William McLean
Stone Residential School, Poundmakers Residential School
THE INTERVIEWER: Okay. I’ll start by getting you to say and spell your name, please.
BILL McLEAN: My name is Bill McLean; M-c-L-e-a-n.
Q. Is it William or Bill?
A. William. Yeah.
Q. Okay. Where are you from William?
A. I’m from the Stoney Reserve in Morley, just between here and Banff.
Q. Which Residential School did you go to?
A. I’m generally with what they call Moral Rearmament Initiatives of Change..
Q. That’s the name of the Residential School?
A. No. The Residential School was Stoney Residential School.
Q. It was right on the Reserve?
A. Yeah.
Q. How old were you when you first went there?
A. About six.
Q. Six. How many years were you there?
A. About seven years in the school. I have been to two different Residential Schools one at home on the Stoney Reserve under the United Church. Then I went to Poundmakers Residential School in Edmonton for the next three years.
Q. So in total how many years were you in Residential School?
A. I think I was in Residential School for twelve years.
Q. So you were really young when you went. Do you remember the first day of Residential School?
A. I think it was about the first of December, just when I turned six, in 1926. That’s when I was first taken to the school. At that time I didn’t know but this is what my dad and mom always told me that they take me to the school just when I turned six years old because that is what the Indian Agent said that they were going to have all the young children when they reach six years old they had to be taken to the school. That’s why they took me to that school when I was six years old.
Q. What are your first memories of being in the school?
A. Well, there’s a lot of things.
I remember I didn’t know a word of English when I was taken to school. In the classroom the teacher was reading a book about the Little Red Hen. He was asking the children what colour is the hen? He asked me what colour is the hen? I didn’t even understand. That’s when I got my first strapping just because I didn’t understand. It wasn’t only me but it happened to practically all those children who couldn’t give any response.
That’s the first way we were being abused.
And we were never allowed to speak our own language inside the school building and inside the classroom. If we were caught speaking our language in the school or in the classroom we would get a strapping for it by the teachers or supervisors. That happened even during lunch hour, in the Dining Room. We were not allowed to talk or speak when we were in the Dining Room. This is one of the things that we ran into being school students.
That went on for years.
Q. Are there any specific memories that you want to share about your experience in Residential School?
A. There are a lot of things. I have experienced so many things. We’ve been abused physically, mentally, morally from the teacher, from the Supervisors and even from the principal who was a Minister, a missionary. He used to call us all kind of names when we didn’t understand what we were told to do. He used to call us dumb heads or dumb bells. Even I remember one time one of the Boys’ Supervisors was calling us “you Black People”. So these were the things we were abused with.
As I grew older learning about the history of my People —
After I came out of school I grew up to be very very bitter towards the White people. I had a lot of hatred towards White people just because of the way I had been treated when I was in school. When I learned how our Native people across the country have met so many injustices, so much suffering, that made me feel bitter. I didn’t know why I was like that but I grew up like that. If you could multiply me with the rest of the students you pretty well know what the students are like who have been in Residential School, who have been raised in Residential Schools.
Q. When you were in Residential School were you allowed to go home for the summer or for holidays?
A. We were allowed to go home for two months during the summer holidays. That’s the only time we were with our parents. I think there was just one day, New Year’s Day, that was the only time we were allowed to go home to our homes, on New Year’s Day. Other than that we were never allowed.
We were never allowed to speak to our own sisters or cousins on the girls’ side. They wouldn’t let us talk to the girls. These are some of the things that we have endured.
Q. So when you were home for the summer, what was it like going back home for the summer over the years?
A. Being in school for twelve years and only living with my parents for two months a year I didn’t get to learn very much about my own traditional values or my teachings. So many things that our People —
Our People had their own teachings. They had their own gospels, very similar to what is in the Ten Commandments. Being in school that long we were never taught our own traditional education. We were never taught anything about life skills which our People learned.
My father’s name was Chief Walking Buffalo. He was the first student to be taken to the McDougall Orphanage and Residential School which was built in 1879. Since he was an orphan, when he turned ten years old he was taken away from the school by this missionary who came to officially open that Residential School. His name was Reverend Doctor John McLean, and he gave my dad that name McLean. He called him George McLean. So he took him off the Reserve School and he was taught in a non-Indian school until he came back on the Reserve when he was nineteen years old he always tells us.
From there on he was an interpreter for the Signatory Chiefs who signed Treaty No. 7. He was the interpreter for them after he came out of school.
Then I had to learn from him, my mom and my grandparents about their own traditional values and education.
One of the things for us as Native People, compared to the Europeans, our People had their own form of government. They had their own education. They had their own gospels. When the Europeans came they found the Native People in this country, since they didn’t understand our people, they thought that we were uncivilized people. They even called our People savages. That’s the first thing that our People endured, being called savages.
Then from there on they made Confederation here in Canada. Through this Confederation the first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald said that he was going to make treaties with the Native people because they were going to build a transcontinental railway across Canada from coast to coast. This transcontinental railway was going to run through Indian territories so they wanted to build these treaties with the Native people. Then we were in Treaty No. 7.
That’s when the chief said —
We’re called the Nakoda Tribe but they call us Rocky Mountain Shoes. We had joined the Blackfeet Confederation at the time of the Treaty back in 1877. At that time they had given us some promises, Treaty Promises. According to what the stories that we do hear from our People at that time, just like what my dad used to hear from the Chiefs that he used to interpret for them, when they talked about the Treaties and what they had been promised, they were told that some day in the future when they have schools for Native children, some day in the future they would be able when they have enough education, they can administer their own affairs. These were some of the promises that we had been given, promised to our People in Treaty No. 7.
So one of the sad things is in schools we find ourselves being discriminated against through loss of promotions. The limit of education when we were in school was Grade 8. That was the limit of our education. Until back in the 1930s and 1940s when the Indian Association of Alberta had organized an association for the First Nations in Alberta, that was the time they had to give higher education for Native People since then. Before that Grade 8 was the limit. So we only had a substandard level of education.
We didn’t really know very much about our own traditional education. We didn’t know enough about the White man’s education so we were left right in the middle.
Later on in years when they built another school on our Reserve back in 1925 they had to put all these six-year old children in the school, in that Residential School. As I said, I was taken to school when I was six. I was in there for about eight years in that school until I reached Grade 8. My dad wanted me to get further education. He made an arrangement with a school in Edmonton, Poundmakers Residential School and I went there. I found that place was a lot better than the school I attended at home. That Residential School at Morley was very strict. They wouldn’t even allow us to go to any of our ceremonies held by our people. They didn’t want us to learn anything about the Native ceremonies. They wouldn’t let us go to any of those while we were in school. This is one of the things that I really felt that we had been abused to make us lose the traditional values.
In our Native education, pre European, our Native People were taught nature’s education. They were able to read the sign of the sun. They were able to read the sign of the moon, the stars, the air, the water, Mother Earth and all the environment. And we were able to teach —
There is a sign in our own physical body which will tell —
We were taught about what it really means. There’s a sign, there are feelings in your body, even a sign in your eyes.
And when you hear —
They always say if you hear a dog howling at night it means there is going to be a death, or something disastrous is going to happen in the family. Or if you start to see horses or cattle or dogs or cats or anything playing around, frolicking around, they say there is going to be a change in the weather. In the fall if you see the geese flying low it’s going to be a good winter. If you see the geese flying way high migrating south, it’s going to be a cold winter. They know practically everything about nature. They know if it’s going to be a cold winter or going to be a good winter. They were able to predict the kind of weather. They were able to predict the seasons. All those things that our People have learned but being in Residential Schools those were never taught. That’s what we lost. That’s the crumbling of civilization for us as Native People during the time we were in Residential Schools. We lost all that. We became an unjust society. We were never give the same privileges. We never got the same opportunities as the rest of the citizens in this country. We’re just like babies at the time of the Treaty.
I was in Switzerland back in 2001. I was asked to sit in on a Workshop held by the United Nations members and world leaders from sixty countries. There I heard four things which I had never heard before. One United Nation member from Palestine, one from France, he asked me, “Do you realize that your First Nations in Canada have been conquered through peaceful coexistence?” That’s one of the things I never used to know.
As I say, through our lack of education we don’t get promotions so our students only get so much education, a substandard education, not enough to get ourselves to become equal with the rest.
He said that another thing that really held us down is how we are being recognized as a Third World People. At that Conference, that Workshop, that was the only time I knew the global population of Indigenous People, the global population of global Indigenous People, they tell me there’s 350 million Indigenous People around the world which I never used to know.
I travelled with my dad, as I said, to different countries outside of North America. I have been to Hawaii, Fiji Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Philippine Islands, Japan, Johannesburg in South Africa, Bonn, Germany, Geneva, Switzerland and London, England. Then we went to South America. We attended a Conference in Florida for ten days. After that the Moral Rearmament Organization would change. We were invited by the South American governments to Brazil, Sao Paulo in Brazil and we spent another ten days there. From there we went south to the mouth of the Amazon. We found some Native People there called Amazonis (ph.). They told us they have never been confederated.
We went to Lima, Peru. We went to La Pas in Bolivia. I went and asked at the Canadian Embassy what is the population of Indigenous People in South America. He told me that including Central and South America there are thirty million Natives. So these are the things that I never used to know. But what I had learned —
I always say I learned more just by travelling, seeing what is going on around the world.
I mentioned that our People were able to read the signs of Nature. Back in 1938 I remember very well you see this evening star that comes out in the sky, it comes out bright —
Q. Um-hmm.
A. At that time I remember they were saying that there was something wrong because of the change in the colour of that evening star. It comes with a little bit of a reddish colour. Our people were saying there is going to be a disaster in the world. So they had to put on a Sun Dance prayer, praying for the people, for everything, for nature, so that nothing would happen here in our own country.
Not too long after World War II broke out. They were able to notice that. That’s the kind of education our People had.
One of the sad things is since the Europeans didn’t understand our People, they thought we were uncivilized people, and then travelling with this Initiatives of Change and Moral Rearmament —
My dad always to tell us the only weapon, the priority for Native People, is to get the best of the White man’s education, learn the best of Native education and use both. That’s the only way you are going to cope with the rest of the seditions in this country. I really believe in that.
What I learned from the Initiatives of Change —
People have to really make a change in their own lives. They have to make their own decision in their own lives if they want to see a change in their society, a change in their community, a change in their nation, they have to start with themselves.
In 1958 I went to the Moral Rearmament Training Centre. It was the first time I had ever been to a place like that. It was a big conference for people from all around the world. I found people from sixty different countries, I think. I know they told me there were about six hundred delegates there.
One of the things I learned when I attended there, after being there for four days —
When I first went to that Training Centre I was placed in the same room with a fellow Albertan. He was from Edmonton. His name was Jack Freebury (ph.). I was put in the same room with him.
Right away I had resentment. I didn’t know why, but I wouldn’t speak to him unless he speaks to me, talks to me. Attending the sessions I hear people giving the convictions from their lives, how to put right what’s wrong in our own lives, how to put a change in their lives, saying that human nature can change and how to apologize to people and how to ask forgiveness and all that.
Gee, I thought, how can I forgive somebody who has hurt my feelings? That’s the first thing I thought. But later on I began to start to think of my own gospels from my own People. I started to think. One day during the session I heard one of the big leaders there talking to the whole audience, speaking to the whole audience and I started to feel very guilty. I thought somebody must have been telling him what kind of a person I was. He was making me feel very guilty by what he was saying.
Just then a thought came to me. You can’t hide anything from God. You can’t deny anything from God. Right then I started to think of my own roommate. So that evening I went back to my room. When Jack came back in the room I said, “Jack, I want to apologize to you for hating you for being my roommate. I want to apologize to you. I want you to forgive me for this.” So he said he will. And he said that he wanted to apologize to me, too, and asked me to forgive him.
He said before he met this International Forum for Moral Rearmament Initiative of Change he never had any interest in the Native People. He didn’t understand the Native People. He didn’t care for the Native People. So both of us got honest with each other. From that day on we became one of the best friends. He’s a White man and I’m an Indian but we’re still the best of friends.
From that day on all my bitterness and hatred left. I was able to speak to anybody.
I also found myself feeling very superior to the dark people, the Black people, and I was very superior to the Asians. But from that day on I was able to speak to any of them, feeling they have the same feelings. I feel that they are all God’s people. I think this is what is needed here in our own country. There is a need for change in ourselves as Native People, a change in our society, a change in the community and a change in the nation. That’s the only way we’re going to see a better future for the future generations.
Or else we’re going to follow in the same footsteps of so many conflicts there are in other countries, just like what is happening in Africa. When I was in Johannesburg we also went to Uganda, in the central part of Africa. It was very lawless there. There is no freedom there. I found that out. If there’s not a change in the future with all the Natives getting so much education, learning just as much as anybody, if there’s not a change in ourselves there could be a lot of conflicts. That’s what will happen. So as I say, that’s why we need a change in ourselves, to put right what is wrong in ourselves. Put right what is wrong in our society, put right what is wrong in our community and in the nation.
I heard that man speaking, that Member of Parliament. I listened. He was referring to the need for change; a change in the nation.
I maintain that no matter how much suffering we have endured, endured injustices and all that by the survivors of Residential School, if we make a change in ourselves we will go on to see a better future for our children. But we have to start with ourselves. That’s what I see.
Q. Do you think that starts with people sharing their stories? Is that why it is important?
A. Well, that’s one of the things that is needed. We do have —
A few of our own People have gone to these Initiative Change Training Centres and they begin to realize and there begins to be some changes in some of our Native People. And then we’ll feel that it’s not only us that need to change. It’s everybody in the country, the dominant society and everyone in the country so we can have a better relationship without any discrimination, prejudice and all that. Because discrimination and prejudice is not born. It’s being taught. These are the things that we really have to get down to see where we are wrong.
I’ve been saying that we still have a long ways to go to really understand each other. If you could multiply me, between me and Jack Freebury, my friend from Edmonton, you could well see what kind of two cultures there is here in Canada. There’s a needed change.
So I would like to see that. I’ve been hearing people talk about this, but there’s more need of change.
One thing I said one time when we were talking about the national day for Aboriginal People, I said that it’s time for us, the First Nations of Canada —
— End of Part 1
…part of the government department under this thing.
I was saying if that time ever comes that’s the only time our Native People will understand. They will have an interest in their own people. They will understand their own people. They care for their own people. They know where the need is in all these different communities across Canada. They know where the need is in the lives of the Native People better than the present bureaucrats in Ottawa. I don’t think any of them ever set foot in these Indian communities. That’s one of my visions.
Q. It seems since Residential School you have learned —
Since Residential School you were talking about learning more about our traditions and one of the important questions that we ask is about people’s healing journey. That is very important. So could you talk to me a bit more about your healing from Residential School?
A. Yeah. That’s why I say there is a need for healing and reconciliation in ourselves, no matter who they are, not only the Native People but the rest of the people. That’s one of the things that is really needed.
Q. Is there more you would like to add about Residential School or is there anything more that you would like to say about that? Is there anything more you would like to say about your experience in Residential School?
A. I have been helping the teachers at the school right now. That’s what I’m talking about right now, where there is a need for change.
With the kind of education that we’ve got, like I said, they are discriminating against our people, our children, through social promotions so when they reach Grade 9, when they are going to go to high school, they find themselves about a grade or two behind. That’s when the big majority of our Native People drop out. That’s where it is. That has to be changed. We have to get the same level of education as the rest.
Q. So you have been very busy.
A. Yeah.
Q. Since you left the Residential School when you were eighteen you have been working hard.
A. In those days in Residential Schools they sent out teachers who were the leftovers. All the good qualified teachers go to the towns and cities. The ones that didn’t get a job in the cities, they had to go to the Indian Schools. They are the ones that really didn’t have enough degree to be teachers.
That’s one of the things, too, that really kept our Native People down. I was just saying the other day that you never see a millionaire Native Person in this country. You see other people from other countries, they come to Canada. Canada is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world. A lot of them became millionaires but none of our own People ever become millionaires.
Q. We buy Lotto tickets!
A. Yeah.
Q. All right, William.
A. So what happened to the students in Residential Schools we do know it was so sad to know all about that, that that could be changed with a change in ourselves and a change in our society and a change in our nation. Just like when I was hearing that Member of Parliament speaking out there. If we had more of them, Members of Parliament that really know what the need is, I think we can have a better Canada.
Q. He had very wise words.
Thank you for sharing your time.
A. That’s what I have learned just by travelling and seeing other countries.
Q. You have been to a lot of places.
A. Yeah. I seen the history of other countries, other nations, I have seen it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears.
Some people ask me how much education I have. They ask me if I have been to university. I say that I have never been to university, but I have been to nature’s university. I learned more through nature.
Just the other day I was telling my children it is going to rain within four days. And it happened. Somebody asked me in Cochrane —
I went inside a café. There were four elderly men that I know and their wives were sitting at a big table there. When I walked in they said, “Oh, here’s a man who can tell us what kind of winter we’re going to have.” I looked around and I said, “I think we’re going to have a cold winter.” “How do you know?” they said. I said, “I noticed that you are growing your beards. You are preparing for a cold winter.”
Q. That’s good.
A. So that’s my story about what happened to me. You could pretty well tell that it happened to so many of our students.
Q. Thank you very much.
A. One of the things that happened to our students was they didn’t even know about their own traditional values, and when they come out of school and they have their own families, they are not able to teach their children about these traditional values and unable to teach them the kind of teachings that our People had because at one time our people were very noble people. But that has been lost. They aren’t even taught about their own kinships. They always say if you know about your kinship you will grow up to learn to respect your own people, respect your own relatives. Without knowing your kinship you will be just like a dog. You don’t know if they are a relation or not.
Q. That’s true.
A. So many things our people have in their own education which need to be taught.
In my lifetime —
Lately I begin to find out in White society there is still a need for them to really understand our people. Last summer at the Calgary Stampede I was sitting in front of a tee-pee seeing all the tourists and all the people walking through the tee-pees. A couple of men approached me and they sat down. They told me they came from Spain. They are studying native history. One was a photographer. After they finished talking to me they asked me, “Where can we find the Indians?” I said, “You’re talking to one of them!”
Right away I know all they know about the Indians is about the stereotype people. They think that we’re still dressed in our feathers.
Q. They were looking for someone with braids! (Laughter)
And buckskins.
A. Yeah.
Q. That’s funny.
A. So this is my story of what happened to me.
Q. All right.
A. I had to go through a Training Centre for the change in my life. I was able to forgive, I was able to give my forgiveness to my People. So everybody is my friend.
One of the things my mother told me one time when I was young, she said, “Sonny, as you go down in life don’t ever meet a person with a dead face. Always meet a person with a smile. Be polite, no matter who they are; a child, a stranger, no matter who it is. They all have the same feelings. The Creator made us all the same. The only difference is the race, colour and creed. That’s the only difference. Other than that we’re all one person.” She always said that.
These were the kind of teachings our Native People had. This has never been taught in the Residential Schools. So that’s where we really became lost. We could be called a lost people.
Q. That’s why we do these interviews. We do these interviews so the stories aren’t lost. Because a lot of people are getting older and we want to make sure that those stories are kept for the next generation and the next generations. They are all wonderful stories, like your own.
Thank you. M’gwich.
— End of Interview
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