Chapter 3 Walking on a Settler Road Days in the Life of Colonialism

Clint Augustine McIntosh

My two children were in child services when I was incarcerated on 15 October 2016. This was the end of a two-year drug-fuelled binge of crime, alcohol, and methamphetamine. I spent nine months in remand sobering up and seeing the destruction I had created once again; this time at the cost of my sons. I love them so much. What I have done to them is unforgivable. I abandoned them in foster care with strangers and gave them a false sense that they might one day come home. During those nine months in remand, I reflected on my children and what I had become. I started to admit my problems to myself. I became truthful with myself before I could get lost in the fantasy world of “big plans” when I get out or how great I am out in the real world as a “badass” or “kingpin.” I felt as though I was just a low-life thug wannabe who abandoned his family for drugs and alcohol. In short, a big-time loser. I wanted to openly admit, confess, or just testify my true past and present. I guess, in some sense, I had a spiritual awakening. I wanted it documented how I, Clint, was created. Maybe we could find him? Lay it all out from birth to present. No more secrets.

The prosecution came with an offer of seven years under the condition that I have the Gladue Report done. He told me this was the only way he could justify the time to a judge. The Gladue provision is a law passed by the Supreme Court to protect the Indigenous peoples of Canada. This law takes into consideration the past trauma, addiction, education, and abuse of sentenced individuals at the hands of government agencies. I fit this bill 100%.

So, as time passes, I anxiously awaited the court date when the Gladue Report would be ordered. One day before I entered the court, my lawyer wanted to brief me. He said I didn’t need the Gladue Report and that we can just set a date for early resolution. He told me that the plea deal was still seven years, but we could get it done quickly and I could get on with my life instead of waiting in remand for another four months for a Gladue Report. So, I agreed. Just like I agreed to so much throughout all my criminal court cases in the past. Plead guilty and get on with the time.

A day and half later, I thought, “No!” I called my lawyer and said that I wanted the Gladue Report done. It was the beginning of my road to change. He emailed the prosecution about my change of heart. The prosecution responded, and I quote, “Well, if Mr. McIntosh wants the Gladue Report done, then the crown will request a sentence of ten to twelve years.”

When I heard this, my hope for the full disclosure of my life went out the window. At that time, I really wanted someone to hear my life testimony. I really thought the Gladue Report would help me identify important points in my life, maybe even a pattern. I don’t really know what I was hoping it would do, but I knew that it would follow me to the penitentiary for other professionals to read and maybe even work with me to address the issues identified. The threat of a twelve-year sentence scared me though. I would be sixty-one years old after twelve years in prison. So, I awaited sentencing. I alternatively tried to find someone who could help me make sense of my life situation. I reached out to someone on the correctional Transitional Team in Edmonton. They listened and documented my story. This seemed like great news. I thought, “These people will help me.” Initially, they stated that the action of the prosecution was illegal, or at least a Charter violation, but soon enough I heard nothing more from them.

Now, in here I sit. I really want to change. I want to confess my life, but like so many of these correctional departments, psychologists, doctors, Elders, priests, society groups that are supposed to listen or help, they only seem to be there for a paycheque. I could be wrong, but I have been stepped over by the justice system so many times while incarcerated. I’ve reached out for help, only to be quickly shut down. I’ve seen men who just come in who are prime for change but are just left to rot in their own memories until they are past the point of recovery and increasingly on a path of destruction.

Here is my story . . .

I was born in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, in 1968. My father was a logger and we lived in Chetwynd. My earliest memory is at the age of four or five in Glenny’s trailer court during early winter, when I was at the skating pond alone, I fell through the ice. I remember seeing my hands extended in front of me, reaching as I sunk below the surface and the light of the hole from which I fell. Suddenly, a shadow grasped my hands and pulled me through the surface, and I rose up toward the light. My rescuer was Darren Peters, the local kid who everyone teased and physically abused because of his weight problems. He carried me home to my mom and dad. That’s also the day I had my first drink and cigar. I remember sitting on the couch with a little snifter of brandy and the rest of my father’s cigar. It made me feel special and more connected to my father, who was a six-foot-one red-headed Scotsman. My mother was a raven-haired French Cree.

We moved from the trailer park to Sakunka, better known as Sakunka River. That is where I attended my first school where I would catch the bus with my four brothers and sisters to Chetwynd. On the first day of Grade 1, we boarded the bus. It was not pleasant. We were cursed at, pushed, pulled, and tripped by the other children because we were Native-looking. I remember exiting the bus and there was a boy standing in front of me when I got out. Suddenly, he spat in my face and called me a “dirty Indian.” I do not remember much after that except for being pulled away from the boy, who I beat near the school entrance. I was suspended before I even made it to school. I remember a lot of fights in school. I also remember my parents drinking and fighting a lot when my dad was home, which was rare because he worked in camps. Us kids were not kept separate from the parties. I remember being sent to get drinks for my parents and their guests. Of course, I would sneak a few sips. I was also the official cigarette lighter, meaning I actually lit the smoke before giving it to my parents. By the end of the night, I was just as drunk as everyone else. If anyone even noticed, I became the night’s stumbling entertainment.

I witnessed and experienced a lot of violence growing up. My father’s discipline was strict and physical. I remember once my brother getting stuck in the mud by the well. I was trying to help him out, but he was up to his knees. At that moment, my father arrived home after being at camp for a long time. I was surprised and excited to see him drive up. Surprise soon changed to terror as he got out of his truck, pulled out his knife and cut a green garden hose that was attached to an outside tap. He proceeded to whip Scott and I while both now stuck in the mud. He whipped us until we were able to crawl ourselves out, and that took a while. There were many other events like this.

During Third Grade, we moved to Joussard, Alberta. This was primarily a Métis community. After my father moved us, I rarely saw him. He would go away to work for six months at a time. In the meantime, I joined a street gang called CUTTERS. We stole booze, smokes, and guns. I was introduced to many things, including drugs like marijuana, acid, mushrooms, mescaline, and cocaine. This was also the time that I was first sexually molested by a man; this is also the first time I have ever openly admitted this. He lived across the street. He molested a lot of the local boys.

I fought a lot in school. When my dad was home, he was drunk. If he knew I was having trouble with someone at school, we would drive around until we found them, then he would make me get out and fight. And boy, I had better have won. I usually did. One time, the local pedophile hurt my friend quite severely. Some gang members and I laid in the ditch waiting for him. After that, we never spoke about him again.

Around the same time, a man, his wife, and two daughters bought the property next door to us. He was a retired coastguard captain. He started building his house on the property and gave me a job helping him. We became very close, and I saw him as a father. He called me “fuzzy balls” and taught me many things. He took me hunting, fishing, and sometimes we would just sit in the backyard where he would tell me stories. He was an alcoholic, but he treated me like a son. I never experienced anything like this with my own father. We had a close relationship for about three years. One morning, shortly after starting junior high school, I stopped in on my way to catch the bus like I did every morning. He was different this morning. He wouldn’t converse in his usual way or make eye contact. He told me that I better “get going” or else I would miss my bus. His last words to me were “See ya’ around Fuzzy Balls.” All day I was bothered. As the school bus returned home, I ran to his house, but he wasn’t home. His wife was there with tears that streaked her face and a frantic look about her. She asked me if I had seen him. I told her about what happened that morning. She had a paper in her hand that she kept looking at and holding it close to her chest. I said I would go look for him. I went to get my friend who had a car, even though he was only twelve years old; it was a 1966 Plymouth. We went looking for him up the mountain where he and I used to park where the eye could see forever. That’s where we found him; the black hose running from his muffler to the sliding windows of his Ford pickup truck. He was long dead, and my world exploded. I loved that man. I was angry and became even angrier when they wouldn’t let me help carry him to his grave. At that moment, I hated everything with a passion. We buried him in Joussard, with a huge anchor marking his grave.

Shortly after that we moved to Grand Centre (now Cold Lake South), Alberta. I was twelve and in the middle of a school year. I didn’t like my new school, so I skipped class a lot. I remember one night I awoke to the sound of a loud fight between my mom and dad. They were drunk. I walked into the room to see them struggling with a twelve-inch bowie knife. My dad left that same day. I didn’t see him again for five years. He moved to Grand Prairie to live with another woman, who he eventually married. I was left with my mom and my two sisters who were four and five years old at the time. Since he didn’t help my mom financially, we went on welfare. My mom started leaving us alone frequently. I dropped out of school so I could look after my sisters. Mom would be gone for weeks at a time. Sometimes we had to live off spaghetti and ketchup. When we ran out, I wouldn’t know what to do, so I went out at night and started raiding gardens for vegetables. This progressed to shoplifting, breaking and entering, and car hopping. This lasted for about two years. During that time, I used alcohol, drugs, and sniffed gas with my cousins. It was stressful. I was responsible for those girls until my dad came one day and took them. No one told me. He didn’t take me. I was left alone.

My older cousin, Ricky, took me in and gave me a job as a carpenter. Things calmed down in my life for a little time. In 1987, I got a call from my mom. She needed me to drive her to Amisk, Alberta. I was living in Barrhead, Alberta. She said she needed to help one of my sisters. She didn’t say why and wouldn’t tell me when I asked. I lied and told her I had to be up at 5 a.m. for work, plus Amisk was about five hours away. So I put her on the Greyhound bus. I got a call the very next day from the RCMP notifying me of my mother’s murder. My brother-in-law was beating my sister. My sister had asked my mom to help her pack up her two children and get them out. She made her promise not to tell us boys because she was scared we would kill him. Instead, my mom spent the night and my brother-in-law came home while everyone was asleep. He attacked her and beat her severely. Broke her jaw, arm, and bruised her all over. He also stabbed her nine times, including once in the face. I still live with the guilt. Maybe I could have saved her—or died with her.

Despite everything, I loved my mom more than anything. At the time of my mom’s death, I was common law with a child. My relationship and life both went to hell and we separated. My alcoholism and drug addiction exploded. Crime followed. This was one of the most traumatic experiences I’ve had. I cannot express how much this defined my life. I’ve always said that you can connect my criminal past with my mom’s death.

I snuck into the criminal underworld and it fit like a glove. I’ve witnessed countless deaths; some natural, some violent; many tortures; I became head of prison gangs; you name it. There is so much trauma in my life, more than I could list here.

In 1998, I petitioned the court to keep my mother’s killer in jail. I even did a television interview in Dawson Creek, BC, to stop his parole. But he was released anyway to his new wife, who he also eventually murdered.

My most recent trauma is the loss of my two boys to the government of Alberta. In a sense, this is what brought me here to this pen and paper. Nobody knows about my background, these admissions of abuse, these lifestyle factors, or of the colonial victimization that myself and many others have suffered. My mom was a residential school child, and this makes me a generational Survivor; what has been done to our ancestors was passed on to me. Believe me when I say that I want to change. I am a creation of these circumstances. I have awoken and hate who I am. I want to wake up and live. I want to change.

I know I had a lot to do with my path in life. But the justice system needs to change. My PTSD is devastating. The denial of a fair trial and Gladue Report, both of which I have a right to, are errors in justice. I’ve lost everything there is to lose in life.