Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams, this is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100 .5 FM in the Lower Mainland. In today's episode, Lorraine Chisholm speaks with Celia Haig -Brown about her new book, Chikal Muhulukh, the Kamloops Indian Residential School, Resistance and a Reckoning.
Speaker: In May of last year, we were shocked by news of the detection of 215 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Ground penetrating radar confirmed the vestiges of children as young as three on the site of the infamous residential school system. Now, a new book centers the voices of the school's survivors and the multi -generational legacy of trauma for those who survived.
Speaker: The book, published by Arsenal Press, is Chalk Mookswill, the Kamloops Indian Residential School, Resistance and a Reckoning. Chalk Mookswill is the story of those who survived the Kamloops Indian Residential School. It's based on the 1988 book Resistance and Renewal, a groundbreaking history of the school, and the first book on residential schools ever published in Canada. The new book has contributions by Gary Gutfritzen, Randy Fred,
Speaker: and the school survivors. And I'm joined by author Celia Hagbran. For anyone listening to us who finds you may need support, you can call the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. Their number is 1 -800 -721 -0066. That number is 1 -800 -721 -0066. And now it's my pleasure to welcome you, Celia Hagbran. Hello, Celia.
Speaker: Hello, Lorraine, and thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me. Now you resisted the idea of revisiting your original book and publishing this new one. What convinced you to go forward? Well, I have to say that the champion of both this book and the earlier book, Resistance and Renewal, is an amazing person, Randy Fred. Randy Fred, at the time the original book was published,
Speaker: was an acquisitions editor with Pulp Press, the Tillicum Library imprint, which focused on indigenous publications. And he's now moved on. He's an elder in residence at the Vancouver Island University. He got hold of me after the recovery of the graves and suggested we need to revisit this book. He's very persuasive, let me say. My first inclination was
Speaker: No, the time is not right for a white woman to be participating in this conversation. There are so many Indigenous authors, artists, all sorts of people, professionals and regular people who have taken up talking about their experiences of residential school and that should be enough. However, Randy kept coming back and he said, no, this is a different book from that, from those books. And it is really important that we have a look at it again in order to
Speaker: set an example of what it means to move forward together in a good way. I had to concur. Well, and we are the beneficiaries of that. Would you read the opening letter which the Chief and Council gave you? Yes, I will. And as I mentioned, Randy is Nuchalna from Tishot Nation. And I felt that if I were to do this work, it was important to speak to the Chief and Council to ensure that they
Speaker: were at least okay and accepting of my moving forward. So this letter means a lot to me. It's from Takamloops teh sakhwapim. Dear Celia, we, the Kukpi and council for Takamloops teh sakhwapim are happy to support the publication of Skel Mukwil, Kamloops Indian Residential School Resistance and Reckoning. We are especially pleased that it includes new work by sakhwapim author Gary Godforson,
Speaker: and new cover art by Tanya Willard, also a member of the Sukhafen Nation. We recognize that this version builds on work done more than 30 years ago with members of our nation as they shared their stories of the school with you. We wish the world had listened then. Here is the next opportunity. The revelation of the 215 children's graves on the grounds of the former school in May of 2021
Speaker: makes hearing these stories from 1988 even more important. The survivors in the book, a number of whom have passed away, were some of the first to speak out publicly about the school. In this version, new thoughts from some of the original participants and their children bring readers full circle to a renewed understanding of the strength of the nation. We are also supportive of this publication,
Speaker: as it demonstrates the value of respectful relationships between the people and a researcher as one that persists over time. This book is an important contribution to the history and contemporary lives of the former students of the KRS. We wish the authors every success, yours sincerely, to Kamlib's Teh Sahwahm, and I can go through the list of names, Chief Roseanne Kazimir, Councillor Marie Batiste, Councillor Thomas Blank, Councillor Nikki Fraser,
Speaker: Councillor Joshua Godforson, Councillor Justin Godforson, Councillor Dave Manuel, and Councillor Morningstar Peters. Let's turn, Celia, to the original book for a moment. What was the context around which you wrote that book? At the time I became involved in teacher education through a University of British Columbia program called the Native Indian Teacher Education Program.
Speaker: I had been teaching in the school district for five years in secondary schools and was encouraged to apply to be the coordinator of this teacher education program. I took up the challenge and thought it would be an exciting thing to do. And as it turned out, the program was being offered in the buildings of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. At that time, it was still serving as a residence, but the school itself had been long closed. I found myself pondering
Speaker: how it was that people who had experienced Kamloops Indian Residential School were returning to schooling, not just education, but schooling as a way to take up the significant change for the future generations of their children. So that was kind of where my question came from. And in order to get at that question, I really had to understand what is this school? What exactly went on here?
Speaker: And I have to say, when I started to hear the stories, I had heard them from friends before I ever did any research. I kept thinking to myself, I didn't know about this. If I didn't know about it, and I've had lots of connections with Indigenous people over my growing up years, if I didn't know about them, how many other people don't know these stories? So I thought, this is the time. Let's let the people speak and their stories be heard.
Speaker: Now in that original book, you identify two strong themes that run through the stories, resistance and cultural invasion. How did you see the purpose of the book then? Because I started with the question about how is it that people have returned to schooling and education, I was recognizing to begin with really that something had gone on in the schools that
Speaker: allowed people to see schooling as a possibility. And I was, again, very curious about how people had survived that. So I set out to ask people about, well, first of all, I focused on the invasion. I really see colonization as a cultural invasion, as an invasion that has resulted in a lot of trauma, a lot of disruption of Indigenous nations whose lands we have situated ourselves upon.
Speaker: So the invasion part was quite clear to me. I did understand that part, but the resistance was something that I really wanted to investigate. And I didn't actually start out with the notion of resistance, but I did, as I got deeper into the stories, see over and over and over again that the people who survived the school found ways to resist what was happening to them. Some came as older students, so they had a kind of a clearer understanding of who they were.
Speaker: the very specific reasons they were there. Others found very creative and inventive ways to find fun and humor and survival in the midst of some pretty oppressive horrendous circumstances. So the resistance became a very dominant theme. Now, invasion and resistance was the actual title of the master's thesis, but when we moved to publication,
Speaker: I also had started from that question of look at all of the exciting things going on even in the buildings of the former school. And so how can we look at this not just as invasion and resistance, but actually the renewal that is taking place within the school buildings through curriculum development, through fisheries involvement, through tribal council business and all sorts of activity.
Speaker: Let's flip a bit to the new book. How did you approach creating the new book with other contributors and bringing updated insights from the community? That was the part that got very exciting. That's when I was so grateful to Randy for giving me this opportunity. I realized that because I had written a master's thesis, the participants had had to be anonymous. That's how the universities were working at the time.
Speaker: And here was an opportunity for people to claim their words, to claim their stories, to be named in relation to their stories and no longer be anonymous contributors. And of course, those contributors make the book. So there was an opportunity to go back to the original people and see if they wanted their names included. For those who had passed on, and there were a number who had, I did also turn then to their children and or grandchildren to see if they wanted to
Speaker: add something to what their ancestors had said about the school. So it was a lovely opportunity to renew relationships, to reconnect with people that I already knew, to connect also with some of the children of the people that I'd interviewed who I didn't know before. So it was a very, very exciting opportunity.
Speaker: Celia, how did you come to this title to Kalmox Will for the new edition of the book? Well, one of the people that I know very well in the Kalmox area, not a person that I had interviewed, but I had interviewed his mother for the book is Gary Godforsen. Gary Godforsen is a very well -published poet. He was nominated for the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award, and I know him well. So I said to Gary,
Speaker: please, Kerry, would you write an introduction for the book? And he agreed immediately. And then we began to have intense conversations about the book and about how it would unfold and how it would have additions, et cetera. And in one of our conversations, I said to him, particularly as I think about retirement, for me, going back to this topic was like a circling back. And he said, yes, it's a circling back in order to move forward. And I thought, oh, that's
Speaker: Fabulous. So then we went away and I said, I would really love to have a word in Sequel machine to have to be part of the title of the book. And after considerable time, he came back and he said, I think I have the word. The word is which I'm still learning how to say properly. And it means we become human again.
Speaker: It's so wonderful to have such a beautiful and powerful word to embody the work that comes through in the book. How did you reckon with the use of language and terms that were prevalent 30 years ago, but perhaps less appropriate today as you wrote the new book?
Speaker: That was actually a bit tricky. Some of some of the changes in words were very clear and easy. So, for example, the Shoshua people are now recognized as sukhatim, the Chokotins, Chilcotin. So those were relatively easy. The more complicated piece came with more generalized words. So words like indigenous, which are now Okurong,
Speaker: have also in the past being used Aboriginal is a word that has been used and it is the word that's in the 1982 constitution to represent First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. Before that we had Native people as a way of talking in generalities that was polite. And of course there is the persisting Indian Act. So I found as I went through and edited the former text, I did very few edits really,
Speaker: But I was trying to figure out the best way to represent those words, that it was a very complicated time of thinking about what would the word have been at that time? How do we ensure that we're recognizing that Indian residential schools will always be Indian residential schools, regardless of the term, which can be an offensive term for many good reasons.
Speaker: the Indian Act persists. We haven't shed ourselves of that document. We haven't found any way of dealing in any just way with that set of laws. So there was some tricky balancing. I hope I've done a good job of getting appropriate words into appropriate places. So some changes in language based on what has developed over time. This language is evolving at a rapid pace. And again, it's very exciting because the indigenous words, let me put a generality there,
Speaker: are now claiming their place and space in our everyday conversations. In the stories that you document in the book, what do we learn about the importance of using and keeping a live language to the resistance and survival of the Sepuac culture, which, as we know, the residential school aimed to eradicate? Well, even in the initial book, Resistance and Renewal,
Speaker: That was one of the major resistance points that was commented on by the people who participated. So there, for example, Mariah Myers, who was Tukotin and came to the school, would practice her Tukotin words as she was lying in bed at night. She didn't have a lot of other Tukotin people to speak with. She's gone on to become a Tukotin language teacher. She was fluent in the language when she got there. So she just replayed the language in her head.
Speaker: Other people found ways to go sneaking off to the corners of playgrounds and speak to each other. So there was right at that time, a strong understanding of the importance of keeping the language alive. As anybody who speaks a language and finds themselves in a context of another language experiences, that's a real disruption to who you are. And you want to hang on to both of those things. You want to maybe learn English, but you also want to try and keep that other language alive.
Speaker: I think Canada's done a very bad job of encouraging that. I think we're doing better now just in terms of all of the citizens. But in terms of Indigenous people, because culture and language are so intertwined, really the only way that Indigenousization can happen in any intense way is through the regeneration, the restoration of language. And that is why so many language programs are in full operation across the country.
Speaker: The last chapter is called Chiquel McQuill, the same as the title of the book. Can you talk about this chapter and what you hope it might accomplish? So yes, the last chapter, it's called McQuill, which has the same title as the title of the book, is the beautiful contributions made by some of the original participants and the children and grandchildren of other of those participants. And in
Speaker: reading those stories at this point in time, 30 years after that initial book, but also 30 years after people had already survived the schools, we see the changes and shifts and developments in this rebuilding of language and culture within the communities. So those survivors from the school taught their children well about the importance of their language and culture, and that has just
Speaker: grown in leaps and bounds and is now moving into all sorts of developments within the nations. There's a very powerful set of testimonies or speeches to the Prime Minister of Canada by Charlotte Vicky and Ashley Michel just talking about the intergenerational effects and reverberations of the residential school.
Speaker: Yes, and I was so thrilled when they agreed that I could use those talks and put them in the book. Now, Charlotte was one of the original participants in the book. She was a NYTEP student for a while, and I got to know her that way. And then, of course, her daughter, Vicki Manuel, had an incredibly important speech made there. And then the granddaughter, Ashley Michelle. So having those three generations plus the fourth generation, the daughter of Ashley,
Speaker: there at that day to make those statements in the presence of the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Roseanne Archibald, and Roseanne Kazimir Koopiec at Saqapum and Justin Trudeau, really I think emphasizes how the attention being paid to these stories has really shifted and changed. And for me, brings increasing hope that we will take the actions necessary
Speaker: to address what went on in the schools and what went on in the larger context of Canada, including land grabs and treaty violations across the country.
Speaker: Silly, we're speaking on the morning before Orange Shirt Day, which is now Canada's national day for truth and reconciliation. And the book officially launches on that day. Wonderful. Congratulations. But there's so much to reckon with in the wake of residential schools. What are some of the places you think non -indigenous people like you and I should focus in terms of real and lasting reconciliation?
Speaker: I think that one of the first things we have a responsibility to do is to continue to inform ourselves. I do feel that people, a number of people, maybe the majority of people in Canada, have spent a lot of time turning their heads the other way, looking at headlines in newspapers that say First Nations, Indigenous, Métis, Inuit, turning their heads the other way and thinking, this has nothing to do with me. I also hear people who talk about, we should just move on from this.
Speaker: We cannot do that. We need to understand what the history of our country is, how we have come to be. And we also need to recognize the injustices that have been perpetrated. We need to understand why the Land Back movement exists. We need to figure out what we're going to do about Land Back. And we need also to take up the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which I think never got fair attention paid.
Speaker: and start acting. But I think before that, it's so important for people to inform themselves. As I said earlier, there are indigenous novelists, nonfiction writers, scholars, artists, professors, lawyers, doctors, who are working to have indigenous knowledge be an integral part of their practice and an integral part of how we think about the world going forward. We need to pay attention to that. We need to inform ourselves.
Speaker: We need to take the time to do that. And no, moving on is not going to happen. There are laws that govern Canada that have an impact on our relationship with Indigenous nations that we happily laid ourselves over top of. It was great to read the book and really good to talk to you this morning and thank you for doing this work. Lorraine, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to have this conversation.
Speaker: And I do hope that it leads to people reading the book in order to understand more deeply, not only what has gone on in the past, but to use that understanding to build a strong future for all of us as we move forward. Thank you so much.
Speaker: I've been speaking with Celia Haig -Brown. She is the author of Chacal Mook's Wheel, The Kamloops Indian Residential School Resistance and a Reckoning. It's a new book published by Arsenal Pulp Press. For anyone listening who may need support, you can call the Indian Residential School Survivor Society at 1 -800 -721 -0066. And I'm going to say that number again.
Speaker: 1 -800 -721 -0066 The Red Eye Podcast is produced at the studios of Vancouver Co -op Radio. You can support us by supporting Co -op Radio. Go to coopradio .org and click on the donate button. Independent media relies on the support of people like you.
