THE INTERVIEWER: I’ll get you to spell your first and your last name for me.
ED BITTERNOSE: En ce moment?
Q. Oui.
Ah oui. Ed Bitternose; Ed Bitternose.
Q. Et d'où venez-vous?
A. I’m from Gordon’s First Nation.
Q. Dans quelle école êtes-vous allé?
R. Je suis allé dans trois écoles.
Q. D'accord.
A. I went to Gordon’s, Muscoweguan – it was called The Mission –and Lebret.
Q. How old were you when you first went to Gordon’s?
A. At the time I went to Gordon’s I was about eight.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous à quoi ressemblait votre premier jour?
R. J'étais en fait un étudiant de jour.
Eh bien, mon premier jour a été très effrayant. Le bâtiment était intimidant et les étudiants étaient effrayants. L'autre chose, c'est que j'étais un habitant du sud de ma communauté qui allait dans une école du nord de sorte qu'il y avait un petit sentiment là-bas, comme si j'étais dans le mauvais territoire, même si mes cousins germains étaient avec moi. C'était l'une des choses effrayantes.
The other thing is that after school being a south end —
Actually, I wasn’t a south end guy. I lived in the same area as my cousins did. I had to fight with one of the north end guys. I’m not sure why but they said to fight so I fought. And that was it. I don’t know whether I was accepted or not.
Q. C'était leur façon de vous présenter?
R. Oui, ça a dû être mon initiation à cette école.
Et il y avait un sentiment de différence entre les enfants résidents et les enfants de jour. C'était en fait le jour des enfants, les plus grands garçons qui nous ont poussés à nous battre. C'était ça.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous à quoi ressemblait la nourriture?
A. Not really, no. I don’t remember. I just remember lining up. We had to line up in the big boys’ Play Room. And it was always the big guys in the front and the little guys at the back. The day school guys went last, so we were basically last and I don’t remember what we ate or what the food was like.
Nous avons également rejoint les scouts, je pense que c'était le cas et la nourriture y était plutôt bonne. Il y avait beaucoup de fruits et de pommes et du pain dur. Ils avaient aussi ces petits bonbons durs ou ces petits biscuits durs. Et du jus. Les scouts étaient plutôt une chose décente.
Q. Une belle évasion?
A. Yeah. Well, not really. See, I came from home and that’s when I learned a little bit about Residential School life with those guys because we stayed there sometimes. Like I said, I wasn’t a resident kid. I come from home. But in Scouts we stayed there sometimes and that’s when I remember we got I guess it was special food to those kids, but it was not nice staying there because then there were maybe three or four of us that were from the Reserve against twelve, fifteen that were resident kids. You didn’t go to the bathroom by yourself. You tried not to get cornered and that kind of stuff. It was survival of the brainiest, I guess, you just didn’t corner yourself.
C'était un peu une compréhension de ce que ces gars-là vivaient et de ce genre de choses.
Les pensionnats réels étaient en fait très différents. Mais ça
first —
The thing is I don’t even remember whether I went the whole year or not at that school because my dad got a job at The Mission as a farmhand. Sometime during the year we left. I really don’t know when, whether it was in the fall or whether it was in the spring time.
But also some time in that fall one of my friends from the school he stuck a pin in a receptacle, a hairpin, and it created – when I look at it now – it created a whole other kind of sense of trauma or questioning in my life for him because it created a whole other set of problems for me.
After that I was kind of the rat because I went to get the principal and it became even uglier to be there, even though I thought I was helping this fellow when he was being shocked. The principal actually made him pull that hairpin out of that receptacle and we watched. After that we were both punished. We had to sit in the hallway, just sit there, and everybody looked at us. We did something wrong. But I was the —
I went home and told my mom and she came back and had, I don’t know, words with the principal. But I became the rat and not my buddy, Dennis. He wasn’t a rat. I was the rat because I guess I was from the Reserve. I don’t know.
Q. Vous vous sentiez différent parce que vous étiez étudiant de jour?
A. I guess so. That was part of it. But out of all that —
That was kind of in the wintertime and somebody crapped in my brand new winter jacket pocket. Again my mom came and this time the bigger day school kids were the ones that made me fight again. And for my punishment I was hung in a well —
There used to be old horse and cow barns by the school. They hung me in the well there for —
But when we got there, first we had a fight, me and one of my cousins we had a fight. I won the fight and for winning I got hung in the well. I wasn’t scared of the well. I was more scared of what my Kokum and them had taught us about going in water where we weren’t permitted because where we lived there were sloughs out to the east side of us and the decree they used to use was that there were worms and big snakes in there that were going to get us. When I was hanging in that, that’s what I was scared of was that big —
In my mind I still have that picture of that big snake that goes in the water. It was going to get me. Otherwise the water stuff and being in the dark was actually nicer than being in school, but I was more afraid of Kokum is going to find out that I’m in water and this thing is going to come and take me from that. That was more my fear than actually anything else. Actually, it was dark and cold and quiet.
Q. Et ils viennent de vous y laisser?
A. Yeah. Um-hmm. They held me by my arms and left me there. I hung there I guess for the first period because I got to school for dinner. I didn’t tell nobody.
Q. Qui vous a trouvé?
A. They come back and let me go. The same guys that hung me there come back and lifted me up and it was a big joke. I laughed, too. Why I laughed I don’t know.
Q. Cela vous dérange-t-il aujourd'hui?
A. Sometimes, yeah. It makes me sad in my stomach. That old fear is still kind of there. I’m not scared of the dark and such, but there’s just kind of a fear there that kind of knots up my stomach. I don’t know why. It’s not being able to tell anybody I think was the biggest fear. If you tell your mom and then she comes and interferes, and yet it’s —
I know now as a parent it’s part of looking after your children.
And I was very conscious of that with my children. If they were in trouble in school or trying to be aware of what they were doing, my wife was so gung-ho to go and fix whatever is going on or bring it to the attention of somebody and it would create a problem between us. I’m saying, “Hey, maybe you should ask him first?” “What are going to be his consequences?” Maybe that’s what my fear is about, I’m not sure.
Mais tous mes enfants ont grandi maintenant.
Q. Et quand vous êtes allé à votre deuxième école?
A. That was a real Residential School. Again, that was totally different. I learned many years later that my parents didn’t want to let us go there. But remembering I guess when I was about nine of not wanting to go to that school but yet like —
Our house was maybe not even a hundred yards, maybe seventy-five yards from the back of the school and we had a little white picket fence, little movie star stuff type of house. It was a little white house and it had a little fence around it. The Nun and the Priest came and said that we had to go there. My dad was working at the barn so I went to get him and my mom said that we weren’t going there. And then we had to go there. After I got my dad he was more or less the —
He didn’t do nothing. So we went. They took all our clothes away on us and they gave us their clothes.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous de ce que vous portiez?
R. Nous portions un petit pantalon bleu et une chemise blanche. C'était ça. Et puis ils nous ont donné des petites combinaisons bleues. C'était notre uniforme, je suppose, la salopette bleue.
Q. Comment était-ce? Êtes-vous resté dans le dortoir avec le reste des garçons?
A. Ouais. On nous a donné un numéro et on nous a poudré avec des trucs. J'ai toujours eu les cheveux courts. Ils nous ont poudrés et nous ont fait prendre une douche.
Q. De quoi vous ont-ils poudré?
A. Some kind of white stuff. I don’t know.
Q. Était-ce un épouillage?
A. I guess so. I use some of that stuff on my cows now. And that was it. It’s hard to remember, it’s hard to remember really actually what happened. I try really hard to try to remember so that I can deal with some of the stuff that was there.
Then you try to find your friends. I had some people that were from Gordon’s that were there but they weren’t —
Again, they were from the south and I was considered a north guy now. I wasn’t really their friend but yet I was their friend because we had the Fishing Lake Boys, the Nut Lake Boys, the Gordon Boys and then we had the local Muscoweguan guys. They talk about gangs. We had them then among our groups of people. And then we had the workers, the children of the workers around the school. There were about four families of Indian people who worked there and we were considered —
Those guys were going to be treated as favourites. And with that came the —
Well, we’re going to get it when we get a chance type of thing. You become a little more —
Q. Vous avez été en quelque sorte harcelé?
A. Yeah. Well, you’re going to get favoured. You’re going to get the red apples or the green apples, that kind of stuff. We always used to make fun of that. And that was it. We were just one of the group.
Q. Vos professeurs étaient-ils gentils avec vous?
A. Just one that I remember. But that was when I was older. Like I said, I don’t remember the teachers. I remember there was a lady by the name of Sister Teresa. She was kind of nice. I think that was Grade 4. And then there’s kind of a blank spot until Grade 8. I don’t remember the teachers very much.
I remember a Christmas Concert. Me and one of my friends from Gordon’s we were part of a Play and it seemed like it was a good Play. I remember that. But to remember actual people —
I remember the outside people more than I remember the inside people, because the group we were in I think it was Intermediate Boys. Back at that time they had animals and we were the guys that brought the little wagon up that had the milk and the cream and that kind of stuff from the barn to the kitchen. We were that group. There were about eleven of us, that was our chore, to haul the cream cans and stuff up to the —
I remember those kinds of things. I remember the people that worked in the barn and the Brother that worked in the barn and the people that worked around the Shop areas. But the inside people, not really. The teachers; no. I remember one of the Priests. He was a missionary. He had a nice little Jeep we used to all figure was pretty cool. But for inside folks, no, I don’t really remember them.
Q. Et votre séjour à Lebret?
A. At Lebret I was a high school student. That was a different experience. Again, when I was in Grade 9 there were Grade 12 boys. The first year was again a matter of survival, kind of find your way in the pack. There were actually two of us that were from Muscoweguan and the other guy was really leaned on. But he was more of a fighter and the big boys —
Coming from the Grade 8 boys at The Mission we were kind of the top of the herd there but when we come to the high school we had the mentality that we were still top of the herd but it didn’t take you very long to realize, hey, you’re going to find your place and it’s usually near the bottom. We ran into a few lickings in the bathroom because we didn’t know our place. It was always by surprise. There was never a warning. My friend —
We were standing along the door and my friend came along and they kicked him right between the legs. So when I said, “Hey, let’s do what we do to see who is to fight”, all of a sudden there were about six of them and they took us in the bathroom and we had to fight, me and my friend. It was the same thing that happened at The Mission when we were little. If you got caught in the bathroom with the big guys, the Grade 7’s and Grade 8’s and if they felt like seeing a fight then the fight happened.
Quand je suis allé au lycée, c'était fondamentalement la même chose.
Q. Il y a eu beaucoup de combats à l'école, n'est-ce pas?
R. Parce que vous avez trouvé votre place dans ce troupeau.
Q. Avez-vous appris des universitaires?
A. Well, in my CEP stuff I found my report cards from high school and I was just in the 50%-55% student. I could get higher marks but my report card reported that from 80% to 51%. There was no failing but there was also no excelling. Besides, they didn’t accept that in my CEP stuff, too. It’s weird.
In terms of school stuff, again I remember just certain teachers. It seemed like you remember the rotten ones, the ones that didn’t treat you so well. There was an Indian Supervisor there, same as in Muscoweguan that was cruel. If in the first call in the morning you didn’t get up and he was coming down the alley way between the bunk beds he would just dump your bunk bed over. He was tough enough that three or four of us couldn’t give him a licking because we tried, but he showed us who the boss was! He just dumped your bed.
The guy in Muscoweguan was basically the same way. If you didn’t agree he would crack you over. The other guy was the same way. The little Brother that was there, he was a White guy. We also had a big French guy that was a supervisor. They were actually nicer than the Indian guys. They weren’t as cruel. They were strict but they didn’t use as much physical —
When an Indian guy was on in the mornings and you didn’t get up right away your bunk was tipped. If the big French guy was on and you didn’t get up right away he would ask, “Hey, what’s going on here? I called you.”
Q. Pourquoi pensez-vous que cet Indien était comme ça?
A. I don’t know. He was a student. When I was in Grade 9 he was a Grade 12 student. He was a very good athlete. I think he was treated the same way with the kind of cruel —
If he said “do this”, it had to be done right now.
I don’t know why he was like that.
We had a Militia Corps there, too. Being part of that he was really, what can I say, he was really —
You see the old War movies and when he talks to you he’s right in your face like this and if you make eye contact with him he asks you who you think you are. He’s always trying to build himself up. It seemed like that’s the way he liked it. He always had to be the aggressor and put you down. There was nothing ever good enough. We would do ten push-ups and if we do ten push-ups he would always ask for more and he would get down with you and yell at you while you were doing that, just for no reason.
Q. Tous ces combats et tous ces léchages dans les trois écoles, pensez-vous qu'ils ont eu un effet sur vous en tant qu'adulte?
A. Yeah. Um-hmm. I became that way. After I left —
I was some kind of a hockey player, too. Joining the non-Native hockey stuff and being called a chief, I had never been called a chief so I would tell them that I’m no chief, I’m a hockey player. I was always the “go fight ‘em Eddy”. I wasn’t a very good fighter but it wasn’t whether I wanted to fight or not. I don’t know, it was just —
Q. Vous venez de jouer la main qui vous a été distribuée?
A. Yeah. It was expected of me so if I won, good, and if I didn’t win that was fine.
Après mon mariage, c'était plus ou moins la même chose avec les Blancs. J'irais dans un bar et si un Blanc parlait aussi
smart —
Eh bien, il ne me parlait peut-être même pas, eh bien, le combat était en cours. S'il m'a donné une amende à lécher; sinon, alors très bien.
Guys around home were aware of that. Yet I was always away from the community. After leaving Lebret I moved to Regina. Then I moved to Estevan. Then I moved to Flin Flon. Then I went to Saskatoon. Then when I came home I lived in town and I played hockey with the town team rather than play hockey with the Reserve team. Yet I didn’t seem to care about those folks. I’m not sure really why it was that way. But there was lots of fighting.
Q. C'est devenu votre schtick!
R. Ça a dû l'être. Mais aussi comme je l'ai dit, le sport était important.
Q. I’m just going to get you to stop while we switch tapes. Have some water.
— End of Part 1
Q. Comment vous sentez-vous, Ed?
A. Good. I’m all right. I’ve taught myself well to drown stuff.
Q. Voulez-vous aller un peu plus loin?
A. Ouais. D'accord.
Q. Parlez-moi de certaines des choses qui vous dérangent vraiment?
A. Yesterday we talked about that student thing and that’s what really hurts me. In Muscoweguan I won’t say that I was sexually abused but I was assaulted by kids, or by older boys. The name I was given created a sense of I had to prove I wasn’t that so I think that’s where the fighting started. Like I said, I wasn’t a very tough guy. It closed off so much stuff.
I think, too, I had no —
I shouldn’t say “I had no” —
Not being able to go home, because I did run away from home (sic) and like I said, I just ran across the street. When I got home they just sent me back. Being afraid? No, I’m not afraid. I couldn’t tell anybody and it seemed like my mom and dad didn’t care. But I didn’t tell them. And when I got sent back it became lonely. I would sit in the bathroom and look at home and wonder why I couldn’t be with my mom and dad and wondering why I couldn’t be friends with these folks here. So I immersed myself in sports. It seemed that was the escape, was being the cross-country runner that would run until there was nothing left and being the hockey player who was going to stay out there until the snow was all cleared from the rink and that kind of stuff, the ball player that was left the longest at the backstop and cleaning up the stuff after and that kind of stuff.
Being scared of that and being scared to tell somebody —
Quand j'ai commencé à y penser, c'était vers 1992. J'avais arrêté de boire en 1975 et en 1992, j'ai commencé à penser à ce qui m'est arrivé.
Q. Quel a été votre tournant lorsque vous avez arrêté de boire?
A. My wife left. The weirdest part is that I went to a Priest to help me quit drinking, a drunk Priest, yet. She had been gone from about May to August and then in August I figured I can’t do this no more. I’ve got to try to stop drinking. So there was a Priest over in the next town and I went to the Rectory and he was sitting there with his friend having a drink and I told him, “Father Roy, I want to quit drinking and how do you quit drinking?” He said, “You’re in luck, Ed, it just so happens there’s an AA meeting here.” He took me there. I didn’t want to go but I kind of committed myself to quit drinking. So he took me across there and took me in the door and called one of the guys I knew, his name was Glen. He called “Glen, I’ve got a guy for you who wants to quit drinking”. So I went and listened to the AA meeting and then Glen bugged me after that. Every time there was a meeting he would come to my place and pick me up. So I resigned myself, well, I guess life is going to be different.
Then at Christmas time, about the 20th or 22nd, I got home from work and my wife was there. We just lived together until the spring time. I fixed up a room for her and she lived there and I lived on the other side. There was a whole lot of silence all winter. Then that next summer I went to take Anger Management. I didn’t do very good and yet I forced myself into that program —
Well, all the guys that were there were from the Provincial Correctional Centre. Well, first of all, they wouldn’t accept me because I wasn’t coming from a jail or I wasn’t charged with anything. I knew the lady that was there so I told her that I really need this because I don’t know how to talk to my wife. I don’t know how to talk to my kids. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings. She found a way to get me in there and I took all the sixteen sessions.
Then I got a job working as a counselor, a NADAB (ph.) counselor, so that wasn’t very healthy. We learned to talk a little better with my partner.
Q. Êtes-vous impliqué dans la cérémonie ou à vos manières?
A. No. I have never been. I have never been involved in any kind of traditional stuff in First Nations. I do lots of praying in my way. I watch the people who do the traditional stuff. I respect what they do in the traditional stuff. I do — maybe it’s not ceremonial — but I do the sweet grass stuff, I do the tobacco stuff in how I understand it. And I’m very conscious or respectful of what the people do that do that.
Q. Mais vous avez votre chemin?
R. Oui.
Q. Cela fonctionne pour vous?
A. Ouais.
Q. So what do you want people to know about you and your experience, and your growth as a man? What do you want people to know about you and your healing and your strength that you have gathered from those three schools. There’s a message that you might want people to know about you. What would you say?
A. What I would say is what those schools did defines a little bit who you are but you don’t have to be that. As an adult I have to be conscious of my choices that I make. I have to accept responsibility for those choices that I make. Sure, the school taught me not to feel, taught me that I was less than who I was, but you don’t have to stay there. You don’t have to be that scared little fellow who is afraid and just wants to strike out. All those feelings that you have are really you and it’s okay to feel those feelings.
One of the worst feelings I had dealing with was a jealousy feeling, fear of not being as good as, or am I what she wants, that kind of stuff. And it’s okay to have that. But you don’t have to carry the fear into all that other negative stuff. You don’t have to carry that fear into anger. And it’s okay to be angry. As I said, when I took Anger Management, the time-out thing was just a way to go and boil the negative feelings to a point of breaking out. It may not have been drinking but that ugliness was there. So you don’t have to be that way.
That’s why I say when I quit life can be different but we have to make that choice. The thing that’s —
The environment that’s around us we have no control over that. We only have control over this guy (indicating), and that’s okay. Like I said, so much of what is in the past we allow it to affect us, even though we don’t want it to. It’s every day. I as an adult have to make a conscious decision with a higher power, the Great Spirit, or the Ancestors that I will be responsible for today, that the choices I make today are my choices. They are influenced by what is around me but I make them. That’s what I would like people to know.
And also if there’s any way I can help you, I will do that and be really supportive of where you are. I can’t do it for you. However, I will walk with you in that sense. I think that old Priest did that for me. He walked with me from his drunken table to where people were trying to quit drinking. And then I left him.
That’s what I think now, too, in our journey in life if we call it healing or wellness or whatever, we can only go with people so far, and that’s good and that’s okay. Life moves on but again at the end of the day we’re responsible. I can’t blame my wife. I can’t blame my Chief and Council or my counselor or whoever. I walk with them and they help me in the best way they can, but I make that choice.
Q. Merci beaucoup.
Es-tu heureux avec cela?
A. Ouais.
— End of Interview