2 Teaching It Our Way

Many Indigenous communities across Canada sought treaties in Canada in part due to their interest in western-style education. Although residential schooling had been unpopular among Indigenous communities virtually from the time the system was first put in place, during the 1880s, Indian Affairs officials continued their approval to dissolve day schools into residential schools. In the department’s 1880 annual report, written by then superintendent general of Indian affairs at the time, E. Dewdney noted the department’s preference for boarding schools and how such schools can effectively remove an Indigenous child from their “deleterious home influences to which he would be otherwise subjected.”⁴ Dewdney went on to write that when a child returns to their home, they are reclaimed into an “uncivilized state.”⁵ Similarly, the department’s 1932 annual report describes day schools as “centres of Indian Educational activity” and thus a less desirable solution.⁶

Rather than equipping students with useful knowledge and skills, in a manner respectful of Indigenous traditions and values, residential schools focused on Christian conversion and subjected their pupils to multiple forms of mental and physical abuse. After graduating, students typically returned to their home communities not only unprepared to function successfully within mainstream society but also deeply alienated from their cultural roots. This was certainly not the vision of education that, in the eyes of Indigenous communities, was implied by treaty promises of education. In the words of Sheila Carr-Stewart, “The chiefs and headmen who signed the numbered treaties negotiated an educational right complementary to their own Aboriginal teachings”—not one that would attempt to eradicate the very cultures that gave rise to these teachings.⁷ As historian J. R. Miller argues, residential schools were “the vehicle of the newcomers’ attempts to refashion and culturally eliminate the first inhabitants’ way of life and identity.”⁸

Indigenous families and communities knew what was at stake. The ban on Indigenous languages and ceremonies at school were a significant cause of parental and student discontent, as was the unfair and abusive treatment of Indigenous students. Residential schools required that students speak English at all times even though many students had little to no exposure to the languages—if the children did not comply with the rules, the punishment was often severe.⁹ At the residential school in Cardston, Alberta, Andrew Bull Calf recalls being abused by the instructors: “I didn’t know English, you know, and the only language we spoke was Blackfoot in our community and so I got strapped a lot for that.”¹⁰ As historian Mary-Ellen Kelm explains, “the struggle between the schools’ commitment to cultural imperialism and Indigenous peoples’ ability to mediate the forces of that imperialism [was] inscribed on the bodies of the children who experienced residential schooling.”¹¹ Following the dispossession of land and resources and the introduction of disease and alcohol, Indigenous children were subjected to physical and emotional abuse at residential school, the impact of which would be felt for generations.

Ironically, residential schools were no more a success in the eyes of the state. As John Milloy points out, a system designed to promote assimilation had in fact failed to produce “a generation of well-educated, re-socialized children” who would integrate into modern society, prepared to “lead their communities into a new Canadian future.”¹² As early as the 1930s, the government had recognized this failure, which raised the question of what to do about the situation. One option—put forward in 1936 by D. A. Hoey, recently appointed superintendent of welfare and training at Indian Affairs—was to shift to a system of on-reserve day schools that would provide both academic instruction and vocational training at a greatly reduced cost. This proposal met with vigorous opposition from the churches that ran residential schools. In the view of church officials, if residential schools had thus far failed to meet the goal of assimilation, the solution “lay in the intensification of the system.”¹³ Conflicts between the government and the churches would not soon be resolved.

Discontent with residential schools was but one facet of a broader dissatisfaction with federal Indian policy that, by the time of World War II, was shared by government officials, church authorities, and Indigenous leaders alike.¹⁴ In response to growing criticism, in 1946 the government convened a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons, which was tasked with proposing possible amendments to the Indian Act. The committee held hearings for two years. In the end, however, the federal government ignored most of its recommendations, with the notable exception of those regarding education. The committee had proposed that the Indian Act be revised “to prepare Indian children to take their place as citizens” and that “wherever and whenever possible, Indian children should be educated in association with other children.”¹⁵ In accordance with these recommendations, Indian Affairs officials began pursuing a policy of integration. Residential schools would be gradually phased out, and Indigenous children would instead attend ordinary public schools.

Many Indigenous communities expressed concerns about the way Indigenous students were treated at non-Indigenous schools.¹⁶ But the government favored integration for a number of reasons, including the “supposed benefits of schooling children of different backgrounds in common classrooms.” As an added benefit, it was thought that integration would help Indian Affairs “economize” education. The government moved to implement integration, placing Indigenous children is provincial schools, without acknowledging the needs and concerns of the students and their families.

Historically, the provinces had not been involved in the provision of education to First Nations. Even though the 1867 Constitution Act made education a provincial responsibility, matters relating to “Indians” fell under federal jurisdiction—and the federal government was also obligated by treaty promises to provide education to reserve communities. When, however, the Indian Act was revised in 1951, an amendment was added that enabled the federal government to enter into agreements with provincial and territorial governments and with school boards for the purpose of providing education to First Nations children (much as it had already entered into such agreements with churches).¹⁷ This amendment paved the way for the new policy of integration, which began to be implemented in the 1950s. The Catholic Church was staunchly opposed to these new provisions, however, on the grounds that they contravened the Indian Act’s promise that “no child whose parent is a Roman Catholic shall be assigned to a school conducted under Protestant auspices.”¹⁸

The shift to an integration model would take more than three decades to complete, during which residential schools continued to operate, if in gradually decreasing number. From the time of their inception, the education provided at these schools had been marginal, at best. Only half of the school day was devoted to academic subjects, and seldom would instructors have been qualified to teach in public schools.¹⁹ In a review of the education offered at residential schools in the period up to 1950, R. F. Davey, director of educational services at Indian Affairs, quoted from a department study according to which, as late as 1950, more than 40 percent of residential school teachers still lacked professional training—while some had not even finished high school.²⁰ In 1951, the half-day system was officially terminated, and, over the following two decades, Indian Affairs made a concerted effort to improve both the credentials and salaries of residential school teachers. During the same period, the number of students who remained in school beyond grade 8 steadily increased.²¹ Indeed, speaking at a Parents’ Day meeting held at Blue Quills in 1956, former student Rosanne Houle noted that the quality of education was better than it had been twenty-five years earlier, when she attended the school, and that students now seemed to have a greater desire to learn.²²

Yet, even at the end of the 1960s, a “fundamental impediment” remained at residential schools: “Both the curriculum and the pedagogy, which were not in any way appropriate to the culture of the students, made it difficult for the children to learn.”²³ The same could be said of public schools. At that time, school curricula barely acknowledged the existence of Indigenous peoples and cultures, and what little students were taught typically reflected negative colonial stereotypes rooted in racist attitudes. Moreover, as a report on research conducted in 1966 for the Alberta government indicated, teachers lacked an adequate understanding of the problems facing Indigenous students who were attempting to make the transition into public schools. Although the University of Alberta had begun offering courses for teachers who would be working with students from reserves, “the fruits of this new curriculum will not be seen for a few years and, even then, they will not be widespread,” the report noted. “The people who are teaching in Indian areas at present have little training in this sphere and have no opportunity to acquire the adequate training.”²⁴

These findings echoed comments made a year earlier by University of Alberta student Annie Minoose. Speaking at an education conference held in St. Paul in March 1966, Minoose observed that Indigenous students were caught between two differing world views, which led to a conflicted sense of identity and made it difficult for them to adapt to mainstream Canadian society.²⁵ In short, if residential schools were fundamentally oppressive institutions, neither did public schools provide an environment conducive to the well-being of Indigenous students. Both rested on the premise that schooling should serve to promote assimilation.²⁶

Disputes surrounding Canada’s Indian policy, including its approach to the provision of education, escalated dramatically following the June 1969 release of Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, otherwise known as the White Paper. As Leon Crane Bear explains in the previous chapter, the White Paper proposed eliminating Indian status entirely, thereby assimilating Indigenous people into Canadian society by legal fiat. According to this plan, within the space of only a few years the Department of Indian Affairs would be dissolved, the Indian Act would be repealed, and the provinces would become responsible for providing services to Indigenous peoples, including education. In fact, the federal government had already begun negotiating agreements with the provinces regarding the integration of Indigenous students into provincial schools.²⁷ According to a March 1969 departmental memorandum, these agreements would enable Indian Affairs to “relinquish the responsibility of actively providing educational services to Indians.”²⁸

In a forceful response to the White Paper, titled The Unjust Society, Harold Cardinal, president of the Indian Association of Alberta, argued that Indigenous peoples wanted autonomy, not integration. Although willing to contribute to and participate in Canadian society, Indigenous people were “acutely aware of the threat—the loss of our Indian identity.” They also wanted control over their own destiny. As Cardinal went on to point out, “We want better education, a better chance for our children and the option to choose our own pathway in life.”²⁹ But no longer would Indigenous people “trust the government with our futures,” he warned. Rather, it was time for the government to “listen to and learn from us.”³⁰ Cardinal’s book appeared in December 1969, and it rapidly became a manifesto.

In the mid-1950s, Indian Affairs had begun to set up school committees on reserves that would ostensibly “exercise control over certain aspects of school affairs and the expenditure of school funds,” while also serving “to stimulate an interest in school work amongst parents.”³¹ Although, in practice, these committees had little real power, they did open a channel for communication between parents and school administrations. By the mid-1960s, the Saddle Lake community had grown alarmed by the high dropout rate at Blue Quills. Parents blamed the administration for this situation, arguing that discipline at the school was unduly strict and that boys and girls were too rigidly segregated. But parents were also concerned about the favouritism shown toward some of the girls by the priest in charge of Blue Quills. Several older girls had apparently stopped attending school to avoid his unwelcome advances.³²

In the summer of 1966, the Saddle Lake branch of the Catholic Indian League petitioned to have the principal removed.³³ Evidently, his replacement, Father S. R. Gagnon, held Indigenous people in rather low regard. As one Indian Affairs official put it, Gagnon was of the opinion that “Indian people were not very capable or reliable.”³⁴ At the time, Blue Quills had only a handful of Indigenous staff, all of them employed in maintenance and service jobs. One of these employees was Stanley Redcrow, who had worked at the school for many years and was also the president of the Saddle Lake School Committee during the late 1960s. As Redcrow later recalled, when he approached the principal to ask whether he would be willing to hire more Indigenous staff, Gagnon rejected the idea. This led to a special meeting of the school committee at the end of September 1969, at which Gagnon reiterated his position—that “Indian people were not qualified and that they would not be able to do the work.”³⁵

In the meanwhile, Indian Affairs had, in 1966, resolved to close Blue Quills and turn the school into a residence hall. This decision was not communicated to the local community, however, which found out about it only three years later. It appears in October 1969, Alice Makokis—a member of the Saddle Lake School Committee who was also employed by Indian Affairs as a school counsellor—overheard department officials discussing a plan to sell Blue Quills to St. Paul for the token of one dollar.³⁶ Rumours were also circulating about the possibility that Blue Quills students would be sent to a new regional high school in the town, scheduled to open the following year. At the end of October, representatives from all the school committees in the Saddle Lake–Athabasca district assembled in St. Paul for a three-day meeting, present at which was someone from Indian Affairs. When asked about the truth of these rumours, he made a telephone call to Edmonton and then confirmed that the plan was to close the school and turn it into a residence.³⁷ Even though a motion in support of this proposal was adopted at the meeting, “subsequent discussion revealed unhappiness with the administration of the school and a desire to see some schooling continue at Blue Quills.”³⁸

Discontent simmered until a meeting of the Saddle Lake community on 7 December. At that meeting, it was unanimously resolved that Blue Quills should continue to operate as a school, that its service staff should be entirely Indigenous, and that the administration of the school “should be turned over to Indian people.”³⁹ As Redcrow later recalled, “when Indian people understood what we were trying to do, they came along with us with the idea of taking the School over and running it ourselves.”⁴⁰

Another district-wide meeting of school committees took place early in April 1970. In attendance were representatives from reserve communities in which students had been integrated into the public school system. Hearing critical reports about the education provided in provincial schools, those present at the meeting resolved to take over control of Blue Quills. This resolution was telegraphed to the minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, the next day.⁴¹ Shortly afterward, the Blue Quills Native Education Council was formed to represent the reserves in the Saddle Lake–Athabasca district and organize the next steps in the struggle. “We can no longer be content to let others do our thinking for us,” its constitution stated. “We, ourselves, must take the action which will remove the discrepancies which have existed in education for Indians in the past.”⁴² The council set a target date of 1 August 1970 for the takeover.⁴³

Meetings were subsequently held with representatives from both Indian Affairs and the Alberta Department of Education in an effort to work out an agreement. Indian Affairs pushed for an arrangement whereby reserves would operate like local school districts and follow provincial regulations. This proposal was unacceptable to council members, who viewed it as an attempt to implement the plans laid out in the government’s White Paper on Indian policy.⁴⁴ By this point, the Indian Association of Alberta and its president, Harold Cardinal supported the movement at Blue Quills. Only a month earlier, the association released Citizens Plus, in which the Indigenous chiefs of Alberta decisively rejected the assimilatory vision of the White Paper. Included in the Red Paper, as it came to be called, was a detailed proposal for an Indian Education Centre that would “provide a setting and a learning environment in which Indian men, women and children may develop a deep understanding of themselves, of their history, and of their individual potential.”⁴⁵ The Red Paper was especially critical of provincial schools, where Indigenous students were routinely “subjected to various types of discriminatory behaviour” as well as to “educational policies that have the effect of emphasizing the social gap between Indigenous reserve communities and town populations.”⁴⁶

On 14 July, Harold Cardinal and members of the Blue Quills Native Education Council met with J. B. Bergevin, the assistant deputy minister of Indian Affairs, along with other department officials. These negotiations ended when the council demanded to meet with the minister himself, Jean Chrétien, or else with the deputy minister, H. B. Robinson, for the purpose of arriving at a final agreement regarding the future administration of Blue Quills.⁴⁷ It was, in fact, Robinson to whom Redcrow had written with an invitation to this meeting. Instead, Chrétien had chosen to send Bergevin—Robinson’s subordinate. From the standpoint of protocol, this was a mistake. In a letter, Redcrow wrote that activists were “prepared to sit there till someone at the ministerial or deputy ministerial level comes to consult with us.”⁴⁸

On that same day, 14 July 1970, roughly sixty protesters occupied the Blue Quills gymnasium. In the days ahead, their numbers swelled. According to one estimate, more than a thousand people eventually took part in the protest. People came and went, with at least two hundred occupying the site at any particular time. Protesters remained on the property both day and night, sleeping in the empty school residence or camping in tents and tipis set up on the lawn. The sit-in attracted not only residents of nearby reserves but also Indigenous people from elsewhere in Alberta as well as Saskatchewan, along with many non-Indigenous allies who travelled to Blue Quills to participate. Free meals were prepared, with people contributing venison or heading out to fish or gather berries and rhubarb. Elders led prayers, there was singing and dancing and storytelling, and the protest acquired a festival-like atmosphere.⁴⁹

The events at Blue Quills generated considerable attention in the media. Articles appeared regularly in both the St. Paul Journal and the Edmonton Journal, featuring interviews with protesters and photographs of the sit-in. The response of Minister Jean Chrétien—a man known to be one of the driving forces behind the White Paper issued a year earlier—also came under criticism. His refusal to travel to Blue Quills to negotiate an agreement was widely perceived as evidence of the government’s lack of any genuine respect for Indigenous people and their concerns. Chrétien’s apparent indifference only increased public support for the sit-in, with people writing letters urging him to visit Blue Quills.⁵⁰ Supporters organized pickets outside the regional office of Indian Affairs in Edmonton, where they handed out pamphlets supporting the right of Indigenous people to control their own education.⁵¹

As the protest gained both strength and media coverage, Chrétien finally agreed to meet in person with representatives from Blue Quills, provided that they would come to him. After eliciting a promise that Indian Affairs would cover the cost of the airfare, twenty Blue Quills representatives travelled to Ottawa in late July to negotiate with Chrétien. The group insisted that the meeting continue until the government conceded the right of First Nations to educational autonomy and agreed to turn Blue Quills over to the local community.⁵² After two days of meetings, the government capitulated. On 31 July, Chrétien officially informed Redcrow that the school’s operations would be transferred to the Blue Quills Native Education Council, with Indian Affairs continuing to provide financial backing. Chrétien added that “I will give immediate and serious considerations to the council’s request for additional funds to hold board meetings and to cover training programs and legal services for the coming year.”⁵³ In the wake of this victory, the sit-in ended in early August. Six months later, at the time that the final agreement was signed, Harold Cardinal rightly observed that “the success of our sit-in last summer at Blue Quills was due to our persistence in spite of the many obstacles that were placed before us.”⁵⁴

It is easy to lose sight of the momentous significance of this achievement. Success was by no means guaranteed, and some doubted whether the attempt was wise. At one point during the protest, when spirits seemed in danger of flagging, Elder Jonas Cardinal stood up and addressed the crowd. Over the past forty years, he began,

since the department has had control over our schooling, how many of us completed grade 12? If you have stand up.” No one stood up. He went on to enquire, “How many of us completed grade 8? Let’s stand up!” One person sheepishly arose from his chair. “How many of us completed grade 6?” A handful of people stood up. Then he said, “Look around. We can’t do any worse by taking over this school!

As he went on to say, “We need graduates who will return to our reserves to teach our people so that we can become strong as nations.”⁵⁵ When asked why she was participating in the protest, Margaret Quinney, a member of the Blue Quills Native Education Council from the Frog Lake reserve, voiced similar sentiments. “If we do not do what we are doing,” she replied, “we are going to risk losing what little of our culture, traditions, and spirituality we have left. We want to re-establish our ways and our values. We want a place where we can teach it our way.”⁵⁶

The Blue Quills Native Education Centre opened its doors at the start of September 1971. In the coming years, several other residential schools would follow the pattern set by Blue Quills, at least to the extent that local First Nations assumed control over the residence facilities associated with these schools. The first of these was the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School, at the White Calf reserve in Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle Valley, northeast of Regina. In 1972, a council was formed to negotiate the transfer of the school to local control, and the following year White Calf Collegiate opened, with the band administering the residence and, eventually, the school itself. Very shortly thereafter, First Nations bands in the Prince Albert area reached a similar agreement with Indian Affairs regarding the residence at the Prince Alberta Indian Residential School.⁵⁷ Yet, as Milloy points out, in the end “only five schools, all in Saskatchewan, followed the Blue Quills–Qu’Appelle lead.”⁵⁸ For the most part, residential schools were simply shut down, with students either moving to band-controlled day schools or else into provincial schools.

The legacy of Blue Quills largely lies elsewhere, however. Even if only a limited number of residential schools ultimately passed into the hands of First Nations communities, the victory at Blue Quills inaugurated a new era, one in which Indigenous people would come to gain greater control over their education. In the aftermath of the protest at Blue Quills, the National Indian Brotherhood established a working group on education. The result was Indian Control of Indian Education, a landmark position paper submitted to Indian Affairs late in 1972. Enshrined in it were two fundamental principles—that parents are responsible for setting the goals of their children’s education and that local communities must exercise control over that education. “We want education to provide the setting in which our children can develop the fundamental attitudes and values which have an honored place in Indian tradition and culture,” its authors wrote. The values that First Nations parents wish to instill in their children “are not written in any book. They are found in our history, in our legends and in the culture.”⁵⁹ Indian Control of Indian Education would set the direction for future educational policy. At Blue Quills, First Nations had drawn a line. No longer would they allow others to dictate the terms of their education.

These events occurred at a time when well over half of all First Nations students—more than forty thousand of them—were already enrolled in provincial schools.⁶⁰ While Indian Affairs had now shown itself willing to consider band-controlled schools as an alternative to integration, it was also committed to closing residential schools, and it was not prepared to fund the construction of an entirely new First Nations–only school system that would serve children at all grade levels. Inevitably, then, many First Nations students were destined to remain in provincial schools. At the same time, as the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission observes, “debates over the effectiveness of the federal government’s integration policy had highlighted both the direct and institutional racism that students were subjected to in public schools.”⁶¹ In other words, the protest at Blue Quills, in tandem with position papers such as Citizens Plus and Indian Control of Indian Education, had brought the truth out into the open. Through words and actions, First Nations had collectively initiated a process of consciousness-raising that would irrevocably alter provincial education policy and programming.

In 1975, for example, the Task Force on the Educational Needs of Native Peoples of Ontario began by soliciting input from Indigenous organizations throughout the province. Its report, tabled on 30 June 1976, made numerous recommendations about changes to school curricula that would be needed to incorporate Indigenous perspectives and history. The task force also insisted that schools serving Indigenous students must employ Indigenous teachers and counsellors and that students must have access to adequate financial assistance.⁶² Other such initiatives followed, as provincial authorities gradually came to recognize that Indigenous communities must be allowed to take part in curriculum development and policy planning. In Alberta, the Native Education Project, established in 1984, undertook province-wide consultations with Indigenous communities, the results of which were summarized in Native Education in Alberta: Native People’s Views on Native Education, a report prepared in 1985.⁶³ In 1987, Alberta Education released an aspirational policy statement titled Native Education in Alberta’s Schools. In it, Alberta Education professed its commitment to working with school boards and Indigenous communities to develop classroom materials, including resources for the teaching of Indigenous languages, and to providing opportunities for parents to become more closely involved in their children’s education.⁶⁴

The protesters who occupied Blue Quills did not, however, set out to improve provincial education, although they were probably pleased to see public schools become more responsive to the needs of Indigenous students. Rather, they wanted to create their own model of education. In 2015—close to half a century after the protest at Blue Quills—the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its ninety-four calls to action. Of the seven that pertain directly to education, one calls for federal legislation dedicated to principles such as “Improving education attainment levels and success rates,” “Developing culturally appropriate curricula,” and “Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children.”⁶⁵ Another challenges the government to eliminate the gap in federal funding for on-reserve education as opposed to education off reserve. Amidst talk of the need to “Indigenize” the academy, questions still remain about how well the policy of integration truly answers the needs of Indigenous students and honours Indigenous perspectives.

The original Blue Quills school building still stands in the open fields to the west of St. Paul, its red brick walls a reminder of a system that no longer exists but whose effects continue to reverberate across the generations. Inside those walls, however, is a world transformed—a world that centres Indigenous ways of knowing and being while at the same time incorporating elements of Western knowledge systems. Perhaps integration began in the wrong place. Perhaps, as the treaties envisioned, it is up to Indigenous peoples to decide how far to “Westernize” their academy.