781: A Story of Sports and Survival in Canadian Residential School

In yesterday’s Part Three of this five-part series, residential school survivor Eugene Arcand shared his stories of his hockey heroes. Today, in part four, Eugene gets into the hard realities of Truth, Reconciliation and Calls to Action and trying to combat the hereditary dysfunction passed down from generation to generation among Indigenous people.

Eugene’s story comes with this advisory: It could be triggering and traumatic for residential school survivors and/or their families. The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of his or her residential school experience. Call 1-800-721-0066 and/or visit the First Nations Health Authority website, fnha.ca.

By Eugene Arcand

One day — it was a long time ago; more than 30 years — I was in a bar with my friend, Ted Quewezance, a chief here in Saskatchewan, and he said to me: “Bird, they [the government] are going to deal with the residential school stuff.”

I said to him: “Buddy, dream on. It’s not going to happen in our lifetime.” And it wasn’t quickly but over time, it did start to happen. And Ted was part of making it happen.

Now, if you look at the history of residential schools in Canada, I had good reason to be skeptical.

Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, authorized residential schools in 1883. When he was beginning his vision for Canada, they went down to the United States, to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, and brought back the residential school template from there, including laws that were made to take us away from our families and homes. That led to 139 federally recognized residential schools in Canada; there were more than 500 in the U.S.

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