Creating Space

Verna J. Kirkness

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780887557439
• eBook ISBN: 9780887554452
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: History of Education
• Index: Social Sciences

Verna J. Kirkness grew up on the Fisher River Indian reserve in Manitoba. Her childhood dream to be a teacher set her on a lifelong journey in education as a teacher, counsellor, consultant, and professor. Her simple quest to teach "in a Native way" revolutionized Canadian education policy and practice.

Kirkness broke new ground at every turn. As the first cross-cultural consultant for the Manitoba Department of Education Curriculum Branch she made Cree and Ojibway the languages of instruction in several Manitoba schools. In the early 1970s she became the first Education Director for the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs) and then Education Director for the National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations). She played a pivotal role in developing the education sections of Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, which transformed Manitoba education, and the landmark 1972 national policy of Indian Control of Indian Education. These two major works have shaped First Nations education in Canada for more than 40 years.

In the 1980s she became an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia where she was appointed Director of the Native Teacher Education Program, founded the Ts''Kel Graduate Program, and was a driving force behind the creation of the First Nations House of Learning. Honoured by community and country, Kirkness is a visionary who has inspired, and been inspired by, generations of students.

Like a long conversation between friends, Creating Space reveals the challenges and misgivings, the burning questions, the successes and failures that have shaped the life of this extraordinary woman and the history of Aboriginal education in Canada.

CHAPTER ONE

My Family

MY ONLY REAL ASPIRATION WAS to become a teacher, particularly a teacher among my own people. I was born with a love for school. I can trace my fascination with school back to some of my earliest memories. Before I was even old enough to start school, I would often sneak away from our house, which was right next to the school, and knock on the school door. The teacher would tell me I was too young to go to school and I must go back home. I could see the kids playing at recess time and I dearly wanted to join them.

When I finally started school, and learned nursery rhymes, I would translate them into Cree and recite them to my mother when I got home. One was “Three little kittens who lost their mittens” (nisto possessuk-ke wanihawuk-otustisuk). My mother got a real kick out of this, and whenever we had visitors she would have me repeat these nursery rhymes in Cree to them and they would have a good laugh. When I think about this now, I wonder if I may have been compensating for the lack of any relevance in what I was learning.

I hated to miss school. It was typical for children to be kept home on laundry days to help with the laundry since it entailed hauling water or snow, heating it in a big boiler, using a washboard, and finally hanging the clothes out on a clothesline to dry. My mother tried the same with me but I fussed so much that she’d say, “Oh, go to school then!”

When I started school in 1941, we had only two classrooms. The junior room had forty children or so in grades one and two and the senior room had about thirty in grades three to eight. The reason that there were so many children in the first two grades is that many entered school at that time only knowing the Cree language. To accommodate these children there was a strange system of being placed as a Beginner upon entry, then on to Class A, Class B, and Class C, and on to grade one junior and grade one senior. You progressed according to how proficient you became in speaking English. There was no such program as “English as a Second Language” and teachers had no idea what to do except to expect the children to pick up English somehow. Some children actually spent a whole year as Beginners and spent another year or more getting to grade one. Those of us who could speak English could progress more quickly.

I have no idea if our curriculum or textbooks were up to date, but I suspect they were not. The schools were not bound to follow the provincial curriculum in those days because they were federal schools run by the Department of Indian Affairs. Nor do I remember ever learning about the history of Indian people, hearing any stories of famous Indians, or seeing Indian children in any books. Our primary reader was Highroads to Reading with “Jerry and Jane,” which featured a white, urban, nuclear family whose father went to work in an office and whose mother stayed home with the children. Jerry and Jane were always spotless. We had a few books on a bookshelf in the back of the classroom. I’m sure these were donated by some church. I remember that one of our teachers would read a chapter from a book right after lunch each day. I loved the stories and would rush back from lunch not to be late because the story began right at one o’clock. Black Beauty and Heidi were two of my favourites. I read them over and over again after the teacher finished the story. The library books and textbooks were often covered with brown paper, I assume to keep them from getting soiled.

School was my passion. It did not matter, really, if the teacher was strict or lenient, though the former was more often the case, as that is what was expected of them. We did not know what their qualifications were. I suspect that many were permit teachers, since reserve schools were in rural and remote areas and would be considered schools of last resort. All the teachers were Caucasian and, as I learned later, from rural areas of Manitoba, usually farming communities. I was told that one of the teachers in the early years was Indian, but she anglicized her name and did not identify with us. That was sad, since she would have been an invaluable role model. I believe that on the whole we had caring teachers. When I talk to people my age, they say some of the teachers were mean. I don’t remember that, and my love for school was not deterred by any of them.

I have no idea who my biological father was; I mention this because it did have an effect on my life. In all my years, it never caused me any self-doubts or anxiety. I am sure the reason for this is that at four years of age I was blessed with a father who loved and cared for me as his own. One might say that he chose me as his daughter. Fred Kirkness married my mother in November 1939. I don’t recall the actual wedding but I do remember that during their courtship he was very nice to me and I really liked him. He may have been the first male love of my life, though I did adore my Uncle Jim, who was my mother’s brother. I have no idea if I was privy to hearing the proposal or heard my mother tell my grandmother about it, but I have been told that I said to my mother, “If you don’t marry him, I will.” Fred Kirkness, who became my father, truly remained a person for whom I held a great deal of love and respect. If the saying is true that girls marry men that are like their fathers, then I have never found such a man that could measure up to him. Not only was he a big man, six feet tall and over two hundred pounds, but he was also gentle, kind, patient, and fun.

I think it strange that now at my advanced age I am somewhat curious to know who my biological father was. It is not because of a need to know my identity, as I am very aware and proud of being a Cree woman, but it is rather a curiosity to understand myself and to understand what part his genes may have played in the kind of person I turned out to be. Why did my mother never tell me who he was? Why did I not confront her to find out? My mother was twenty-four years old when I was born. It is not as if she was a teenager or a drunk and did not know who my father was. My mother was never a drinker. I know that even one bottle of beer would make her sick. Anyway, for some reason, she chose to let it remain a secret and I let her do it.

When I was born on November 20, 1935, my mother, Gladys Grace Williams, was living with her bother Jim at his home in Fisher River, Manitoba. She had been in Kenora, Ontario, helping her sister, my Aunt Harriet, take care of her young children. My mother returned to Fisher River to have me. A Cree midwife helped bring me into the world. This led me to believe that I was conceived in Kenora. I was ten years old when my mother returned to Kenora for the first time since she left there when she was expecting me. She took my sister, Mary Ann, and me with her to visit my Aunt Harriet and her family. My aunt and her Hungarian-born husband had six children by that time. I remember going with my Aunt Harriet and my mom to a restaurant where a man joined us for lunch. He seemed very attentive toward me and asked me questions about where I lived and what I like to do. He was Chinese. While we never saw him again, I wondered if he was my father and, perhaps, his circumstances did not allow for further contact. I am so often mistaken for being Asian by Asian people and others that the possibility of having Chinese heritage remains with me. As an adult, in my travels through Kenora, I wonder if I might have siblings living there. I will probably never know the origin of my birth, as those who could have told me have now passed on.

Upon my birth, I had a mother, a maternal grandmother, several uncles, and aunts. I always had a special relationship with my Uncle Jim, with whom we lived. The four of us were my nuclear family until the age of four when my mother married Fred Kirkness. My mother was a Williams and I was registered as Verna Jane Williams. My grannie, my mother’s mother, was Mary Ann McKay, because she married for a second time. I have wonderful memories of time spent with my grandmother. Though she was bedridden, she could keep me amused with her legends and stories. I am not sure what she was suffering from but I now believe it may have been a kind of cancer. Since I spent a great deal of time with her those first four years of my life, I learned a lot from her as we communicated in Cree. She gave me the invaluable gift of learning my mother tongue that has sustained me all of my life as a Cree woman. She was my constant companion and my mother was her caregiver. My Uncle Jim was the provider for our family. Grannie died shortly after my mother married Fred Kirkness.

The marriage brought with it others who would become my family. Fred (strangely enough, that is what I always called him, never Dad) was a widower with four children from his previous marriage. Upon his wife Olive’s death, the youngest child, Ida, went to live with her paternal grandparents and Margaret went with the maternal grandparents. Maria Jane, the oldest, and Clarence were in boarding school in Brandon. Since they did not live with us, I did not regard them as siblings. Ida, who was five years older than me, was a bit jealous of me because her dad now lived with us. Later, we would become very close and treated one another as real sisters, though by blood we were not related at all. Ida gave me my first wristwatch when I was around thirteen and helped me through summer school at United College. She married Bill Cooksley, a high-school teacher, and they moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We continued to remain very close, and they were the family members who came to be with me when I received an honorary doctorate from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax in 1990. We were good friends and I was very sad when she succumbed in 1991 to the cancer she had been fighting for years.

My mother and dad (I always referred to him as my dad when speaking of him) went on to have several children. The first to be born was Rosalyn. She was four years younger than me. She suffered from epilepsy and was mostly in poor health. I helped to take care of her, as my mother was often alone because Dad had to be away during the fishing season. Maria Jane returned to the reserve, as she was in the late stages of tuberculosis. She was in her early twenties and had been working in Winnipeg. She died shortly after she returned home. A wake was held at the home of her paternal grandparents. Rosalyn was four years old, and we were sleeping upstairs while the wake was going on. Suddenly, I was aware that Rosalyn was not feeling well and that she had a nosebleed. I went downstairs to where the wake was to get my mother. The nosebleed got worse and others were trying to attend to her while Dad walked to the United Church, about two kilometres away, to get the minister to take Rosalyn to the hospital, fifteen kilometers away. The minister was the only one with a car on the reserve and he also dispensed medicine to the people. When he got there, the minister did not feel it was necessary to take her to the hospital just for a nosebleed. He instructed my dad on how to take care of her to stop the bleeding. During the night, Rosalyn passed away. It was a terrible time! Here they would be burying Maria Jane and now her half-sister had also died. My mother and dad were totally broken up by the deaths. My mother was unable to go to the funeral that day. Dad and the rest of the family attended. When the minister saw my Dad, he asked, “And how is the little girl, Mr. Kirkness?” Dad responded, “She died last night.” The minister was taken aback. I was eight years old at the time and I felt the loss of Rosalyn deeply. I remember dreaming of her many times after she died.

At some point Clarence came to live with us for a while after he left boarding school, but he soon went away to work. Margaret settled in the Kenora area with her partner and children. Many years later, she returned to Fisher River to live in the personal care home, as she was no longer able to take care of herself due to an acute case of arthritis. She died after a short stay at the home. I remember that my mother was always good to Dad’s first family. They visited us, and we all had pleasant times together.

Mary Ann was the next to be born and was just two years old when Rosalyn died. After her, Gladys Mae was born and lived only for a month. Darlene was born in 1947. Reggie was the last to be born in 1950. After Reggie, Mom had a miscarriage. If all the children had lived, I would have had six siblings in my family. Today, the only one alive is Mary Ann, who is six years younger than me. While I do not give it a lot of thought, I do realize that I have no full-blood siblings; in fact, I have no full-blood relatives.

I will always be grateful that I also inherited wonderful grandparents on the Kirkness side. They were very kind to me and treated me the same as their other grandchildren. Grannie Maria passed away in 1957 while I was teaching in Fisher River. Mooshoom (Jim) Kirkness lived to be 104 years old. He passed away in 1974. He was a great inspiration to me, as he took an interest in what I was doing. Referring to the fact that I was a teacher, he said to me one day, “You are still not as smart as your grandfather.” He then pulled out a newsletter written in English and Cree syllabics and proceeded to read in both languages. He was certainly right, as I still have not mastered the Cree syllabics. He challenged me in a fun way.

Mooshoom had a very interesting life story and I decided that recording it would be my centennial project in 1967. I always loved visiting with him, as he had many interesting stories to tell me. Our conversations were always in Cree. I was working in Winnipeg as a guidance counsellor at the time and my good intentions did not materialize except for about three hours of tape. I have regretted since that I did not record his story.

In short, when my grandfather was only four years old, the family started out on a journey from York Factory to Norway House that would take three years because they could only travel in winter. The summer was for making pemmican and moccasins and other preparations for the winter journey by dog sled. They were going to Norway House for the signing of Treaty 5. When I recount this story, I usually say, “Needless to say, the treaty party had gone by the time they arrived.” This meant that they would be regarded as non-treaty Indians and would not have the privileges of the Status Indians recognized by the federal government. Eventually they relocated from Norway House to Fisher Bay, a non-treaty settlement about six miles from Fisher River. Not until 1908, when the Norway House, Cross Lake, and Fisher River adhesion to Treaty 5 was signed, did the family (several children were born by then) become Status Indians. My grandfather was a signatory to the adhesion. When I first saw a copy of this document, I asked why he put an “X” instead of writing his name, as he was literate. He said, “They told me to.” I learned much from my grandfather and had visited him just the day before his death, as it was during the Christmas break. At 104, his mind was clear to the end.

Besides these wonderful grandparents, I inherited many aunts, uncles, and cousins, as my dad had five brothers. To this day, I remain close to my cousins. On February 29, 2012, the last of my parents’ generation, my Aunt Annie Kirkness, passed away at the age of 99. She had been the oldest resident at Fisher River.

My mother had two brothers and three sisters, all of whom are deceased. I remain close to several of these cousins, particularly my Aunt Harriet’s family that I refer to as my Hungarian cousins. They were born and raised in Kenora, Ontario — and now live in Dryden, Thunder Bay, and Petrolia. A few of my cousins still live at Fisher River. The family I am closest to is the McKay family, who are my second cousins. Stanley McKay (Senior) was my mother’s first cousin, as their mothers were sisters. From an early age, I spent time with this family of five siblings, some older and some younger than me. In fact, Patsy and Doreen, who are older than me, guided me in my early stages of learning to walk. We get together regularly for casual visits or to celebrate various milestones.

While I did not know my biological father, I had a typical family, but there was one unforeseen effect resulting from my mysterious birth. My mother did not register me as a member of the Fisher River Band, even through it was customary for single mothers to register their children. Consequently, I fell into the category of being a non-Status Indian as far as the government was concerned. This would have a profound effect on my life.

Early in my life, I was aware of being excluded from certain benefits that Status Indians received early in life. One example was that I was the only one in our family who did not receive treaty money on Treaty Days. The five-dollar treaty payments are given out annually and payments remain the same today. Treaty time was an annual get-together when families and friends came for their treaty money and to enjoy several days of activity that included sports such as rowing competitions and baseball during the day and square dancing and jigging at night. At little stands you could buy all kinds of goodies such as hot dogs, ice cream, and soft drinks. It was the only time of year when we could get such rare treats as ice cream, bananas, and watermelon. My earliest memory of prices is when an ice-cream cone was five cents, soft drinks were seven cents, chocolate bars were six cents, and apples and oranges were five cents each. There were usually several makeshift shelters that served as restaurants that sold full-course meals including such fare as moose meat and fish. Treaty time holds wonderful memories for me as a child. It was an exciting time when families set up tents and remained together for several days. Among the temporary structures were one or more dance halls, as we called them. I wonder if they managed to cover their costs at ten cents a dance. A man would go around with a cap and the men had to make sure they had plenty of dimes for the night. I remember we got new clothes to wear. When you add it all up, it is easy to see that even with the prices of the day, five dollars did not go very far. But those who got it were five dollars richer than me.

After my mother’s marriage we continued to live with my Uncle Jim. The house had one large room that served as a bedroom and living room warmed by a pot-bellied wood stove. Early on, we had only one bed and it remained that way for several years, even after my sister Rosalyn was born. I remember that a large trunk was put beside the bed and we had to sleep crosswise with our parents’ feet resting on the trunk. My grandmother had her own bed, and Uncle Jim slept upstairs when he was home. He was away a good deal of the time, living in Riverton or Gimli or some camp while he was fishing. Later as we got older, we, too, could sleep upstairs where there was a partition separating two rooms.

There was a large kitchen attached to the house. We had a wood-fired cook stove, and a homemade table and chairs. My mother made curtains to cover the cupboards, which held the dishes and pots and pans. There was a cellar where the perishable foods were kept. In the fall, the house would be made ready for the winter. It would be “mudded,” which meant that mud was plastered between the logs. Then it was lime-washed to look nice. Banks of earth would be put around the base of the house. All this preparation helped keep the house warm in winter. The fires went out during the night and it could get very cold. Early in the morning, my uncle or dad would get up and make a fire so that by the time we got up it was not as frigid. Still, we stood near the pot-bellied stove as we got dressed for the day. There were times when we burned our behinds when we got too close to the stove to put our socks on. There was no electricity at the time and light was provided first by coal oil lamps that later gave way to Aladdin lamps and gas lanterns, which gave a better light.

Dad was away from home a lot, fishing, hunting, and trapping, so as the oldest child I had to do various outdoor chores. He would leave plenty of wood split and ready for me to carry into the porch where it was stored. I hauled the water, and in winter this meant using a chisel to make a hole in the ice big enough to fit a dipper in to scoop the water into a pail. For bath night, usually Saturday, I had to haul enough water or snow to fill the aluminum washtub. The youngest was the first to get bathed, then the next youngest, with a bit more hot water added for each person.

During these early years of my life, I never felt that we were poor. We had a roof over our heads and never went hungry. We lived off the land, so to speak — my father fished, hunted, and trapped. We always had fish, deer, or moose meat. He also trapped beaver and muskrats, mainly for the pelts. I remember eating roasted muskrat, but for some reason we never cooked beaver. He also snared rabbits, so we had plenty of rabbit stew and soup. My mother canned as much fish and meat as was available. Suckers, a kind of fish for which there was no commercial market, tasted delicious when canned and made into fish patties. In the summer and fall we picked berries with my mother. This was a fun time, as we would pick berries with my aunts and their children. There was a little competition, as my mother would say, “OK, pick berries fast and don’t be eating them. Don’t you know that Au...

Table of contents

• List of Photographs
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter one
• Chapter two
• Chapter three
• Chapter four
• Chapter five
• Chapter six
• Chapter seven
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3