The bar that my mom and Ron frequented was too far away for me to walk to, and I didn’t know the way so I couldn’t go and try to get her to come home. It wasn’t like Yellowknife where I was used to standing outside of the Gold Range, waiting for my mom to come out and asking people to go in and tell her that her daughter was waiting outside. The regulars would usually just walk by and tease me, saying, “Isn’t it past your bedtime? Go home you little Range rat.”
On the rare occasions that my mom and Ron were home, Ron would play a game with me that he called “chicken” while my mom made supper. It was a risky knife game where he would get me to put my hand out on the cutting board and spread my fingers apart. He would quickly stab between each of my fingers, going around and around in circles with his sharp pocket knife. He had good precision but there were a few near misses. Ron never laid a hand on me unless I got in the way of him hitting my mom, which I often did. I would run and jump on him from behind to try to get him off her, but he would just shove me out of the way like he was swatting a fly.
One day that all changed when I was defending myself from Ron’s unfair house rules while sitting on the edge of my bed. “Shut up!” I yelled at him, and without a word, he punched me clean in the jaw. I ran to my mother for help, but I couldn’t talk because my mouth was stuck open. She was busy cooking dinner in the kitchen and didn’t understand why I was crying and screaming because she didn’t see what happened and he acted like he was innocent. My jaw loosened up after a little while and I could close my mouth again, but even now my jaw makes a weird grinding and clicking sound every once and awhile. After that incident, I couldn’t help imagining kicking and punching Ron at night when I closed my eyes. I walked on eggshells for the next few months, until it ended abruptly.
***
IT WAS THE WEEKEND AND I was out on a sleepover at a friend’s house down the street from where we lived, when the phone rang in the middle of the night. The police were at my house. Ron had kicked my mother out with no shoes in forty below and wouldn’t let h
er back in. After some investigation, I ended up as a ward of the government, a foster child in temporary care. When my mom came to visit me, the visits were short. We sat in a small, monitored room with glass windows where people observed us on the other side, taking notes like we were animals in a zoo.
The foster parents that I was placed with had a handful of foster kids from different families. Looking back now, I think it’s safe to assume from the amount of foster children they had that they were only in it for the money. My bedtime was outrageously early, and my life was structured right down to the minute. Being on a strict schedule was something that I wasn’t used to. I stayed in my room most of the time, drawing, colouring and just thinking of getting out and being saved. I felt like I was in jail. My routine was mundane: wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, do homework, go to sleep. I missed running around the block with my friends. I felt confined. My freedom was gone.
Shortly after I was placed in foster care, I was told that the nurses were coming to the school check our heads for lice. I was worried that I had lice because my mom had been treating my head before I was taken into care and I wasn’t sure if it had worked. So, when it was my turn in line to get my head checked, I had to think fast. I didn’t want the entire school to know that I had lice; it was bad enough that I was having problems in my personal life and I didn’t want my popularity to slide. School was the one thing that was still going good in my life and I would have been absolutely mortified if my friends found out I had lice. Without thinking of the consequences, I keeled over and clutched my stomach acting like I was in severe pain. The nurses sent me to the hospital, where I had to undergo an enema. The doctors told my foster parents that I had a problem with my digestive tract and that I needed to be put on a strict diet consisting of high fibre, which meant that I had to eat soggy fibre cereal every morning before school. Turns out I didn’t have lice, so the moral of the story is: don’t ever lie or you might have to undergo an enema for safe measure.
Northern Wildflower Page 3
