THE INTERVIEWER: Would you please tell us your name and spell it for us?
ROY NOOSKI: My name is Roy Nooski; R-o-y N-o-o-s-k-i.
Q. And where are you from?
A. I’m from Nautley Reserve.
Q. And what school did you attend?
A. Lejac School.
Q. We’ve had quite a few from Lejac today. What years were you there? Do you remember?
A. I think it was 1951 to 1956, or ’55.
Q. How old were you when you started?
A. I was 6 years old.
Q. Do you remember your first day?
A. My first day? My grandfather —
Two people came out of the vehicle and went inside to talk to my grandfather. He talked to me and he said if he didn’t let me go, they were going to take that $7 monthly Family Allowance and put him in jail. So that’s why he let me to go to school.
When I went to Lejac, Father Clenahan (sp?) asked me: “Do you speak Indian?” I said, “Yes, I do.” “Stand up.” I was happy. I stood up. “Roll your sleeves back.” So I did. “Put it out.” That’s the first time in my life I ever got a strap.
I didn’t want to get the strap any more so I asked this guy Russell, I believe, (speaking Native language) “The White man wearing granny’s dress, what do you call him?” And he says, “Father”. I says, “He’s not my father.” “He’s a priest.” (speaking Native language) “Don’t talk your language, you’re going to strap you again.” But he heard me, eh, and I had to get a strap again.
It got to the point where I was getting 7 on each hand because of my language.
Q. That happened on your first day?
A. Yeah.
Q. What is your language that you speak?
A. I speak Carrier.
Q. Carrier. And you still speak it now?
A. I had to relearn it again. Most of it I still don’t know. I have to ask questions.
Q. So that was taken from you, your culture?
A. Yeah.
Q. What about practicing any cultural things? Do you remember life before going to school, living with your grandfather?
A. Yes. We used to do a lot of trapping and cultural activities like making snowshoes and that. I don’t do that any more because I don’t know how to start it.
Q. Can you take us through a typical day at Residential School, what time you woke up and that sort of thing?
A. We wake up about 7. We had to go to Mass at 7 o’clock. Then we had breakfast. We pray before breakfast and after breakfast. Then we go to class. Ten o’clock to twelve sometimes we have Catechism. Most of the time I got hit with the ruler on the knuckles, and sometimes that yardstick on my neck. I tended to speak my language instead of how they pronounce it. Like they would tell me to say “yes”, I would say “ah ah”, and I would get it.
They teach me pretty well not to speak my language.
Q. So how would you describe your experience at Residential School?
A. My experience in Residential School was pretty harsh for me because I’m not used to getting the strap. My grandfather raised me. I never did get a strap from my grandfather. He would sit down and talk to me and tell me what I did wrong and how I’m going to repay that family, or something. So I would make wood for them or pack water to apologize.
But over there it was different.
Q. So if you had hurt somebody or had a little argument with another kid, your grandfather would teach you to go and do something for them?
A. Yes, make amends. To forgive, I guess.
But I used to get the strap in Lejac. Talking to my cousin Sally, I got off the rink and I went up and talked to her and asked her if grandpa or her dad was coming for a visit. “Are they going to visit on Sunday?” She said, “Father is over there.” “You had better get back on the ice or you’ll get the strap.” I said, “Aw, I’m used to it, it’s always on the hand.”
When I went inside the cloakroom Father called me. So I went up. I thought I’m going to get the strap again. I was so used to it that I just rolled up my sleeves. But no, he said, “Take off your shirt.” So I took my shirt off, my t-shirt. “Take off your pants.” I took off my pants. The bigger boys were around. I took off my pants. “Take off your shorts.” Again I had to take off my shorts. Then, bang, oh boy. I don’t know how many times he hit me, and I think I did go down on one knee. I just about fainted.
I was looking at the bigger boys for help and they’re giggling and pointing fingers at me, making fun of me. So in my mind I took their picture. When I grow up I’m going to beat them up. I’m going to hurt them in my own way.
Q. Are there any other things that happened to you at Residential School that you would like to talk about?
A. I believe the first year I went there we used to pile wood by the outside washroom. You go inside and they got different places you can go to the bathroom. Donny was there before me, working with Patrick, and maybe he was his uncle, or something. He’s the one who called me in the back so I went with him in the back. I didn’t know anything about this. Just about in the middle of the big woodshed, I was screaming but nobody would hear me, I guess, and that’s where I was first sexually abused. I was small. He was a little bigger than me. I couldn’t fight him off. He still had me down, anyway.
It happened at the same place within that same month. It was a little further down, close to the corner, the same thing happened. I was sexually abused.
After that I started to get the sense of what was going to happen so I avoided them things. That was the last time I got sexually abused.
I never talked about it too much. But after I went to the Treatment Centre I can let it flow. So it’s easier for me to talk about it now and I do some Workshops on that to help other people.
Q. What about the education you received there? Do you think you received a good education?
A. Education: Grade 4. One year in St. Joseph’s, so I got Grade 5. I had to go to skid row to get my Ph.D., so I got my Ph.D., nineteen years of it. I was poor, hungry and a drunk.
Q. Do you think the troubles you suffered later in life are a result of Residential School?
A. A lot of this stuff brings me back to the school when I was taking pictures of them people laughing and giggling at me.
I sit down in the bar in Vancouver and a couple of tables over, or even at the next table, people are just happy and drinking, I push my beer away and start fighting with them. Even walking down the street, people coming over laughing and just enjoying themselves, I just start fighting again.
So I went to jail quite a bit on assault, eh. I had that for years. Oakalla, too, I ended up in the black hole for ten days, just for fighting. I cut a guy on top —
I did a lot of that negative stuff, knifing on the streets in Seattle, First Street, skid row in Vancouver. It’s hard.
Q. So what about life right after you left Residential School? How old were you when you were finished school and what did you do right after school?
A. Right after school I was working for ninety cents an hour piling lumber. I went up to Prince George and I made $1 a hour and paid $2 a day room and board.
But going to jail was easier. They feed you 3 meals a day.
Q. Jail was easier than Residential School?
A. When I first went in doing eighteen months I said, “These people respect me.” What did I mean? They open the door for you when you go inside. They close the door for you. You don’t get the strap. And when I mentioned that most of the inmates didn’t like me because they’re doing time, too, but it’s hard. But for me I thought it was a little bit of respect.
Q. Do you want to talk a little bit more about those nineteen years, your time on skid row?
A. Nineteen years on skid row sometimes I sleep in a garbage bin, you know, but you don’t smoke in my house because I got cardboard boxes and newspapers for the winter. That’s where I stay. Always in the summer I go in the back alley or Oppenheimer Park or down by the sugar factory or under the viaducts. There’s all different places to spend my time. Once in a while I visit my dad, stay over there, sneak a towel and take a shower. What I do is go to the bus stop and go wash up over there.
I spent most of my time on skid row. It wasn’t a hard life at that time. I don’t have to worry about light bills, I don’t have to pay for rent, I don’t have to buy grub. I just go in the sandwich line-up or Harbour Lights. There’s lots of places you can eat to survive. But most of the time I’ve been drinking.
The first time I was drinking Bay Rum. That’s after shave. The Army brought that in. That’s been on the street for a long time, until people were starting to die off from it so they banned that from the shelf. Then Blue Heaven got on. That’s Aqua Velva, just for a short period of time. Then Sterno. We call that Pink Lady. That was on for a long time until that got off the shelf, too, because too many people were getting alcohol poisoning from mixing it with something else.
Q. When did you start drinking? How old were you?
A. I was about 7 or 9, 7 years old.
Q. Really? So when you were at Residential School?
A. After school, in the summer holidays.
Q. What was that like, going home in the summer?
A. The summer was the happiest days of my life, going home. But when I would stand there talking English, you know, they would look at me —
I’m going to translate it. “Why am I speaking White man and he’s blacker than me.” That’s what they’re telling me. I’m blacker than them and why do I speak White, you know. That’s all I knew. That’s what they taught me.
Q. Did your grandfather raise you?
A. My grandfather raised me, yes. He died in 1959. That’s when I kind of lost it.
Q. So after you came back to school after that. You were at school until ’55 or ’56, so it was a few years after that.
A. Um-hmm.
Q. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
A. No. I was myself. I’ve got a half brother, John Twostep and sisters Eleanor and Mavis.
Q. What was the school like for accommodation? What were the dorms like and stuff? Were there a lot of kids in one room?
A. There were a lot of us in one room. It’s just like the Salvation Army Hostel in Vancouver. I shouldn’t say that, but we were close together. We each had a different area. We were in one area and there was another one upstairs, but I was on the second floor.
The gardener down there —
It was sure nice to get carrots or turnips thrown over to us. We would all rush, eh. That’s how I learned how to use my fingernails to share it, open it up and go around and open it up and share it.
Q. Who would throw the turnips over the fence?
A. Tony, that looks after the garden.
Q. So he would throw a few extras over so the kids had something to eat?
A. Yeah, he would throw it over and we would all share it with each other.
Q. Did you do any farming there at all? Were there animals?
A. We did a little bit of planting potatoes and that. We packed a lot of wood, in the winter time like this, we had to line up.
Q. Before we talk about healing for you, are there any other final things you want to say about Residential School?
A. It was pretty rough but I learned how to survive. There’s stuff I did in there. I learned how to steal. I used that on skid row, to feed myself.
Q. Can you talk about that a little bit, learning how to steal?
A. Sometimes we would get hungry and there’s a place where they used to keep apples. We used to grab a box of apples and sneak them out and pass it to everybody. We get sneaky.
Q. Did you ever get caught?
A. No. We even took some of the priest’s wine, I think, because they had a big jug. We stole that, too.
I think that’s what I learned. I learned how to steal. And then I had to learn how to undo that after I started healing. Everything was negative.
That’s what I do, I help my People. I bring them back. They call that psycho-drama, or something.
Q. So do you want to talk a little bit about that, what has worked for you for healing?
A. My healing?
Q. Yes, and then maybe what you do for others now.
A. The first time I got my healing started was in 1975 when my partner, my wife, died. The Cowichan Elders sat me down. I was going to Vancouver to look for a job. They said, “You sit down, we want to talk to you.” After 4 days of working with me I said that I was going to Vancouver. “No”, they said, “the graveyard is still warm and you want to go to Vancouver and drink around and have women here and there.” They said, “No, sit down and listen.” “Stay in one place for one year.” “Don’t go running around here and there.”
I said, “Why?” They said, “The rest of your life, is that what you want to do?” “No,” I said. So I sat down and listened.
I said, “There’s no work here.” They said, “Do you know how to wash your socks?” “Yeah, I know how to wash my socks.” “Well, you’re going to work at the dry cleaners on Monday.” I don’t know how to work in a Dry Cleaners. I said, “No, no, no.” Do you know how to wash your socks, you work down there. That’s how I learned how to work in dry cleaning. I stayed there for a year.
After that, in 1985 I went into the Treatment Centre at Round Lake and I dealt with some of this Residential School stuff. That was heavy. But then I could speak my own language too. I would get angry and punch everything. I punched the bag. For me I feel a little bit lighter after that.
Q. Was that a time when a lot of people weren’t talking about it, in 1985?
A. Yeah. Nobody even mentioned that. Even when I mentioned that, 2 ladies were giggling. After I got off the floor and I sat down and took my breath, I went over there. They thought I was going to hit them because they went like this (indicating). I just told them to stand up and give me a hug. I said, “thank you.” You weren’t laughing at me, I said, you were laughing at yourself. And I said the same thing to the other one. They are both —
I think they have passed on now, from drinking.
I stayed 5 weeks, I believe. There was a lot of heavy stuff. In ’85 I quit drinking. Eighteen years and 4 months later I started drinking again. So now I haven’t drank since March 26th, so I’m doing good. I feel good.
Q. That’s good.
What about for other people? You said you run some treatment centres or you —
Can you talk a little bit about what you do for other people, other survivors?
A. Some other survivors, if they are just off the street, I make sure they feel comfy, not just hit them with one big aftershock letting them go past Residential School sexual abuse. We get to know each other first. Then I ask them if they do any counseling or if they are seeing a therapist, you know, if they are, it’s easier for me to work with them. Because the therapists send their clients to me and then I do the heavy stuff of letting them let go of the past hurts.
I even got a letter from Texas, from a lady thanking me for helping her. She’s off the street now and is happily married.
Q. Do you find in your work a lot of people that you talk to have suffered because of their experiences at Residential School?
A. Lots of them suffered. Some got jewellery like me, too.
Q. Um-hmm. Do you have scars?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that from Residential School?
A. No. Cutting myself. When you got that self-pity trip, when you know you’re not good for nothing, you feel shameful of yourself, or I’m not worth it around here, plus the bottle —
I’ve been in the hospital and they want to bring me to Essondale, or someplace. I was going to sign papers and my drug and alcohol counselor tell me, “Are you crazy?” I said, “No, I’ve got a hangover.” So he said, “Don’t sign that.” I said, “What’s that for?” “Did you read it?” I said, “No.” He said, “If you sign it you’re out of here.” “Do you know where you’re going?” I said, “No.” “They’re sending you to Vancouver.” “You’ll never get out of that hospital.”
So she took over and took me out of there. Edna. She was a big help. She was the one that helped me go to the Treatment Centre. I lasted eighteen years and 4 months.
So that’s what I do now. Sometimes I do my work up in the mountains. Sometimes I go in their own house. Like this Saturday, tomorrow, I gotta go see a lady and help her do some work. Her husband passed away years ago and she’s still got that tightness.
Q. Do you find that it helps for them to talk about things?
A. Yeah. How can I explain it?
Okay, I was in Duncan, away from here. I can drink. Nobody knows me here. I ask my wife, “Give me some money because I want to go get some beer?” “Nope.” “Get a taxi and get your beer.” “Pay him.” “Nope.” “Give the money to your sister if you don’t trust me.” “Get her to get the beer.” “Nope.” Anger starts setting in.
So I pick up the phone, “Sharon, I need a meeting.” So okay we go down there in twenty minutes. So I went down there. Everybody was there sharing, but walking in the door in a nice black dress, with pearls on it, was a lady. As soon as she walk in that lady she kind of shake and shiver like. After we had our circle I said, “I can help you with that Residential School stuff you’re packing.”
She said, “I don’t know you.” “Who told you I went to Residential School?” “Oh, don’t worry”, I said, “I used to pack that stuff you’re packing.” And I did some work with her. I got Sharon to sign her up. I got Sharon to walk her around. I tried. I said, “You’re a grown woman now, you’re not that little girl any more.” “You can say what you want.” “You can swear.” “You can shout, do anything you want.” And that’s what she did.
The next morning I went to the mall because I was looking for my son. I was having coffee and all of a sudden this lady come running. Her facial expression from yesterday to that morning was more open and happy. I believe she’s working in the Band Office now. So that’s the stuff I do.
Q. I think that’s really good. Are there any final words you would like to say?
A. Final words?
Q. Any final things you want to talk about before we wrap up?
A. I don’t know. Opening up for yourself, not for anybody else, I think that’s the best medicine. Not because my wife says, not because my daughter, not because the counselor says you have to quit drinking, you’ve gotta do this or that. It’s for yourself. Heal for yourself.
So that’s what I’m doing right now. Each day it’s different. Like now, this is a different experience for me. That’s another healing, letting go.
Q. So thank you very much for coming today and sharing.
A. Thank you.
Q. We’re done. You did it. Good job. Thank you.
— End of Interview