'My Creator is my church'

Page 13

Peerless Lake resident David Starr has no fond memories of residential schools after living in one at Wabasca some 55 years ago.

In fact his memories of the residential schools to this day are painful and filled with bitterness towards a "white man's system" that he says "failed Indian people of that era miserably."

David was born at long Lake about five km north of Peerless Lake in 1930.

Located in northern Alberta, 250 km north of Slave Lake, the tiny community of 430 people once had no contact with the outside world.

"In those days the people were scattered all over the district. There was an old Hudson Bay post at Long Lake and because it was a source of food, people would generally meet there.

"They would stock up for the winter and that was the last we would see of each other until the following spring," David remembers.

It was during this time David's parents decided to separate, and so, along with two sisters, he was sent to the St. John's Anglican church residential school at Wabasca.

His two sisters never survived the school.

"They both died before their 16th birthdays. They died because of a lack of medical attention. It left me alone at the school," David recalled.

There's one night at the residential school when he was seven years old, he will nerve forget.

"We had to get up late at night and line up to go to the bathroom. They didn't want us to wet our beds, so they would wake us up at certain times during the night.

"This one time I beat them to the draw. I had already wet my bed.

"It was a log house with an open stairway leading down to the main floor. They marched us to the stairs and one instructor kicked me down the flight of stairs. I don't know, maybe he was mad he had to get up to take us to the pot or maybe he was mad because I wet the bed," David said.

Soon after, David developed tuberculosis of the spine and to this day he blames it on the physical abuse he received at the residential school.

"They talk about child abuse today. I guess they never heard about residential schools when I was small. That time child abuse was common," he says.

David was taken to Aberhart Hospital in Edmonton and for the next seven years his home was a hospital bed.

They saved David's life at the hospital but his spine had been deformed by the tuberculosis. "Shouldn't I be bitter?" he asks. Then he shrugs his shoulders and in a quiet voice says, "Aw, it's just one of those things that happen."

At about 15 years of age David was released from Aberhart Hospital and sent back to Wabasca residential school. He remained there for one more year and says the only thing he got out of the school was learning how to speak English.

After residential school, David roamed from place to place, taking on odd jobs, mostly for farmers.

Two years later, tired of roaming around the country, he returned to his home at Long Lake.

By this time the old Hudson Bay post had closed its doors and a private trader had built a log store where Peerless Lake is located today.

"There were no people at Peerless Lake when the trader built his store there. Then he asked me to run the store. I looked after his store for seven years," David smiled.

David remembers there were no roads, only walking trails that people used. "There was only one permanent family living at Peerless Lake.

"When I ran the store there was no money used for buying things. People were carried over during the summer months on credit. Then they would come back with furs in the winter months to pay their bills."

When the old Hudson Bay store closed at Long Lake, the b business was moved to Trout Lake where it operated for a few years.

Then in the mid-50s, after it closed again, the building was taken over by the Roman Catholic church.

"They built a church at Trout Lake and that's when the law of the country affected us people in the Peerless Lake area," David said.

"The word was spread throughout the district by a forest ranger, who was telling everyonethat our children must attend school."

"Children had to come out of the bush. Some were sent to Wabasca and others came with their families to Trout Lake."

However, many people scattered throughout the Peerless Lake area did not listen to the warning and soon the RCMP arrived to enforce the regulation.

"They told parents if they did not take their children to school at Trout Lake, they would lose them to the residential school at Wabasca.

"This forced parents to move to Trout Lake, so they would not lose their children. That was how Trout Lake was settled," explained David.

David smiles when he explains that soon after the Catholic priests' arrival another missionary showed up, this Tim from the Anglican church.

"They built a house and a small little school at Peerless Lake. That brought more people to Peerless Lake and that is pretty well how it was settled," David said.

At 25 years of age, David quit working for the trader and with his family of three small children, he moved to Wabasca.

It was at Wabasca where he got his baptism into local politics.

In 1960 after spending three years in Wabasca, David moved back to Peerless Lake and with the knowledge he gained in local politics at Wabasca, he soon set about helping to organize people in his district.

"We formed the Kewetinaw Association meaning "northern," David explains.

"What I had learned at Wabasca is people can do much more for their community working as a group," David noted.

In the late 60s when the Indian Association of Alberta (IAA) was newly formed, David began working with them by keeping the association informed of his community's needs.

But to get to a meeting, then held in Slave Lake, he says it took him a full week, if the weather was good.

"Many people were starting to speak out -- trappers, fishermen from Faust, Slave Lake and other towns.

"I cared about these meeting so I would journey be horseback, crossing three rivers by raft while my horse swam across, to reach Wabasca. It tok me three days.

"At Wabasca I would leave my horse and catch the regular mail service express. It was a four-day trip by horse and wagon to Slave Lake from Wabasca," he said with a laugh.

Today David still dabbles in local politics and many things have been accomplished because of his work at Peerless Lake.

Presently he sits on the Northlands School Board and holds a position with the Community Vocation Center at Peerless Lake.

He is a spiritual leader and believes in the Indian way.

"What you see here at my home, around my home, is my church. My Creator is my church.

"I have had it with European churches. It was forced upon me when I was too young to make up my own mind. Look at me and you see what I hot out of it, physical abuse.

"Mother Earth is where my spiritual life is," David concluded.