“Sister Ell laughs today to hear the story from our side, how we thought we were getting away with sneaking food from the kitchen on our nightly trek to the dormitories, when all along she put it out for us to enjoy and be happily full. She knew we thought we were being clever and she wanted to let us enjoy our imaginary success. She knew it restored a small sense of us having a little bit of control over our own lives.”


“The main school building that was home to so many was demolished in 1985 to make way for construction of the RCMP forensic laboratory. At that time, all of the old artifacts from the Assiniboia school were put into storage. Survivors were never contacted about this, and when the school was dismantled, we thought everything in storage would be preserved. Instead, almost everything was destroyed. Maybe the government’s intention was to leave no trace of the school and no trace of us.”

“We knew how to take care of ourselves and how to take care of our families. As a boy of four, five, six years of age, I helped make sure that the homes of my parents and my Kookum and Mishoom (grandmother and grandfather) were well-supplied with water from the river, firewood, and little animals for the cooking pot, caught with my slingshot and snares. At the age of fifteen, I had no qualms about going to the city.”

“In the mid-1970’s, as the school was being demolished, artifacts from the school were being hauled out to be taken to the garbage dump. A woman who worked in the counselling office was Muriel McLeod, and she saw what was being done to the historic evidence of the school. She managed to save the fine embroidery work of the young women from the first few years of the residential school.”


“The community of River Heights had been thrust in the forefront of the government’s strategy to ensure that Indian children would be kept from the influences of our families, although some residents didn’t want Indian kids in their community. We quietly climbed to the third-floor windows to see young white people going by on Academy Road doing their best to mimic Indian war whoops as mischaracterized on television. Each little group of five or six was letting us know what they thought about us being there.”

“Students from Assiniboia also face a barrage of racial epithets while competing in hockey, baseball, football, and track and field meets. In one sense, it prepared us for the barrage that continued into our adult years.”


“Most of my friends from Assiniboia are now gone. Of those who survived Indian residential schools, many died early in life, struggling to overcome abuses, sorrow, and losses, experiencing lifelong effects and impacts. Those who couldn’t survive were lost, with all they could have offered and accomplished, not only for their families and communities, but for Canada.”


“When it’s quiet, the spirits of our lost souls gather there, lingering with me, a little bit thankful and a little bit heartbroken. I smudge and pray for them. It is my privilege as a Survivor to give voice to these memories, to work to preserve this history and this space that is sacred to us. I pledge that these innocent children are not forgotten though their voices were silenced long ago.”

“Assiniboia was place of hope for us, coming from lives of deprivation and abuse at remote residential schools. But it was still a residential school for Indian children, far away from family and home. We ate, slept, and lived there, attended classes, and played outside within the confines of tall wire fences.”