Sunday, February 27, 2011

Road Trip....


In the mid-1960s most of us kids from McLeod Lake never used to join the Band. We considered ourselves ‘renegades’, the last of the holdouts. All the other older boys in Intermediates and Seniors joined the Band, except us ‘renegades’. And when they were on the road, we had the whole school to ourselves. Both dorms, to just a few of us. I remember our dorms being somewhat deserted with the exception of maybe a dozen of us kids from McLeod Lake. Us Intermediate boys were even allowed to watch TV in the senior dorm with Mr Lundy.

At Lejac, there were two TVs, one in the Rec Room on the main floor and the other in the Senior Dorm. Intermediate boys were sometimes allowed into the Senior Dorm evenings to watch Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday or Ed Sullivan on Sundays. Or even Red Skeleton.

The following year, in 1967-68, Mr. Kenny talked to each of us separately. Mr. Kenny had just come in that year in the fall of 1967 as the new Intermediate dorm supervisor. He slept in a small room in the corner of the Intermediate dorm. He asked each of us (the renegades) to come to his room one night one by one and had a bit of a chat with us individually. It was a bit funny because I felt like I was going to the Principal’s Office to be given a lecture.

Us kids from McLeod Lake always did things differently than all the other boys at residential school. We liked to be different. And not joining the Band in the early and mid-60s for us was the coolest thing to do.

That all changed that year after Mr. Kenny spoke to us, we all joined the Band. They put me on fife and I still remember our first ‘road trip’. First of all we all had to learn a couple songs and in this case there was no marching. We were invited to a school Concert at Burns Lake 40 miles west of Lejac. And all we had to do was stand there in our uniforms, on stage, and play two songs. That was easy especially for us new kids who were never in the Band before. There was also a new change that year. Instead of the standard ‘red and whites’ we wore our Boy Scout uniforms. That was Mr. Kenny’s idea, to change the Band uniform to Boy Scout uniforms instead of the traditional red and white cadet uniform the Band was known for.

That following spring we went to Smithers and played at the arena in between periods at a hockey game there. We were all billeted out to families in Smithers. And we were outfitted with special rubber soles which fit over our black shoes so we didn’t slip and fall on the ice. We practiced on our own home ice before going to Smithers so we knew what it would be like marching on ice.

(There was a guy there who played for one of the teams at Smithers and was later drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL.)

Lejac School Band started in about 1960. It was in the beginning an all-boys band wearing their traditional red and white cadet uniforms and black shoes. The band typically had over 30 boys playing drums, fifes, cymbals and glockenspiel. Later, in about 1968 brass instruments were introduced to the ranks including trumpets, trombone, French horn, clarinet and saxophone.

Practice was after school beginning in January. The boys had to learn over 10 different songs to be performed while marching and doing formations. Everything was based on drill and precision. Once the snow went each year the boys spent hours outside practicing marching techniques and their formations. Then starting in the spring, the band would travel to northern towns and cities to perform, to such places like Smithers, Burns Lake, Fort St. James, Vanderhoof, Stony Creek and Prince George.

Then....in 1969....the BC government introduced the All-Native Tattoo, a province-wide annual event featuring marching bands from all the Indian residential schools in British Columbia. It was a chance for every residential school in the province to come together each June and show their stuff. First year was Kamloops....in ’69....then Chilliwack in 1970 and of course the famous 1971 province-wide tour of British Columbia celebrating BC’s 100th Birthday. With some 300 students from all the residential schools performing at all the major cities from Prince George to the Okanagan, Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.

The 1971 Tattoo featured bands from Kamloops, Nanaimo, Sechelt, Mission City, Williams Lake, Lejac, and dance troops from the Queen Charlottes and Terrace. Kuper Island were at Kamloops in 1969 but never showed in ’71.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

A Photo of our ADMINISTRATOR today....

We thought maybe it might be a good time to post a photo of our Administrator here at 'lejac.blogspot'. This photo was last March at McLeod Lake. Photo by Sharon Dugan.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Residential school...


Verne, a few little corrections on numbers quoted in the Blog. In 1922 Lejac got it's first students. The school was built to accommodate 60 girls and 60 boys but all through the Sixties we always had between 90 and 92 Boys and the same on the girls side, thus the bunk beds. The need was there and we did our best to accommodate. There were no schools on most of the isolated reserves at that time. Teachers of the day were not prepared to live in isolation and besides that the native people of the time were partially nomadic as they followed game, berries and fish as a means of a livelihood.

Re the changing of clothes. In the blog you stated that you got clean clothing every two weeks. In fact all the students got a complete change of clothing once a week not every second week. As you can see by the enclosed picture keeping everyone half decently clean was not an easy task. The picture was taken on laundry day. Roy French on the extreme left of the picture has just come outside, everyone else has been outside playing broom ball in the mud for about a half hour. By the smiles you can see they were enjoying their game despite the mud. The mud probably added to the joy of the game. Life at Lejac had lots of good times and most of them found in the simple things of life. Jim
photo courtesy of Jim Callanan.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

THE TERMITES....


















Verne,
I found your exchange with Taylor the student from Kelowna very interesting indeed.

One of the things that happened at Lejac that I thought was very significant for a lot of the boys and girls was our dance band "The Termites" not to be confused with the "Beatles" but darn near as good. I so much enjoyed the dances we had at the school just for the opportunity to sit and listen to the talent we had in our midst. The band was made up of about 8 boys who took turns on the different instruments, base guitar, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums and on occasions the accordion plus the vocals. The range of music the band played always astounded me and they could go on for a good four hours without repeating themselves. I remember one of the boys paying particular attention to a song that was playing on the radio in my room "Never on Sunday". Later that day I heard him playing the song on his fife while another boy was trying to pick up the tune on a guitar. Then about two weeks later at a dance I hear the dance band playing "Never on Sunday" and they had never heard the original.

Yes, there was natural talent as none of the students could read music, it was all by ear. The big amplifier the band used was one I built myself from a mail order kit. The drum set was a Christmas gift from my mom in Newfoundland. We always had to beg, borrow or steal to get the things we needed to entertain the boys and girls. Our government budget for entertainment was $10.00 per year per student and that does not cover very much, so we had to be resourceful. We used to take the dance band along on trips we would go on like Hockey trips to the Williams Lake school and on a few of the band tattoos we attended in the Okanagan where the boys would entertain the large gathering with their great music. I remember one weekend we played for a dance at the Fraser Lake Community Hall. Each of the band members got about $15.00 for their effort. The dance band was always a hit where ever they played. Great memories. Jim

Monday, February 7, 2011

Residential School...



















Thank you to Alfred Solonas of McLeod Lake for this photo of boys and girls after First Communion at Lejac Residential School. This photo from about 1962.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Cont'd....


Quoting Taylor
Hello,
First off I would like to say you have an excellent blog that does an excellent job in humanizing Lejac! I am a student at UBC Okanagan inKelowna and am preparing a short power point presentation on Lejac and I was hoping you might be able to help me out a bit? I'm interested in knowing what the living conditions were like at Lejac, and primarily if you believe whether or not Lejac became a more welcoming and enjoyable experience in contrast to the early days of the school in the 20's-40's. Any information that you can give me would be greatly appreciated! Once again great work on the site and thank you very much for any help, Taylor

TO OUR READERS....

I'm sorry about the BIG MESS. We generally keep a nice neat tidy blog but in this exchange I saved the original email exchange with Taylor into a Microsoft Word document, then from there onto our BLOG and we lose all our formatting when we do that. Cheers folks!

Cont'd....






-----Original Message-----
Date: Mon Jan 24 12:10:28 PST 2011
From: jackman2@telus.net
Subject: Re: Lejac Experiences
To: Taylor Jan 24, 2011

Hi Taylor:
Glad you were able to find the BLOG. I'm a former student of Lejac Indian Residential School having attended there for 8 years from 1963 to 1971. I always told people we had the best school in the whole wide world. But of course that is my own personal opinion. I know things went on at Lejac, some of which we never talked about. I had some of my own experiences but the reason for the BLOG is to tell the 'good' side of things. I spoke to Jim, a former Brother and supervisor at Lejac, and we both agreed much later in life that life was sometimes hard at Indian residential school but sometimes it's better to reach out and make something good out of it. I only tell the good or funny things! That's how I was all my life. Try and focus on the good stuff. That is what keeps us going. As for living conditions, the nuns, priests, and Brothers assigned to watch us in many cases had no formal training and so imagine entering a situation as a young adult and expecting to have to watch 35 young Native boys in a dorm. Or a young Nun straight out of some city somewhere else. I suppose that is what we boys were up against. In many cases, as with Mr. Lundy who came to Lejac as a young man (maybe 24 years old) he turned out to be one of the best supervisors including teachers like Mr. Hensel, Mr. Vurhulse and Miss Bowen.
I also had two horrible teachers.
We were fed good and the school was kept very spic and span. We boys were assigned chores sometimes in the morning before our first classes duringthe week, and of course every Saturday morning first thing after breakfast. The purpose of chores was to keep our school clean. Then we took the rest of Saturdays off and often went on hikes, or skating, swimming, doing sport activities. One thing about Brother James and Mr. Lundy, it wasn't just a job. They tried to make it fun (Jim is actually Brother James). And I always got the impression that Mr. Lundy had a bit of fun while at Lejac. He definitely made it fun!
They also started changing the way we did things from the early 1960s to the late 1960s. Things were very strict when I first got there in 1963 when we prayed alot. We even went to church twice on Sundays, mass in the morning and then Benediction in the evening. By 1971, we were told after Xmas that church on Sundays would from now on be optional!! Holy Smokers anyway!!! None of us could believe it! That of course was dream heaven! We all slept in that first Sunday when we were told we didn't have to go! Some of them still went but many of us stayed in dorm.
Food was good. We had very good coffee! We changed all our clothes every two weeks when they brought us clean clothes. And we dressed pretty warm for the winters. I would say, compared to Williams Lake residential school we really had it made! They had shitty coffee!!

I would like to help you. My phone number is (deleted) and my email addresses are (jackman2@telus.net) and (deleted). Cheers. Verne, McLeod Lake, BC

Cont'd....


Hi Verne,
Thanks a lot for the quick and extremely helpful response Verne, it's good to see that you had mostly positive experiences at Lejac and continue to have a positive life philosophy. Do you mind if I read some aspects of the below email in my presentation? Particularly about the lack of formal training given to those put in change of looking after you? I believe Lejac was in Dakelh/Carrier land, are you Carrier or did you come from one of the neighbouring tribes or communities? Also, what were some of the things you did in your free time after and between classes? I see hockey was common, but what about during the fall and spring? I hope this question is not too personal, and if it is please don’t feel any need to answer it, but did you feel that by the end of your years at Lejac that there had been a genuine effort to assimilate or otherwise remove aboriginal traditions or cultural aspects from yourself and your classmates? Thank you very much Verne, your help has been immensely helpful! Take care,
Taylor

Cont'd......



-----Original Message-----

Date: Tue Jan 25 14:41:02 PST 2011

From: jackman2@telus.net

Subject: Re: Lejac Experiences

Taylor

Hi Taylor:

First of all I wanted to thank you for your comments in your first email about the BLOG. I'm always surprised when I find out that someone actually reads my stuff! There was a fella from Prince Rupert who sent me an email few months back and said his Mom was in one of the photos we posted. That is why we created the BLOG, partly for self-therapy I suppose, but also for people to stimulate memories from their childhood. Hope it's all good.

Feel free to use any of my ideas or photos from the BLOG for your presentation. Whatever helps and brings some understanding of what went on there. Yes, the Nuns and Brothers had no formal training for the most part and then come to Lejac and have to look after a dorm full of kids (about 30 to 35 to a dorm) and they never got any time off. Every day it was the same day in, day out. Can you imagine for a moment working every day 365 days a year! I'd go bananas. Some of them figured it out but I know some must've had problems adjusting.

I should qualify that. I remember being watched one Christmas by some ofthe former Lejac students who left and were brought in from the Prince George College and were paid to supervise kids over the holidays. These were thechildren who couldn't make it home for Christmas or Easter. So they must've at least had the holidays to themselves (the Nuns, Brothers and Priests). I just remember the school being rather deserted over the holidays.

One of my supervisors had a frank discussion with us on one occasion. Mr Kenny. He complained about how little he was making, and that he had to sleep in a small bedroom in the corner of Intermediate dorm. Bill Robertson, our senior dorm supervisor explained to us once we got older, in about 1970, that it was the Church who watched all us kids but the government who paid for it all.

As for assimilation, I know Mr. Kenny for all the problems he had, had us learn as much of our own Indian language as part of Boy Scouts. In Boy Scouts, we earned badges for learning how to sew, make a fire, water survival, and even things like knowing how to speak a second language. He encouraged the older boys who knew their own language to teach us younger ones at least phrases in a second language so we could earn those badges. And many of us passed. My mother was Carrier from Fort St. James (today they are known as Nak'azdli) so I learned phrases in Carrier. Lejac was in Nadleh Whut'en territory. We used to call it Nautley which is how English-speaking people refer to it and for the longest time, Nadleh was known as Nautley. Today all the signs on the highway say 'Nadleh'.

My father was Sekani and there were a few of us Sekani kids at Lejac but it was mostly Carrier. All students at Lejac were either Carrier or Sekani. One year, in about 1969, they sent us a young boy (a teenager) from the Yukon. They said he ran away from every residential school he got sent to. And so as a last resort, they were sending him to Lejac to see if he could adjust. We were asked by our supervisor, Mr. Kenny, to make sure we talk to him and be nice to him. First day he showed up some of the older boys sat with him to find out where he was from and just to try make him feel at home. He didn't last very long before he ran away again. He was the only non-Carrier or Sekani I know of who went to Lejac.

And actually, after I sent this response to this reader, I remember there were two girls from one of the Bands around Fort St. John at Lejac in the mid to late 1960s. I think their last name was 'Chipesia' and would be either from Doig or Blueberry.

We were not allowed to speak our own language in the 1940s and 50s but they did not discourage it by the late 1960s. It was all partly due to the fact that the whole residential school system was undoing great change during the mid to late 1960s. They started bringing in Lay Apostles (normal people like you and I) who were neither Nuns, Brothers or Priests, to be supervisors and part of the Staff. Before bringing in the Lay Apostles to watch the students, it was only the Nuns, Brothers and Priests who watched the dorms.

The funniest thing ever is I got my fist taste of Indian rights from residential school, and why Indians were fighting to get recognition.We were warned by our supervisors in 1970 to be careful and keep an eye out for any strangers who might come to our school. We asked them why. And they said that there was a movement out of the States called AIM (American Indian Movement) and they might come to our school and try to talk to us about the movement and that some of the stuff they practice is based on violence (true). Nobody ever came but it sure scared a lot of us!

We had a lot of sports for fall, winter, spring and summer. Fall time we went hiking a lot. Boy Scouts was introduced in 1967 so that took up a lot of our time all year long. We also had band. Where we each learned to play instruments and prepare for road trips and parades. Band was so much fun. Everyone looked forward to it because not only did you have road trips in the spring and summer but you also got out of 'chores' after school and sometimes in the evenings. Even girls started joining the Band by 1969-70. They went on parade with us at Prince George in the spring of 1970.

A typical day starts at 7:00 am when all students arose. Everyone got dressedand you had to literally race for the washroom because there were only limited sinks to wash in or you ended up standing in line. Everyone then made their way downstairs to Rec Room where we kicked around in the mornings until breakfast. After breakfast, some of the boys had to stay and sweep and mop the dining room. Also, pick up all the dirty dishes and place them in carts and bring it down to the dishwash room. Then race back upstairs and get ready for first morning class which started about 8:30 am. We had school all day long until 3:30 pm with a recess in mid-morning, another one in mid-afternoon, and lunch off. We studied science, social studies, math, art and catechism. During lunch hour most kids went outside and the younger ones headed for the play ground where we had swings, slide and sandbox. The older ones sometimes headed out to the fields and kicked around until classes started again.

After school everyone headed outside once again or up to dorm until supper which was at 6 pm. All the meals were announced by a bell outside the kitchen which you could hear all over the school. There were two TVs on the boys side, one in Rec room and one upstairs in senior dorm. We spent part of our free time watching TV. Spring time everyone was outside most days and evenings. The different sports we had were hockey, broomball, soccer, softball, hurling, curling, lacrosse and we even had a sports day every early June where everyone in the whole school competed. We had dances, and every Friday night they showed a movie down at the showhall and everybody in the whole school went! Friday night was a big event every week! Some kids bought pop and junk food for the movies from the concession we had in Rec Room. We had a lot of stuff happening all the time and sometimes I think it was because the supervisors needed to find stuff to do themselves.

Lights out in dorm was at 9 pm every night except Friday and Saturday nights (in seniors) when the TV often stayed on until 2 am, or whenever everybody fell asleep.

To get back to assimilation, I don't think the teachers and Staff set out to assimilate us, that is just what happened because they were teaching us only the things they knew. Assimilation was incidental. The goal of the church may have been based on assimilation to teach the Natives non-Native ways and values but by the late 1960s we were told that it's okay if you spoke your own language, they even promoted it in Boys Scouts. But when it came to things like AIM the message there was be careful what you learn.

I got the sense by the time I left in 1971 was these guys (Bill Robertson, Jim Lundy, Brother James) were really just trying to protect us! And they really never ever had any training, all the training was on the job! And they did the best they could with what they had. Of course, as we found out later, some people took advantage of the situation. I'm referring to a fella by the name of (name deleted) who was the Junior dorm supervisor and was accused of molesting some of those boys.

I hope that all this helps. I don't mind talking about any of this stuff if you still need more information. Cheers.

Verne

On residential school...







Hi Verne,
Just thought I would let you know that I did my first presentation on Lejac and there was a lot of interest in what you had to say. We've been hearing a lot about the negative things that have happened at Residential Schools in Western Canada lately and I think it was refreshing for everyone, myself included, to hear that there were a lot of positives to come out of this, and that many of those put in charge of you boys were genuinely concerned with your wellbeing. It was also cool to hear about what your day to day and weekly schedules looked like.Thank you very much Verne, I may continue to do a little research on Lejac in a month or two, and I hope that you don't mind if I contact you at a later date if I have any more questions. Take care.
Taylor

Friday, February 4, 2011

FRENCH....

Father Lasalle came to Lejac maybe in 1968. He was French and like many of us liked hockey. We used to scrimmage on the ice, all us boys and supervisors and I remember he was a bit of a rough player. But that’s hockey. That was at the rink. At school he also taught us French one year starting in Grade 7 in 1969. They introduced French as a subject because some of students were going to be graduating soon, and you need French once you enter public school. French was such a new thing for all us native kids at residential school.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

OUR NEWEST FOLLOWER....





lejac.blogspot.com welcomes our newest Follower 'KT' to our BLOG.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The darnest craziest things we did...

We were totally crazy!! One of the things we did was hop into the back of the work truck when they dropped the garbage off at the dump. We were still in Juniors and the boys used to brag about hanging off the top of the truck when the driver pressed the lever at the garbage dump.

There was a hill at the dump across the highway from our school. And whoever drove the truck would back the truck up to the edge of the hill, then press the lever lifting up the box in the back spilling all the garbage out of the box and down the hill.

We did that one day, bunch of us Junior boys. The supervisor backed up the truck....to the edge of the hill. All the boys....I never did that before....but I heard of it....and they all started shouting and laughing. We were standing on top of all the garbage maybe a half dozen of us boys. And they told me as we got closer to the hill to make sure I grab onto the front of the box. And hang on!

So I did. All of a sudden the box began to lift....and they were all laughing in sheer excitement. I got scared but all I could do was hang on for dear life as the front of the box lifted high....higher....and still higher as all the garbage began to move under our feet. The box jilted and still we went higher. I looked down as all the bags of garbage dropped from under our feet....and I could see the bottom of the hill way way down. Our feet dangled straight downwards as we hung some thirty feet in the air from the bottom!

I hung on for dear life as the truck suddenly jumped forward with all of us hanging off the back of the truck!! Finally....finally the box came back down, and I was so glad when my feet landed on solid wood once again. I never ever did that again! That was way too crazy for me!!