goal was assimilation, as initially stated, or, as the government later claimed, integration, the cultural practices described in the following section were under attack.
Before she was enrolled in residential school in Québec in the 1960s, Thérese Niquay lived on what she described as "the family territory." She had very positive memories of that part of her life.
I remember especially the winter landscapes, fall landscapes too. I remember very well I often looked at my father, hunting beaver especially. I admired my father a lot. And I remember at one point I was looking at him, I think I was on the small hill, and he was below, he had made a hole in the ice, and he was hunting beaver with a, with a harpoon, and I was there, I was looking at him and I was singing. And I remember when I was kid I sang a lot, very often. And I also remember that we lived or my, my paternal grandmother was most often with us, my, my father's mother, and we lived in a large family also, an extended family in the bush. Those are great memories.[1]
Jeannette Coo Coo, who attended the La Tuque, Québec, school in the 1960s, said she was a member of what might be the last generation of Aboriginal people who were raised in the forest.
In the forest, what I remember of my childhood was bearskin, which I liked. I was there, and it was the bearskin that my father put for us to sit on, that was it. That is why I'm pleased to see that here. And what I remember in my childhood also was the, my mother's songs, because we lived in tents, and there was young children, and my mother sang for the youngest, and at the same time this helped us to fall asleep. It was beneficial to everyone, my mother's songs, and that is what I remember, that is what I am happy to say that it was what was, I was raised with what was instilled in me, so to speak.[2]
Albert Elias grew up in the Northwest Territories near the community of Tuktoyaktuk.
Yeah, when I first opened, like, when I first saw the world, I guess, we were outdoors and when I opened my eyes and started to, you know, and I was just a baby, I guess, and I, we were out in the land. The land was all around me, the snow, the sky, the sun, and I had my parents. And we had a dog team. We were travelling, I think it was on Banks Island, and I was amazed at what I saw, just the environment, the peace, the strength, the love, the smile on my dad's face. And when I wake up he's singing a short song to me of love.[3]
In the 1940s, Paul Stanley grew up speaking Kootenai (Ktunaxa) in the interior of British Columbia. As he told the Commission, he learned the language from his father. "When you're in bed with Papa, and he tells you about your first story, and it's about how the chipmunk got his stripes, and it was so funny to me, you know that I asked him every night to say it again."[4]
Eva Lapage was born in Ivujivik, in northern Québec, in 1951.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Thérese Niquay, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, La Tuque, Québec, 6 March 2013, Statement Number: SP105.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Jeannette Coo Coo, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, La Tuque, Québec, 6 March 2013, Statement Number: SP105.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Albert Elias, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Inuvik, Northwest Territories, 1 July 2011, Statement Number: SC092.
- ↑ TRC, AVS, Paul Stanley, Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Deroche, British Columbia, 19 January 2010, Statement Number: 2011-5057.
