Bernadette Dean

My name is Bernadette Dean. I’m Inuk. I’m originally from Coral Harbour, I’ve been living in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut but going to art school in Ottawa. It’s my story and many others story. I think it’s important that the stories of Residential School Survivors are heard, and heard by many people and many Canadians because there are so many untold stories that were quiet for so long.

It’s about survival and death. There was a death involved, in this story I heard. My late friend William Gruben told me a story of three young boys running away from Inuvik Stringer Hall to Tuktoyaktuk – I don’t know how far away that is but it was in the winter time and I think one or two perished. I don’t know how old the boys were, I can’t remember the age, but they were young boys trying to get away from Residential School and returning home. This is in the Arctic. In the winter. I think one survived. I can’t really remember all the details. This story took place in the, I believe the 1970s. The Residential School, I think was Stringer Hall. There was two of them, Stringer Hall I believe was Anglican and Grollier Hall was Catholic, and they were both in Inuvik, North West Territories. Yes, it involves students and I can not remember their names. They were told to me, I never attended Stringer Hall. I don’t know if other students were involved. It was told to me by one of the fellow students, late William Gruben told me.

I attended Residential School, Akaitcho Hall, for three years. No, I only attended Akaitcho Hall in Yellowknife. I’m here to share some of my story, or my story, my experiences going to Residential School. I think it was almost a thousand miles away from home where I attended Residential School. We were from, we grew up in, well the community I grew up in, Coral Harbour was maybe 99.9% Inuit and going into school in Yellowknife – which was almost population of ten thousand, and mostly white people, I think – and how much racism we experienced and how much labelling and negativity. We were judged before, when they didn’t even know us, know who we were. We got labelled and judged for when they didn’t know who we were. Well, I remember being asked if I was native and I didn’t even know what native was, because it was something we didn’t hear everyday in our community. And, one of my friends and I, we wanted to get part-time jobs, we went to a hamburger joint to apply for part-time job and when she saw that our address was Akaitcho Hall she ripped up the application form in front of us and said we don’t hire anybody from there because we steal… and we don’t even steal, like she didn’t know who we were. So, little things like that, you were put aside because you from Akaitcho Hall. I think I was confused but I quickly learned that we were different and treated differently and you just had to learn to accept that. We knew where we could walk and we knew where we weren’t allowed to walk. We just accepted it.

This is my story and first of all, my parents were – didn’t understand English at all – they were, they lived in the land. I’m number ten of the eleven children they had and most of their children were born out on the land. I was second child of my mom, born in a white mans’ hospital. And, when she had given birth to my older siblings out on the land, in our own way, she told me that when she was in labour with me at the hospital – she knew, like, she was more accustomed to being on her knees, during child birth. They would push her on the bed to… when she was in labour with me. I think that was trauma I experienced. Even at childbirth, even before I was born, I could feel. I’m a believer we experience everything our mothers experience. And, then my mom told me I was a big baby, a fat baby, but I got medivac – without my parents, without my Mom, without my Dad. That’s the way it was… and she said I was so fat it was like I had strings tied on my joints and then she said when I came back from the hospital – I have a record of it, by the way – I was returned home March 16th, 1964, I would have been maybe 9 months old when I returned. She said I came home skinny. And, so, I was already broken and traumatized by the system, the government system or white man system. And, growing up number ten of eleven children, I had three older sisters that when the time came, they would leave home, they all left… we had a chance to be the eldest in our home. I thought it was normal, that when you reach a certain age or complete a certain grade, you go away. I thought that was normal… and our parents were intimidated by what, people in the government, they had no voice. It was not normal, and what really hurt me was, my Dad was still alive when the… when the compensation for common experience payment came out. I was really torn, so I told my Dad that me and my younger brother and my siblings can get compensation for attending Residential School. My Dad started crying… he started crying because we had to be so far away from Mom and Dad, when we were so young, and Mom would cry herself to sleep, especially when my little brother went, her baby, and I know that she’s not the only Mom that cried herself to sleep. There were some that, that four-year-old I know, one of my cousins was four years old when she went to Residential School. Four years old!

I don’t know what my story is, but it was so wrong and it was not normal. It left so many broken. I was numb for many years… I was numb for many years, I didn’t know I was numb but it was a way to survive the trauma, or try and forget it, and even to this day, there’s so many… we got out of Residential School and we had no sense of belonging. No sense. I didn’t know that we were rejected by our own communities sometimes, and a lot of Residential School Survivors have that, no sense of belonging in them. And, It’s a terrible thing when you feel like you don’t belong anywhere. I belong in Canada, and I believe in the 94 Calls to Action. I’ll be fighting for those 94 Calls to Action until the day I die. And, I don’t know what else to say… I think our natural reaction to trauma is to run away. And I know that, I have attachment and detachment issues, with my own children, with myself, and with my siblings and I – we’re not close. I’m close with my older brothers and my little brother but the sisters… we’re not close. And I think… I remember the first night in Akaitcho Hall, I remember crying, quietly because I was missing my Mom and, I was so far away, but I remember crying myself to sleep too, and just crying quietly. You learn to be quiet. Being silenced is oppression and whatever happened, I think the way to… what it did to me and my sisters was, we learned to detach and – I don’t know if I’m making sense but, there’s no attachment. I have issues with attachment and detachment, I think, and that plays a role in my family life. I’ve been going to counselling for over three years, and in my therapy, or in my journey, I had memories of – like I said to you, I mentioned I grew up in a community where they would hunt our foods, fishing, seals, caribou, walrus, polar bear. And in Akaitcho Hall, when I just couldn’t eat another swiss steak or chicken ala king or… I just had no appetite for white man’s food. There would be times, I didn’t know I was probably craving our traditional foods, there were times where I would just have lettuce, add oil and salt, and that’s what I ate because I couldn’t, I just had no appetite for chicken ala king or swiss steak, or sometimes I would just have a bowl of rice with lots of butter and soya sauce, and I think that was, I didn’t know back then, I was probably craving our traditional foods.

I’m not aware of any investigations, there was a lot of atrocious things I witnessed. I remember the boys, one of the younger boys, tied up naked on a bed and brought out into the compound and everyone laughing and I was appalled, I felt so bad for that boy. That was bullying and there was no name for bullying then but lots of terrible stuff like that happened. When, I remember, after study hour we would hang out in the rec hall downstairs and it was mixed, like boys and girls could hang out at the rec hall… I remember two boys, one boy held me down, and like two boys were holding me down, and one of them just giving me hickies all over. When I think back, that was, that was so scary to be pinned down… and then, having to go to class the next day having all these hickies… and I never, and people just, I don’t know, it seemed to be accepted back then but it was all part of the, I don’t know, it was all part of the… it was accepted, it seemed, and you just deal with it – or not deal with it, by not dealing with it. I’m just grateful the stories are being told and because there’s so many levels of trauma and how it impacts us emotionally and mentally, spiritually, that only when you tell your story, you bring it to light and I’m grateful stories are being told.

I remember one of my cousins, in a panic mode, because one of her grandchildren had been learning about Residential Schools, and he asked her if she had attended Residential School and she had, but she couldn’t, she had a lump in her throat and couldn’t talk because she didn’t want to go there. And, we try to protect our children from the pain and the shame, but not realizing that they are impacted too. I remember the first time I went home, because there were no vehicles, there were no Hondas and our airport was eleven miles away. I remember arriving on the DC-3 because there was no regular, scheduled flights between our region and Yellowknife, so we would be on this big old DC-3 plane, twelve hours of flying I think, six hours from Yellowknife to Baker Lake, which was always the first stop, and then stopping in all the other communities. When we arrived nobody was at the airport and it was dark, it was night. I started crying, I was sad and happy, I don’t know, I just cried. All of us cried. We were happy to be home and yet, the people we wanted to see were not at the airport because there was no communication – no one told them that, you know, the DC-3 would be bringing your kids is arriving at seven o’clock, or whatever, so the Department of Transportation guy, they were the only ones with vehicles, and drove us into town. I remember one time, when we were flying home, I don’t know which of the years, DC-3 again – we kept circling Baker Lake for about an hour. We were just circling it. We could see it – but we weren’t landing. And then, one of the pilots came, he pulled the rug from, you know, the aisle, he pulled the rug and took this tool and he was cranking the wheels down… and here we were, 40-50 teenagers on this plane and we were all curious, like we weren’t scared, because it was so cold the tires wouldn’t go down so he had to manually crank it. That memory, I was so like, we were so young and naïve that we were in danger but didn’t even know we were in danger. And, after many years I thought, oh my god the horror. So, we all have to, we all have to play our part in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. We all have that responsibility as Canadians, to implement those, the 94 Calls to Action, because we belong to Canada and, we are all Canadians, and we owe it to the future generations to make a difference and those 94 Calls to Action can create positive change and difference for the future generations.