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Western Oblate Studies 2

Residential schooling at fort chipewyan and fort resolution 1874-1974

Introduction

Residential schooling at fort chipewyan and fort resolution 1874-1974

Robert Carney, Professor
Faculty of Education
University of Alberta

Pas disponible in Francais.

REVIVING THE EQUATION

From the late 1960s onwards, the role of the Oblates and Grey Nuns In formal education in Fort Chipewyan and Fort Resolution was all but over. The missionaries must have derived some satisfaction, however, on learning in 1971 that the Dogribs of Rae-Edzo, many of whom were former pupils of St. Joseph's or residents of the Catholic hostels in Smith, had established one of the first Native-controlled school boards in Canada. The Rae-Edzo board required that the Dogrib language and culture, including land skills, be taught in school, and that instruction in the Catholic faith be a regular part of the curriculum.⁷¹ These instructional arrangements, it will be recalled, had been advocated by Bishop Breynat decades before. In time, the Dogrib model became the basis for a system of Native-controlled divisional boards in the Territories and for Northland School Division in Alberta.

However, for schools like the one established in Rae-Edzo to develop and sustain their cultural and land-based objectives, there needed t? .be changes in the government's integration policies, such as Its unfiled school programme, its pupil residence arrangements, and Its unbridled support for non-renewable resource development. The federal government s appointment of Thomas Berger in 1974 “to inquire into and report upon terms and conditions that should be imposed in respect of . . . the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline having regard to [its) ... social, environmental and economic impact" provided a unique opportunity for northerners to present their views.⁷² In particular, it gave Native people a chance to comment on the course that development had taken and to advance an alternative that had much in common with the Native-wilderness equation.

Representations before the Berger inquiry also revealed a Shift in the views of social scientists, who from the 1940s had helped instigate and who had largely supported the government's policy of integration, at least until the mid-1960s.⁷³ In commenting on a similar phenomenon in the United States, Donald Grinde points out that when "social-science priorities such as health, education and welfare ... replaced the religious and 'civilizing' emphasis [of the American Indian administration in the 1930s), the interests and autonomy of the American Indian peoples were no more advanced by the efforts of social scientists than they had been by the missionaries.”⁷⁴ Be that as it may, it is clear that by the 1970s most educators and social scientists had become ardent critics of the government's northern education policies. An example of how their views have changed can be found in Bernard Gillie's comments before the Berger inquiry in 1976. Gillie the senior education official in the Western Arctic during the 1960s, said 'the philosophy of his Department had been "sound only for [a] program having its base in a belief that gradually the Dene Will be absorbed into the dominant Canadian culture and their identity as a distinct fragment of the nation will disappear.”⁷⁵

Berger's report, released in 1977, revitalized the concept of the Native wilderness equation, or certainly a variant of that view which emphasized the economic and social worth of the hunting-trapping economy of Native people. According to Berger, there were no serious problems between Natives and whites during the fur and mission era in the north which he saw as lasting until the 1950s: "It was a time when life still had coherence and purpose consistent with Native values and life on the land.”⁷⁶ Michael Asch credits the findings of the Berger Inquiry, political changes and new research, including studies of the hunting-trapping economies in Fort Resolution and Fort Chipewyan, with providing a framework “within which the hunting-trapping sector is not seen as an evolutionary backwater to be steamrollered in favour of progress, but as an economic sector to be respected as an integral part of the twentieth century.”⁷⁷

Asch’s contention that doubts concerning the viability of hunting-trapping economies have all but disappeared from discourse in the Northwest Territories" may be so among politicians and social scientists.⁷⁸ A recent study on education and work in the Territories indicates, however, that a majority of Dene youth would prefer to work in town, big cities or in the south (53 per cent for males and 74 per cent for females) as opposed to those who would prefer to work half time in the bush and half time in town or mainly or always in the bush (47 per cent for males and 26 per cent for females).⁷⁹ These preferences may change with age or by facilitating work-rotation arrangements, or by introducing income-security programmes.

The testimony of adults who spend considerable time on the land suggests, on the other hand that Native spirituality or Christian belief or some combination of both is an essential element in living on and from the land. Some elders in places like Fort Chipewyan and Fort Resolution say that many young people do not hold such beliefs, living as they do in a world where neither God nor nature is given much thought, yet there are indications that linkages to the land are present among all age groups. What remains to be seen is whether or not advancements can be made, in educational and other programmes to continue the ties to the land which have characterized the lives of many in Fort Chipewyan and Fort Resolution.

That these ties were usually respected and encouraged throughout much of the existence of Holy Angels and St. Joseph’s is remembered by man former students. Few have said that their experiences in these institutions were without difficulty, and some have described harrowing incidents that remain unhealed; At the same time many have expressed positive comments about their time in school, while others have, deplored what they describe as the excessive attention given to negative incidents. A stay in Holy Angels or St. Joseph's, whether as pupil or mentor, evokes different memories and points of view. Interpreting what is said is another matter, and ultimately depends on how one understands and values the spiritual and other traditions that came together in these communities.

Sections

Ce projet a été appuyé en partie par l’entente Canada-Alberta sur les services en français; les idées qui y sont exprimées ne sont pas forcement celles du Gouvernement du Canada ou du Gouvernement de l’Alberta.

Droits d'auteur © 2009 Heritage Community Foundation
et Institut pour le Patrimoine, le Campus Saint-Jean, Université de l'Alberta
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