Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #2 - Don Duncan

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

Originally from Ottawa ON Don spent his life working in the educational system. He started out in Ontario working on remote reserves and moving up in the ranks until eventually becoming a superintendent. In Lloydminster he spent 16 years as the director of education and has some unbelievable stories about working in remote communities.  Let me know what you think     Text me! 587-217-8500

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Now, here is your T-Bar-1 tale of the, tape. Originally from Ottawa, Ontario, he spent his life in the educational system beginning as a single room school teacher and moving all the way up to become a superintendent. He had moved all across Canada, working in different small towns, villages, cities, and he worked his way to Lloydminster, Alberta, Saskatchewa. Here, he spent 16 years as the director of education of the Lloydminster School District. I'm talking about Don Duncan.

So buckle up. Here we go. So today is July 5th, 2020. I'm sitting across from Don Duncan. So thank you first and foremost for joining me. It's a pleasure to be here. Now, this is about your life, so you're the expert. You're going to guide us through it.

I guess let's start with life in Ottawa. You're born in Ottawa, 1946, July 31st. What do you remember about growing up in the city of Ottawa? I remember that Ottawa was a very different place from the city it is now. It was a relatively small city at that point, probably a hundred thousand-ish in population, two-thirds English speaking, one-third French speaking. So it was very much a bilingual environment. And people had their respective neighborhoods, I suppose, but all in all, it was a very congenial place to grow up.

Did you learn French thing growing up? I did. Don't challenge me on it now. It's been many, many years since I've used it with any fluency. but yes, I had the basic instruction, of course, in public school and high school. But more usefully, I had a job as a grocery clerk in a store that served, a clientele that was largely French speaking. And so I learned the vernacular there as well in those days.

Ottawa had only one television station operated by the CBC. And the practice was that alternate days were English or French. Really? Yep. And so every second Saturday night, for example, hockey night in Canada was either the Toronto Maple Leafs in English or French. The Toronto Maple Leafs in English or the Montreal Canadian in French. and that was, again, a good learning context to pick up the language.

And then when I went to the University of Ottawa, it was truly a bilingual institution. And the history courses that I took predominantly were typically fairly small in a number of students. and if a question were asked in French, it would be answered in French by the professor. If it were asked in English, it would be answered in English by the professor. And so to follow along and capture the content of the course, one had to become... Otherwise, you're missing half the course. You're missing half the course. And one doesn't want to do that.

So, yeah, it was a great place to grow up. and learn our other official language. English-speaking people by nature, I think, are very lazy when it comes to learning other languages because they don't really have to. You travel anywhere in the world. Yeah, that makes it too easy. And so we do tend to become a little bit lazy.

And I'm grateful that I had the challenge and the context in which to learn some French. The hockey player in me wants to know growing up in Ottawa, watching Montreal one Saturday night and Toronto the next Saturday. What was your favorite team growing up? Chicago Blackhawks. For no good reason. I like the sweater, I think, basically,

but it was red, white, and black. And, of course, those were the colors associated with Ottawa teams, historically as well. And so I don't know. There was no good reason for it, but yeah, that was the team I tended to follow. How about your parents? I know in reading a little bit about you, your father worked on the railroad. Yes. And you had a job on the railroad at one point in time. Various jobs during the summers. Cleaning coaches. At that time, rail travel was the dominant way of getting around in the country. And there were trains, several trains, Ottawa, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and you could get the transcontinental passing through

Ottawa as well. And when the engines pulled in, my job was to do a couple of things, clean the windshields of the engines for those trains that were through trains. And otherwise, those trains that terminated or originated in Ottawa, all of the coaches and other parlor car and bar car, etc., etc., would be parked along the rail yard that at that time was right, beside the Rideau Canal. And my job was to clean the coaches. And so that's something that provided good income for a student. That rail yard, by the way, it's a long way from Lloydminster to Ottawa, but if you ever see political broadcasts from Ottawa

and there's the National Conference Center where many of these conferences are held, the National Conference Center is the old Union Station in Ottawa, and that's where I was based for part of my work on the CN. Otherwise, I worked as a hostler's mate, preparing diesels for the road, fueling them up, for example, and making sure the supplies were appropriate in the cab for flares, etc. And one summer I worked as well as a switch tender. In those days, all of the switch lamps in the rail yard were kerosene lamps.

And so they had to be filled regularly and lenses cleaned and replaced. Wait, wait. Switch Labs. You're talking, explain that a little better. Not better, a little deeper. Sure. When the engineer wants to take his train from one track to another track or a siding, it's necessary for a switch to be thrown that moves the,

the track over a little bit so that the flange on the wheels is drawn to the side. And each switch, apart from having a long handle on it for the actual moving of it, had a lamp. And the lamp comprised two different colors. front and back, if the train would go straight through, there were green lenses. Right. On the side, there were red lenses. So whichever color it was, they knew whether they were turning or going straight,

and that at one point in time was a kerosene lantern. Exactly. Yeah. Inside those lenses was a little reservoir for kerosene and a wick that had to be trended properly. of course and replaced when needed. And so, yeah, the technology has changed somewhat. It's got to be over, because you would be turning 71 this year at the end of July. Actually, I'll be turning 74 in four weeks, yeah.

What year were you born? 46. 46, I was thinking 49. No. 46? Okay. Okay. You've seen a lot of different things over your time.

And some of the places you've been, you've seen no electricity to now where we're doing exactly what we're doing in this room. What has it given you the most pause over a lifetime? Perhaps the speed of change and how it's accelerating. How, you know, with... Transportation, for example, going from trains that were relatively slow and not always reliable in terms of scheduling, to moving to much more air travel. And how air travel, my first flight, I remember I and a buddy who flew down to Bermuda to visit a friend from Ottawa. an old super constellation aircraft, propeller driven, of course, and, you know, Ottawa to New York,

refuel onto... What year would you have done that? Ah, that was the year I just finished Teachers College, so that would have been 1967 centennial year. you flew to Bermuda, that was the first time he'd never been on a plane. What did you think your first time you got on a plane and taken off and all of a sudden looking out the window? Yeah. Air travel then was very different. I mean, it was exciting, you know, just the actual thrill of flying for the first time.

But air travel then was a much different experience from what we experienced today. There was space between the seats. you wore a jacket and tie probably to travel. There was meal service with real plates and cutlery in those days. And it was very much a luxury means of travel, and luxury, frankly, I wasn't very used to. and so it was really an interesting experience. Is there a type of travel, do you think, right now, that even resembles that anymore?

Like the luxury side of it, because when I hear, like, you get dressed up. It was an occasion to go on a plane. Do we have anything like that anymore? Like a cruise ship, maybe? But even then, you don't really get dressed up to go on that. Some people do. I've long since given up getting dressed up. I've had enough of that.

and it's not really who I am. And but I know for the one cruise that my wife and I took a few years back, there were people who took suitcase upon suitcase with different costumes that they would wear, some much more formal than others. And well, okay, if that's how they get there, enjoyment, good on them. But again, for me, it's not authentic. It's not who I am. You mentioned or you talk about in your biography you've started on about when you're young,

a bakery around the corner and the draft horses. Could you lead us down that for a little bit? Yeah. We lived on Rosemere Avenue in Ottawa East, and about two blocks away was Walker's Bakery. And it was a large bakery, and the smell of fresh bread every day, it was just wonderful in the neighborhood. And as a two-year-old, I took it upon myself, me and my trusty dog, Skipper, to go down and see the horses because in those days bread and milk, for that matter, was delivered door to door by horse-drawn wagons. And each bakery or dairy kept its own stable of draft horses. So the bakery had a stable of draft horses?

Yes, yeah. And it was, as I say, about two blocks from where I lived as a toddler. And every day I'd see the bread wagon or the milk wagon, you know, coming down the street. And I thought, well, okay, I'll go and see where they go. And so I trundled off, unbeknownst to my mother. Giving her a heart. Oh, gosh, I could only imagine. And so the dog and I walked down.

One of the neighbors, which was a good thing, I suppose, and everybody knew everybody else, of course, in the neighborhood, phone my mother, and are you missing a small boy and a large dog? And I was put on the map at that point and fetched pretty quickly. But yeah, it was, a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in.

You also mentioned the sea cadets. I picked that out of the things you talked about. It allowed you to go different places and experience. I would assume you had some learning on those trips and being a part of that organization. Yeah. I don't know if the military culture in Canada is as prominent as it was back in the 60s. We were much closer to the war years at that point. And so there was more awareness, I guess, and engagement with military or things quasi-military in Quebec.

I joined the sea cadets and enjoyed the challenges. I enjoyed the camaraderie of the situation. I enjoyed the structure. And I became a petty officer in the ranks. I was the second highest ranking cadet, I guess, in the Corps. But yeah, wonderful opportunities. Travel down to Cape Breton to North Sydney, Point Edward Naval Base at that time. It's closed now, of course, and spent some weeks there doing essentially boot camp-type training

and developing skills, some signaling skills and sailing skills on the harbor. and seeing a part of the country that at that time I wasn't aware was one of the home areas, at least briefly for my great-great-grandfather in North Sydney. And so again, it gave me a chance to experience that travel. when you were away it isn't like today where you got FaceTime and I don't know everybody got a cell phone to talk to your parents

how did you stay in touch with your parents or did they just wait for you to come home they waited for me to come home and you know again I I think one of the qualities that

has helped me over the years is a wee bit of a sense of independence, that whatever situation I'm in, I want to participate in that situation and not be distracted by people or things far away. I'll get to them, and when I'm there, I'll be engaged, but not constantly. I think one of the benefits of that kind of an experience is that you learn to live with yourself.

You come to understand who you are and what your strengths and weaknesses are. And you're not in a position or a situation where you're constantly defined by other people's opinions or expectations. of you. And that's a good thing. You know, I see young people nowadays, you know, captured, actually addicted to their electronic devices and very much sensitive to the opinions of their friends, some of whom are real friends, And whatever the expectations of that audience might be tend to shape who the individual is.

And that's not good. We need to understand how we're influencing or affected by others, but we can't constantly let them define us. it's very interesting in my short time because I remember a time where I didn't like people being able to get a hold of me that was only like 14 years ago didn't have a cell phone didn't have one of those contraptions and I remember having jobs where if you were off on the weekend work wasn't getting a hold of you because you were at the lake or you were off on whatever and if they called the house and you didn't pick up what could they really do exactly and now You raise an interesting point because the thing is almost as much a part of you as anything else in life.

Because everybody has one now. If you don't, you're kind of the odd person that doesn't have a cell phone. And on top of that, if you don't answer immediate gratification of like getting, you know, sending a text or a phone call, if they don't answer or they don't call you back or they don't text you immediately, you're almost hurt by that because you expect them at any hour, any time, you know, the cell phone is the ability to pretty much be anywhere and be contactable. And that is something that, you know, for a lot of years of your life, your generation grew up where for the majority of their life it wasn't like that.

And any kid now from essentially 2000 on, maybe late 90s even on, that is not the case anymore. Well, and the drawbacks, you know, I mentioned the fact that people tend to allow their character to be shaped more by the opinions of others than their true character. The other drawback, I think, of modern communication with its instant gratification is that it causes us to be lazy, mentally lazy. And so, for example, if somebody tries to get you now and needs an answer right away,

and they can't get you, if it's a significant situation, then the challenge to them is to figure it out for themselves and take responsibility for it. And now, you know, that laziness, I guess, and refusal to accept responsibility, diminishes, I think, us as people. I find, you know, this is a related example, I guess, that I have a Garmin GPS device that if I'm traveling somewhere, I'll sometimes use it if I'm trying to get from point A to point B in an unfamiliar country. But I only use it when I have to.

I much rather look at a map and visualize where it is I'm going and what time I want to get there and what route I should take and things I should avoid, etc., etc. And then when I'm driving, I'm watching. Oh, okay, there's the sign for whatever, or how many miles or kilometers to the destination.

And I'm thinking, I'm there and I'm observing. If I have the GPS on, it's almost like I'm mentally on autopilot. It's doing the work for you. It's doing the work. I'm just here to steer and use the accelerator or the brake. And I really don't have to pay close attention to where I am and what's happening. and again that becomes a mental habit

let the technology look after it or let somebody else look after it if I have a question because I can get them immediately and I know they'll respond and you know again that diminishes us as authentic people yeah I always say you know if a guy could have Don and his father and then his father's father and then his father's father, all sit in the same room and have a conversation.

I'm sure every generation would look to the one previous would look at you and go, you don't even know how to do this, but go all the way down to us and yourself, you probably look at your kids and do the same thing, right? To a degree. I always love the map because it felt like you were an explorer, right? If you can figure out the map and you get lost you, you figure it out yourself, there's a sense of accomplishing.

in that I got from here to there. And it's interesting when you bring up GPS because you just don't even think about it anymore. Now it's on your phone, right? You don't even need to buy a garment anymore to have. Everything is programmed into the phone. The phone can pretty much, you know, a lot of people are lost without that device.

I always talk about when I was growing up, I wrote down all my friends' home phone numbers on a piece of paper. That was your phone book. And for you, maybe you actually had like a little black book where you wrote down people's names and that was your contact book. Now if you ask a single soul what anybody's number is, well, it's right here. It's right here. Nobody has an idea anymore.

No. And again, they don't have to put their brain through the mental exercise of learning these things. And the point is too that even the physical activity of writing something down, It activates a different part of the brain. It reinforces the thinking process that you engage in, and, surprise, surprise, you end up with higher quality thinking as a consequence. And so, yeah, if, you know, among the concerns that I would have for future generations is becoming over-dependent on the...

on the artificial intelligence that's available to serve us, and the price that we as individuals pay in diminishing our own capacity by using it. And we've got down a rabbit hole right now, so I apologize. All I ever think about now when I get going on this is Lynn always goes, somebody's got to write this all down, and they're sitting here writing me down as we go. But what you're talking about is in school, I read, we read a book, and I can't remember the name of it, but it was talking about kids forgetting how to do math because they used a calculator all the time. And this is back probably, I was in Helmand at the time, so late 90s maybe,

and it got to the point where they no longer flew planes, robots flew planes, and they were trying to teach themselves how to do that all over again, and this is years' way in the future. And you think, at the time I remember thinking as a kid, oh, we'll never forget how to do long-form math. Like, oh, my goodness, like give it a rest. But now you got a genius of a computer that goes with every kid. Like I say, I keep pointing at the phone because nobody can see that. But the phone can do pretty much anything for you right now. And it will be interesting to see what happens with 10 years in advance, 40 years in advance, 50 years, 100 years?

Well, this gets back to what I said earlier in terms of the, accelerating pace of change. And the challenge among the challenges is for us as a civilization or as a society as Canadians to decide who is really in charge of not only the rate of change but the direction of change. And who owns the product of all of those changes. And as we diminish the engagement of real people and real brains, who profits, who loses, and who controls, you know, should, and again, I think we're going off on a tangent here, but who regulates Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and are they following or pursuing

what is technologically possible without giving enough thought to the values associated with the technology? And I'm afraid that we're letting technology run rampant and taking control of our lives in many, many ways to the detriment of our humanity. Where do you think it goes then in the next 20 years? Oh, gosh. It depends how much smarter we as a society become in regulating. the applications of artificial intelligence and the other sciences, the biological sciences, genetic science, for example, we need to take an interest as citizens as to where all of this is going.

And if we don't take an interest, then I'm afraid we end up somewhere where we never planned to go and we end up subjugated by the technology that controls us. The fragility of our society increases year by year as the sophistication of the technology increases. Just imagine if we were to go, if the electricity were to shut off right now. We'd be hooped. We'd be hooped. This interview, of course, would stop. That would be a way of putting it politely.

Yeah. But what would work in the city of Lloyd Minster if there were no electricity available? If all of a sudden we were off the grid or there were no grid. And, you know, again, as things become more technical, technically sophisticated, their fragility, by definition, increases. And we may be putting ourselves in a situation where we rely overmuch on the technology that could at some point fail us.

You know, I think in terms of the skills that our ancestors had, either century, ago or even as recently as 50 years ago. You know, the ability to build something ourselves with hand tools, for example, the ability to know how to build a fire properly, where to find fuel, how to get food when you don't have the supermarket down the street. All of those things, you know, we're setting aside in favor of the convenience of technology. And I'm not a lot, I'm not suggesting we get rid of technology, but I'm suggesting that we better understand it and control it before it controls us.

Let's go then, I got so many questions that come out of that, But I think of when you talk about what would life look like with no electricity. My brain pops to Collins, Ontario. And I thought maybe you could give the listeners an idea. I've read the story. I find it absolutely fascinating. And I could be wrong. I said this before we started.

That when I look back at a person's life and I go, I bet they got one thing that just sticks out like, that was the time. Collins, Ontario has to be it for you. And maybe there's multiple after that, but let's share the journey to Collins and then life in Collins. Okay. Well, the preamble, I guess, to Collins was that my first year of teaching, as an elementary school teacher was in Ottawa.

and I never had fewer than 42 kids in my grade 4 or 5 split classroom. And although I did okay and the school system was happy with my work, it was not a rewarding place to work as a teacher. It was much more babysitting than teaching, given the numbers involved. And I ended up, as a consequence, resigning that position, going downtown in Ottawa to Laurier Avenue, where at that time the Department of Indian Affairs Office

was located, Indian and Northern Affairs, and checked in to find out what they might have by way of teaching opportunities. I was given, oh gosh, my choice, of half a dozen different locations. Some as far as Tavani and Whale Cove up in the Arctic to other reserves that were situated in the south. And the personnel officer at the time said, well,

if you're leaving Ottawa, mainly because you had too many students in your class, we have a a school, it's a one-room school in northwestern Ontario, where there were only four students this past year. And there are no roads into the village, but it's on the CN mainline. And if you want it, it's yours. And being very naive and ignorant, I jumped at the opportunity. And And so in August took the train from Ottawa. It was about a 22-hour trip from Ottawa to Collins in northwestern Ontario. Collins was a village of about 100 people if everyone were home.

It was an Ojibwe village. There was a trading post there run by Peter Patience. Peter was, as he described himself, a half-breed, we would say Métis nowadays, and his father was a Scot and his mother was Ojibwe. His wife was Ojibwe. And Peter sort of ran the village in many respects in a positive way. So anyway, about 1130, at night. I stepped off the train, the Transcontinental. One could get it to stop anywhere along the way, really, in those days. And so I got a stop at Collins and they unloaded all the stuff from the baggage car down to the side of the track. And Peter and half a dozen other guys

and I hauled the material down to my teacherage, which was about 50 meters away from the tracks, and that's where it became my home for two years. What did your family say when you were going there? They, I'm sure, wondered what on earth I was thinking. You have to understand that there was, If today we have very little awareness of Aboriginal culture and communities, back then there was virtually none.

They were a different solitude altogether. And so as white people, we really knew nothing about Aboriginal culture and communities. and so they just, I'm sure, couldn't understand why on earth I would want to go and live in the middle of the bush without any amenities. Why did you want to go live in the bush with no amenities? You're talking no electricity? Yeah. At times no running water. One-room schoolhouse, which you thought was four kids but turns out to be 32.

Yeah. In the middle of nowhere, where you're going to be? gets to minus 40, by yourself, not a friend, not a, what was it about that that you, that made you jump at that? Well, remember that little two-year-old who went on his walk independently. The 21-year-old was the same guy. And again, I have always been comfortable with myself. And it was a good chance to be somewhere in a totally different cultural environment, a different language environment.

Peter and family could speak English, of course, but most of the families, the language was Ojibwe. and the kids had a smattering of English. And remember, that was before there was television or even a reliable radio service, for that matter. And so, you know, the inundation of mainstream culture hadn't occurred. And so it was a matter of being in the environment and observing it. recognizing that, oh, I had a role there, but I wasn't really part of it. And that's an important quality or skill, I think, that I would encourage people to develop.

By all means, be engaged. But if you can at the same time stand back and observe yourself. in that setting and come to understand who you are there, if that makes any sense. Certainly. It, you know, again, just helps with one's intellectual understanding, I think. I would assume, I just, people don't think, most people don't think like that 10 years ago, let alone right now.

We have too many distractions. We're too busy. I just think you go to the middle of nowhere, Ontario. Like I played hockey and tried it. I've been to Sue Lookout. And Sue Lookout is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. And when I looked on the map to where Collins, Ontario is, and I suggest anyone who's listening to this do the same,

it is in the middle of nowhere. So you have no, I mean, you have things to. occupy your time you could go fishing or do the trails or I'm sure there was other things but there was no you know satellite TV there was no phone there was no million different things you talk that you didn't even have you know contact really with the outside world so you were in a segregated little area with a pop a small population of people that had to have been many a night where you either sat around talking to people

or many a night of reading books or what have you. And getting to self-reflect, which most people don't get that much time to self-reflect or don't want that much time anymore to self-reflect. True. And, you know, again, it's, if you choose not to self-reflect, then you're handing over control of who you are to somebody else.

and that's never a good thing. And yeah, we didn't have the distractions. You're absolutely right. But again, the wonderful thing about living in that environment was that it was a chance for me to learn about things that I was totally unaware of. You know, I'd go out with the kids, you know, walking. You know, the kids would say, you know, I set up. some rabbit snares along such and such a trail.

And I had never set rabbit snares in my life, living in the city, of course. And so we'd go out and the kids would say, right there, there's the snare. And I'd look and I couldn't even see it, let alone know how to make one. but as I paused and looked, ah, okay, I see the snare now with the brass wire and I see how the, we call them rabbit roots, how the little branches had been put to funnel, the rabbit into the snare.

And so, you know, I learned from the kids, and I learned things about their culture and their language. And because I was willing to pause and watch and listen, they were willing to show me things that were totally beyond my experience. And so I learned some Ojibwe. I would never claim to be fluent. I learned how to read and write syllabics, which is that set of symbols that replaces our alphabet for many Aboriginal languages. I was able to teach syllabics to the kids as well,

having learned it. And it was a wonderful experience. How about getting water in minus 40? That's, again, something one learns how to do. Certainly the first time you went down to the ice and pounded a hole through, you must have been thinking, what on earth have I got myself into? Yeah, well, there was a gasoline-powered water pump in the house that had a character of its own. and there was a shallow well in front of the teacherage,

and that was fine until the weather got very cold. And then it was a matter of fetching water from the lake. And thank goodness the lake water was still drinkable in those days. And so what one would do when I got up in the morning in the wintertime, I'd take the big square wash tub, put it on the toboggan, take it down to the lake. And one had, you know, his families or his own ice hole, waterhole, that was chopped into the ice. And of course, because of the climate, the ice got pretty thick. and so you didn't want to have to chop through a meter of ice every time you wanted to get water.

So I'd take the wash tub down, fill it with a pail from the hole that I'd cleared out, and just leave it. Because if I had taken it up on the toboggan back up to the teacher, which it would have sloshed out by the time I got it up to the house. So I'd leave it and let it freeze. And then at lunchtime, I'd go down and there was enough ice formed on the top at that point. And no longer sloshed. It didn't slosh.

I didn't lose a drop. I'd take it back. How many times did you have to do that before you realized that's the way to do it? Well, again, you watch and you learn. and you see other people doing it. And similarly, how do you look after your waterhole? Could you communicate? They spoke a gibbet.

Yeah. And at the beginning you couldn't understand? Not a word. So that right there reminds me of when I was playing hockey in Finland. I couldn't speak Finnish. Yes. So you have to wrap your brain around. watching everything that happens in order to make it for lack of a better time.

So that's the way you approached everything there then I assume because you watched them how they got water, oh they left it there, why did they leave it there? Yeah. And then you watch them take it up the next time and you're like oh that makes sense. Yeah. And you know how do you save yourself an awful lot of work chopping through ice? Well once you've taken the water out you fill the hole with snow and the snow serves as a really good insulator. insulator and the next time you go down you don't have much chopping to do you just have to take

the snow and the slush and you know if there's been a snowstorm and a lot of drifting and so where is the hole well you take a little spruce bow and you plant it there so that you know where to go flagpole exactly and again you you know there are things we can learn if we pay attention and to other people. And that is something that you have to do when you can't speak the language. Yeah. Because they can't simply just sit there and go,

hey, just leave it that bowl, let it freeze because anyone wants to wash. You go, oh yeah, that's great. Like you don't have that ability when they don't speak the same language. Well, exactly. And, you know, I mean, there was a smattering. I won't say there was no English whatsoever. People did have enough language to,

to cope, but their first language was certainly Ojibwe. I had to chuckle, because when you told, I think it's, if I remember correctly, when you told the conductor where you were heading, you said it's Hollywood. Yeah. Could you just tell me that story? Sure. They changed the conductor and crew at Armstrong, which is the station just east. of Collins

and so the new conductor got on and you know walked down the coach and where are you going I'm going to Collins we call that Hollywood around here because that's where all the characters live and I thought ooh okay well

I'm not sure what kind of characters particularly but yeah Collins even though there were only about 100 people in the village. Every human quality, every human failing,

was to be found there. And, you know, alcohol abuse was a problem in the community. And of course that often would lead to violence of various sorts and even to one murder that I was aware of. And, you know, people, again, they were very distinctive as individuals. And, again, interesting to observe and learn from that range of characters. You had a word that I really enjoy in your writing to Bo Collins, and one of them was persistence.

You talked about getting a diesel generator because at times school, no matter how many lamps you had, there wasn't enough light, imagine this people. And it wasn't enough light to even read for the kids. You got a schoolhouse and you can't even do work. How much effort did it take? And it seemed like a characteristic you've had all your life is something where when you wanted something,

you just went after it and a simple no was never enough to stop you. And I find that intriguing. The, yeah, we live in a society that in many respects is too much governed by bureaucracies. And Collins, even though the school had been there for, oh, I don't know how many years, had never been electrified. And, yeah, that was problematic because cold winter mornings that were overcast. I could be there.

The kids could be there at 9 o'clock in the morning, and by and large, we were all there. But you couldn't do anything in the classroom because it was just too dull. You couldn't read a book. until things got brighter outside. And in a bureaucracy, the further away you are from a problem, the easier it is to ignore it.

And so as the teacher there, it was my problem. And so when I asked the regional office folks in Thunder Bay, you know, what can you do to get us a generation? Well, that's all done in Ottawa, and you know, it has to be budgeted for, and, you know, the budget's already in for this year, etc. You know, what... Pass the buck along. Every excuse you can imagine. And for my predecessors, I guess that excuse, that kind of excuse was acceptable.

What you find on is that that stops. Probably 96% of people in the world even today. Yeah. A simple note. That's impossible and they walk away. Yeah. They don't think any further on it. But almost anything's possible.

100%. Yeah. And so I was fortunate, I must say, at Christmas time, having, you know, being a resident of Ottawa and I went home for Christmas. I went down to Laurier Avenue, to Indian Affairs Office, found the office that is responsible for engineering projects, and I made my case. And they listened politely, but didn't do anything, of course. Again, it was part of a budget process, blah, blah. And at Easter time, I went down for the holiday. game back to the same office and I guess they had run out of novel excuses to give

and didn't really want to see me there another time and so they made the arrangements and so after my first year in the summer holidays when I got back the crew was there installing lights in the class and electrifying the teacherage and it was a totally different place. And we were able, every Friday night, we'd order movies in. I ordered a 16mm projector, and again, nowadays who uses film in a projector, but you know, I got a projector and we would order movies from the distributor and win And they'd come, Winnipeg, Sioux Lookout, onto the way freight, and to Collins.

And we'd show the movie in the schoolhouse. You know, whoever was in the village would crowd in. And, you know, we'd enjoy, oh gosh, a Western or whatever was popular in the day. Do you remember what the first movie was you show? Ooh. I believe it was a movie that was a biography of who sang the country and western song Your Cheaton Heart

Oh now you're racking my brain Ah, well it was before your time obviously But whoever that was An American country and western singer who ended up in pretty dire straits because of alcohol. Hank Williams. Hank Williams. And that, I believe, was among the first movies that we got in.

If you could, if you go back to that time when you just introduced power for the first time to a community and a movie for... Yeah. What was the atmosphere like? like with everyone, were they over the moon? Oh, you know, it was something everyone looked forward to. You know, again, there weren't a whole lot of other entertainments available. And, yeah, it made the school a much more significant part of the community. It wasn't just something that the government imposed on them.

And believe me, in those days, the policies were imposed. positions on Aboriginal people. You know, again, policies set by people who had vague cultural goals, you know, I.E. to convert all of the Aboriginal people into productive white people in society. And of course, that was an impossible goal to achieve and an inappropriate one but that wasn't necessarily obvious at the time and so yeah again one it just helped me become part of the community as well you mentioned trying to convert the way of life into what we know you spent And I don't know the exact amount of years, but you weren't from Collins.

I'm probably going to torture the name, Wobokwe. Well, to Webiquet. Webberkway for a couple months. Yeah, on that leaf. Fort Hope, Garden Hill, Sandy Bay. Yeah. Like, you spent a large chunk of your life on reserve schools? Yeah.

Is that fair to say? Yeah. Collins wasn't on a reserve per se. It was on Crownland, but it was a reserve. federal school, interestingly, something of an anomaly. So I find talking to you, you have a very knowledgeable background in a prominent issue today. First Nations people are put onto reserves. There are problems there. That problem gets expounded now, and social media has put a divide between everyone. I just find you come from a very unique perspective. I could sit here and try and

get, you know, waddle my way through the issue, but the truth of the matter is I haven't done half of what you've done. I've read a few books. That's better than a lot of people, but not good enough to sit and try and truly dissect and figure out what to do there. Coming from all the years you've seen of going through the different communities, is there a way to walk back out of that? Or is it just a very giant issue facing our society? It's a very giant issue indeed. And there's not an easy road out of the challenges. You know, you have to appreciate.

And this is something I did come to appreciate. The Aboriginal cultures, and there were many, depending on the part of the country, you lived in, the Aboriginal cultures evolved over thousands of years, and they evolved to be successful in their respective environments, in natural environment as well as social environment. And so the family groups, for example, and again, people in our society, our white society, don't understand this well. The family units were the basis of survival in the bush. every family would typically have its traditional hunting and trapping area and the families would come together at treaty time

or prior to the arrival of white society they would get together for certain cultural festivals I guess but then they'd go back out. They didn't have to develop the social interaction skills that are needed for someone to survive in an urban environment. They didn't have to develop the governance structures that are so important to keeping our lives in order and services provided. They were relatively independent. units as family units. And they had those skills and they served them well for centuries.

And then our society invaded and tried to change in the guise of improving their lot in life. We changed their way of life. but we didn't do it in a thoughtful manner. We created reserves and drew people in for education or health services such as they were. But the people didn't have the social skills to deal with that congregated setting. The people had to learn those. They didn't have the governance structure. You know, we talk about, you know, nowadays chief and band council and so on, as though they were the same as the mayor and city council.

They weren't and they aren't in many situations. The affiliation of those individual family units was very, very, very low. loose to any kind of formal band or tribal organization. People would join and leave, they would, you know, associate with this respected chief for a while. If they got tired of that association, they would more associate with this family cluster over here. And so there was that informality of

of connection. And again, so foreign to our democratic institutions that we're so accustomed to. And when government policy, you know, drew these people in, they were lacking in the governance and interaction skills. And I don't say that in a demeaning way. way, but they just hadn't developed them to work in that urban environment and to top it all off. The reserves never or rarely had economic resources or opportunities to provide any kind of a

dignified existence on the reserve. And so the effects of abject poverty were piled on top of the challenges of a radically different social context for which people were not prepared. And that's not even to talk about the effects of residential schools. That's another story altogether. was an interesting place. I was principal there for three years. It was initially a six and then ultimately an eight-room school. And by and large, it was a relatively successful school, in a relatively stable social environment,

Fort Hope. Fort Hope was a relatively new settlement. Things hadn't had a chance to deteriorate badly in a social or government sense. People were still in the building phase of their community. But unfortunately, over time, what was a fairly positive and environment. I watch the news and I read about the addiction problems for oxicontum that beset, it's estimated about half of the village population or the town population at this point. And, you know, again, that's a function amongst other things of misguided government policies, abject poverty and desperation on the part of the people there. Intel it means a lot to you.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you fix something that you were a part of breaking? That's a big question. I think when it comes to the size of the problem, it's not one community. It's systematic. It's bigger than one thing.

But I think, and I am half your age, experience less than half of what you've done, especially in some of the communities you went through. But you've been in leadership roles. And I think leadership, especially at the highest of levels, you really need to understand what your choices and how they're going to impact. And if you've never experienced some of the things you've experienced, how can you possibly know? And so to fix problems, the complicated procedure that might have to,

or that would have to go on, you'd have to have some incredibly smart experienced people. And I don't know that you can get a room full of those people together. No, it's very difficult. A, it's difficult to find those who, have the tools are wherewithal to develop policy or provide resources, it's difficult to find people who understand the problem. It's difficult as well, and again, it's presumptuous and stupid, frankly, for an outsider to think that he can fix somebody else's problem. Even if we as a society were part of creating that problem. It's only the Aboriginal people who are

going to be able to address the issues that dominate life on reserves. Again, you know, our society took hundreds if not thousands of years to evolve. It's understanding of the value of democracy. And, you know, as a student of history, I have an inkling of how imperfect our democracies have been over the years. You know, go back 100 years, well, a little over 100 years. and who had the franchise to vote. Well, it was only men. Go back a few years beyond that,

and it was only men of a certain wealth. And, you know, gradually, we have learned that there are better ways of organizing our society and governing it. And we've made all of the mistakes along the way. All of the possible stupid things that could have been done were done. And as societies, we've worked our way through those, and although we're certainly imperfect now in our political structures, we've come a long, long way.

People living, especially in remote reserves, haven't had those centuries to evolve their understandings and practices. in democratic institutions. There's a tendency in some communities to use political power for, if not personal gain, at least the gain of one's family or connected people. And in too many reserves, there's always an in-group and an out-group. and then maybe the next election, they switch places.

But again, there's a challenge. You have to appreciate that when you've got local control, you've got local responsibility. And that responsibility is to all of the people in the community. Nepotism. I read it. You taught me a word yesterday. I loved learning new words.

Nepotism was one that you'd written about, and I didn't read it, and I understood it in the sentence, but I hadn't, I said it, and then I'm not saying the definition. So nepotism is the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. And I think in terms of the one year that I spent at Garden Hill Reserve in northern Manitoba as principal of the school there. And the school at that time was still an Indian Affairs school, but the policy was to encourage the development of a local school committee and give as much control as possible to that committee in the running of the school. Well, a school is there first and foremost to serve the learning needs of the children,

but in a context where there aren't enough jobs to support a community, those jobs become real plums to hand out. and in that setting there was a tendency for those plums to be given to the relatives of those with political power in the village, regardless of the competence of the individual. And I had relatively high standards and expectations of people working in the school. And if a job had been given to someone who wasn't prepared for it, who didn't really care particularly about serving the students, but they were there because they were the chief's nephew,

then we had problems. And so although I'd say all of the places, as I worked were satisfying in many ways. Garden Hill was the one exception. What I find or why nepotism stuck out to me, especially when I read it and I was like, huh, that's an interesting word, is you don't have to look just at reserves to see that.

You can go pretty much anywhere in any walk of life and see nepotism. Yes. Politics is by far one that's easy to follow along and see what it has done. there. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of power and ability to do things at that level. And if you follow that, you can see it anywhere or everywhere. There are some very recent examples of that in the Alberta government, aren't there? There certainly are. You know, we've been talking an awful lot about your time,

and I want to make sure that we talk about some other things because there are some other things. things in your life that are pretty significant. And I think you're, you know, we talked about before I hopped on. You're about to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary. To Louise. Lois. Lois. Of course.

I had to say the wrong way. Lois. How, how, let's talk about some happy times. Not that these, the other ones, your experiences aren't. But let's talk about Lois here. How did you meet her? Okay. Back years ago, it was possible for one to become a teacher with one year of teacher college training after high school in Ontario.

So go to school for one year and here's your degree, go start teaching kids. Yeah, it wasn't a degree. It was a teaching certificate. But yes, and that's the program that I could afford. When you go to Collins then, how much are you making off a one-year teaching degree? Well, that was my second year of teaching. Oh, sorry, second, yes, yes, yes, sorry. My first year in Ottawa, I made $3,800 for the year. For the year?

For the year. Okay. In Collins, because of the isolation pay, et cetera, I made $4,200 for the year. And was that good money? Yeah, it was. And the reason I would say that is that when I compare my earnings in my second year of teaching, I made more in that one year than my father

ever made as a clerk working for the CNR for his entire career. And so, relatively speaking, it wasn't a bad salary. Say that again. You made more money. than your father did? Yeah, after working as a clerk for the CNR, for, oh gosh, I don't know, let's say 30 years at that point, 25 years, his annual salary was less than what I made with my $4,200 every second year.

And so, again, you can always say whether something is a good or a poor salary in relation to you. And so that's the gauge that I use. Okay. Well, then let's go back to your wife or your... Yes. Let's go back to Lois.

So anyway, because I only had very limited training and formal education, during the summers, I would go back and knock off a couple of university courses as I worked on my Bachelor of Arts degree at that point. And after two years in Collins, I went back for a full year to the University of Ottawa. And it was during that year that mutual friends introduced Lois and I. And over the course of several months, we found each other quite acceptable. I love when I talk to people around your age, acceptable comes up all the, you know, we were acceptable. What is acceptable mean?

We got along well. We understood each other. We tolerated each other as individuals. What did you do for your first day? Do you remember your first day? Yeah. It was a party that I hosted over at my mother's house, actually. down in our rec room in the basement and just a small gathering of friends and Lois came along with one of her friends.

Lois was a laboratory technologist at the Ottawa Civic Hospital and one of her acquaintances in the same program was the girlfriend of a chap I took some courses with at the U.S. University of Ottawa. And so as mutual friends do, they set us up and we went on from there. When you talk about dating someone or getting married to somebody, the words I keep hearing are acceptable and tolerate. Compared to today, I feel like you're looking for the needle and the haste. Well, and maybe you were back then too. I shouldn't overstate that. But I don't hear acceptable or tolerate anymore when people are looking for a companion. Was it was marriage looked at differently do you think back then? I think interpersonal relationships were much less

casual than they are now in the sense that you know even even from the point of view of you know, engaging in sexual activity. Birth control was not commonly available in those days, and I think many people were much more cautious about their relationships than they are nowadays. So, you know, there wasn't that instant hookup that I think may be popular in most circles today. It tended not to be done.

And I think in many respects we were closer to some of the traditional values, if you like, of our forefathers, four mothers. So again, there was a little more reserve, perhaps, in the relationships than less familiarity, instant familiarity was typically not there. So what was it about Lois then that drew you in? Ah. She was bright. she, again, seemed to pay attention to who I was.

And, you know, again, we were able to share ideas and thoughts and understandings. And she had a little bit of an adventurous spirit as well, knowing that, you know, I was going to be in Ottawa for a year, and then it was back up to the bush. And, you know, she was someone adventurous enough to take the risk of going into, again, what was for her, a very foreign environment. She grew up on a dairy farm outside of Ottawa, and, you know, a very small community, very much with its own cultural tradition. settled by Irish and Scots settlers. And, you know, she had no knowledge of Aboriginal people whatsoever.

I'm not sure she had even met one. And she was willing to take a chance and come with me as my wife to, again, if you thought Collins was in the middle of nowhere, Fort Hope was 125 miles northeast of there. And a fly-in location, no roads. No betting the first night either. No betting the first night. I can imagine you may have heard a few choice words about that.

No, no. You know, again, it was a matter of attitude. Well, how are we going to make this work? and so we did. Again, a degree of self-reliance, I guess, is the key. How did you propose? How did I propose? We went up on a drive into the Gatineau Hills, north of Ottawa,

stopped at a lookout there, and I asked if she would marry. Did you have the ring already? Did you? I did. I did. And, you know, it was modest, I suppose, by many standards. Because although my salary was okay, it was, didn't allow luxuries particularly. But it was sufficient to the occasion.

Where, how was the wedding? How many people size? Was it in Ottawa? No, it was in Lois's home village of North Gore, Ontario, which is about 20 miles south of Ottawa. And the wedding was conducted in an Anglican church because the checkered religious affiliations of her family, whether they were Presbyterian or Anglican,

was moot, decade to decade. And so anyway, nominally Lois was a member of the Anglican Church. I was previously a member of the Presbyterian Church. And we met her and her family's expectations, I guess, in terms of going through the instruction that was the premarital instruction given by the local Anglican clergyman. And one of the parts of the Anglican ceremony that Lois noted without a lot of zeal, it used to say in the book of common prayer, I don't know if it still does, wives submit yourselves to

your husbands. She's willing to engage and collaborate, but submission is not a watchword that she would readily use. I've always argued with my wife on the Bamar of Submission. I think that's, I think I married my wife because. she's one of the smartest women I've ever met. And to not approach it that way, you lose half of the equation. And she has a different perspective and a very smart perspective from mine.

When you get two smart minds working on a problem from different angles, you can usually figure it out. And why on earth would you ever quiet one side and say it's on my way or the highway? It made no sense to me. It makes no sense whatsoever because if you have only one smart mind available, It tends to become arrogant and it tends to go down a wrong path. And there's no one there to catch you and say, hey, take a look here. There's got to be another way.

And so, yeah, if you're very fortunate, you will be connected with a spouse with that. perspective and ability your first child when she is born you were nowhere near her yeah her sorry yes you're up north and Lois is in Ottawa correct yeah we were at that time I was beginning my principal ship in Garden Hill Reserve in northeastern Manitoba at Island Lake and of course there weren't any maternity facilities available there. And so we thought it best if Lois stayed behind

where we did have family in Ottawa. And so, yeah, Josie was born in September at Riverside Hospital in Ottawa. Again, there's a communications difference.

Back then, Island Lake was served by a radio phone. a radio phone that was over actually in the Hudson Bay store on the island nearby the reserve. And it was, first of all, it was over the radio waves. Anything that was broadcast was anything but private. Secondly, it was subject to atmospheric interference.

So if it wasn't a perfect weather day, you were pooched. Exactly. And so in the end, the word of Josie's birth got to me three days after the fact, brought in by one of the pilots flying for St. Andrew's Airways who came into the community. I don't know if difficult is the right word. but how tough was that to be sitting so far away from the birth of your first child and not having three of my own almost missing the first one by how quickly he came yeah um i read that and i found man that must have been difficult well you wonder you know just where things are

in the process and how people are doing and um you know i had every confidence that things would go well and that there was adequate support available and there was. But, you know, one is distracted certainly by those musings and I was very pleased and relieved to ultimately get the message. Yeah, even with the birth of our second child, Kayla, I missed that one as well. We were living on Sandy Bay Reserve in southern Manitoba at that point, about 60 miles north of Portage-La Prairie. Lois went in the night before, and I was supposed to be called,

as the birth was imminent. The message never got out to me, And so again, I arrived a wee bit late for that birth as well. But at least the same day. And so that was an improvement. Back then, were the men in the delivery room with the women giving birth? Absolutely not. No.

I was thinking that. So as big of a deal as it was that you weren't there for yourself, You weren't supposed to be in the delivery room anyway. No. It wasn't like you're missing out on that part. You're missing out on being around after the child had been born. Yeah. After your daughters have been born.

Yes. And, you know, again, one had the satisfaction, I suppose, of being at hand. You were down the hall in the waiting room kind of thing. And could go in a suitable point. But it was a very clinical process. It was something between the mother and the doctors at that point. Husbands were not involved and were not welcome to become involved at that stage. Did you think that was ridiculous at the time?

Do you wish you could have been in the delivery room or you're like, you know what, I don't really need to be in there? No, I think the latter is more of the case. I'll say this, I'm not a queasy guy. But on Casey, our last one born, they had to put a chair there, and I had to sit with my head pretty much in between my legs because I was, it was, it's a stressful time. And I, I kudos and hats off to every single woman out there who gives birth. Yeah. Because that process is not an easy one. Yes.

And, you know, I'm sure I would not have been helpful in the circumstances. Over 50 years coming up on 50 years. When you look back at being married to a woman that long, what are some of the lessons learned or advice you could give to people who are just starting out in a marriage as something that you should try to stick to or impart on your journey to last 50 years? 50 years is a long time. 50 years is an accomplishment because, I mean, just every year that goes by divorce just becomes a very common thing. Yeah.

And less of a judgmental, not that that's ever right. But it used to be that you're kind of like, yeah, they got the, now it's just like, it's almost applauded if you get it. They got divorced. It wasn't working. Yeah. One of the greatest challenges, I think, to us as we age is not to become caricatures of ourselves.

We have a tendency, if we have a character trait of some sort. to build that trait out so that it becomes more dominant. It becomes who we are. And anything drawn out too far, it's one thing to have a character, it's another thing to be a character. And, you know, if we're not careful, we can become cartoons of ourselves.

And I think a good marriage is one where the partners help each other temper the tendencies that each individual has so that we don't take them too far. So then my next obvious question is how has your wife helped temper you or in what way has she done that? to ensure that you don't go down the road that you don't want to go down. Yeah. Or to go down the road that I did want to go down and shouldn't have. And, no, it's, again, a matter of respecting the partner, the partner, listening. Who is this person? What's important to her?

how do I balance off that with what I think is important to me and where are the trade-offs possible? And without sacrificing one's integrity to temper some of the tendencies that we might have and that's a mutual process and I think as a consequence we end up as better, more understanding, tolerant people

than we otherwise might be left to our own devices. I think what I hear out of that is communication, a lot of communication, and the ability to listen to what the other person is saying. Yeah, yeah. But again, without losing one's own integrity, and, you know, that's where the ability to compromise comes into play. And there are those individuals, you know, who would relate to Frank Sinatra singing, I did it my way, who would say, oh, no, you know, if you're compromising, you're giving up too much, you're giving up, she's giving up, and neither of you ends up with what you want.

Well, sometimes, quite often, in fact, again, if you temper what you want and bear in mind how it affects others, then you end up as a better person, as a kind of. consequence. How is fatherhood been? I'm sorry? How has fatherhood been being a father? Like most fathers, I suspect, in retrospect, I wish I had spent more time with my family, with my daughters as they grew up. You know, I was perhaps more career. focused than I could have been. And you know, I never get those years back. You don't get a redo as you see your children develop. Now as it turned out, they turned out a real credit to themselves. But I wish I had been more engaged, perhaps. The plus, and I rationalize perhaps here a little bit, the plus though is that because I was often otherwise engaged in career

or studies, they developed some of the independent sense. of character and thought that I think serves them really, really well in their lives and careers now. You know, we hear or read in these days of so-called helicopter parents who keep tabs on every move, every saying, every thought, every friendship that their children have and they intervene. to make sure everything happens the way the parent thinks it should be. Those parents are not doing their children a favor. There's a golden mean somewhere between indifference and over-commitment that helps children become who they can be.

And given the way the girls have turned out, one an elementary school teacher, the other a social worker, they've done well. What was one of your biggest fears of your children? The fear that they would not realize their individual potential. you know that they would make some dumb choice that prevented them realizing who they could become. And to their credit, they have found the right paths for them. What did you do in order to try and prevent that from happening? You know, I don't know if I can claim a lot of credit for preventing that other than to set a tone, I suppose, in the household to the extent that I did set the tone of high expectations

and giving them opportunities to think for themselves and to be available to them if they needed help. with something. But again, not to overimpose as a parent. If that passive

approach, I guess, has anything to recommend it, then I could be credited with that to some degree. Well, I think we best talk about Lloyd for a little bit. Yeah, really. Your life up until Lloyd, and this is to diminish nothing you've done in Lloyd,

is fascinating. And I find your journey how you got here is just as important, if not more so, than the things you've imparted on Lloyd. And, you know, one of the tough things, you know, when you have insight into this, because you were one of the first conversations, you had with me about trying to do this. And my style of doing it is, you know, I've listened to a lot of the old archive interviews. And I laugh when I start doing them because I take that format and pretty much throw it in the garbage. Not that I don't think it works, but it doesn't work for me.

And so the journey is as much the intriguing part as the actual time spent in the way, even if you'd spent your entire life here. Some of the things you've done shape how you thought about. the time you got here and that in itself is very very interesting and so I you know it's taken us a while to get here but now we're to Lloyd and we've skipped a few things and I hate to do that but this is why when I talk to your board we go well it should only be a 45 minute to an hour conversation I laugh about that because I've learned 45 minutes doesn't get you very far if you want to really truly find something out about somebody

When you first went through Lloyd, before you even came to Lloyd, what did you think? We came through Lloyd in 1978 on our way from Manitoba to Barhead, Alberta. And Lloyd Minster was an overnight stop along the way. And we stayed at a motel, still in existence over on the Saskatchewan side. What motel would that be? Oh, what's the name? of it now. You've stumped me on that. It's between 49th Avenue and 48th or 47th. I'll leave that part blank. But we stopped there. I was driving the U-Haul truck with our furniture and one of the girls would ride with me. and Lois was driving our state, well, no, it was a Dodge sedan pulling the tent trailer behind us.

And so we stopped overnight in Lloyd. And there was a bit of a northwest wind, a breeze on that occasion. And we enjoyed the smell wafting from. the asphalt refinery and I said to Lois thank God we don't have to live here not knowing that ultimately this would become home and so ten years later it did become home and what what brought you to Lloyd what was the opportunity or what drew it out back here yeah it was the opportunity I in my previous situation in the county of Barhead, northwest of Edmonton. I was the deputy superintendent of schools.

And Barhead was a wonderful situation, but one of the things that has been a hallmark, I suppose, of my career is that I've had a tendency to look at, well, what's the next rung on the professional ladder and well obviously to go from a deputy superintendent would be a superintendent and if we use Alberta terminology it's superintendent if we use Saskatchewan terminology in Lloydminster which we do it's the director of education's job and so it became vacant and the board advertised and I saw the advertisement and came for an interview and I guess I ticked off most of the boxes that the board here had in mind and so I was offered the job. So over your time in Lloyd, which is no short time, you were 16 years? Yeah, 16 and a half actually. What sticks out to you over your 16 and a half

years then? Is something maybe you could hang your hat on or that you're most proud of If I were cynical, I would say survival. And 16 years is probably longer than any other director of education or superintendent in Saskatchewan or Alberta has put in. I don't know if it's a record, but it would certainly be up there. And I think that speaks to a degree of leadership. and adaptability. It speaks to an awareness of context and moving forward

at a rate that is acceptable to the community, whether it's the community as represented by the Board of Education or the community is represented by the teachers in the organization or the support staff in the organization or the community as a whole as a as the business community or residential community that pays the the taxes to support the education enterprise and so again I think some very positive changes took place under my watch

over that period of time. And by and large, the changes were successful. What's one of the biggest things you've seen change with? I mean, obviously you had teachers reporting you and principals. What's the biggest change then over your time, that 16 years that you saw with that process? I think part of the change that was most significant, and I still am delighted to see that change continue to evolve today, is a shift away on the part of teachers, away from focusing, in some cases, almost entirely on the curriculum,

to increasingly be aware of their role as helping learners learn. Lazy teachers, or those who were caught up in a very traditional school environment, would get their program of studies, and they would teach that content. Now the fact that they were teaching it was one thing. The other side of the coin, and the question is, were the kids learning it? And were they learning it well? And in the best classrooms they were, because the teachers were sensitive to the learning processes that their students were going through.

less competent teachers, it was much easier just to teach the content. And if the kids got it, good, if they didn't, that was their problem. Obviously they weren't trying. And so they would be graded down, as it were. There's been an evolution in education, and it continues to evolve. And I'm delighted to see that process shift. So is it, you are of the mindset, teachers, do the right things, more children will succeed. Whereas instead of maybe the thought process,

if the children wants it, they'll succeed. Yeah. Did I say that right? Yeah, yeah. That's certainly a part of it. If I'm being simplistic, teaching is really quite straightforward. Good teaching is a matter of being aware of the curriculum and the things that are to be taught, but good teaching is a matter of reading the students.

So what does this child, and each child is individual? What does this child understand about this particular concept, whether it's math or reading or social studies or science or what have you? Where is that child's mind now vis-a-vis that content? And how can I, as a teacher, stimulate the child to frame what he or she knows and then to ask the questions that cause him or her to question what he thinks he understands or she understands. And then you make available the resources that will allow the student to evolve, to grow, from what they thought they knew to something more sophisticated and refined.

that's what good teaching is but it can't be done without engaging the student as a person you have to respect the student first and foremost enough to

ask the question okay so where are you in your understanding of this content and I'm going to adapt this so that that's the starting point. If I don't adapt it, if I'm just trying to communicate some concept that's out in left field,

the kid might by rote, memorize temporarily and then regurgitate for an exam or test or what have you, and then it's gone. You have not succeeded as a teacher in that case. But if you've helped that child's understanding to grow and given them a basis to let them grow even further, you've done your job.

Did you like being a teacher then? Or did you like being the superintendent? I liked being the superintendent. And part of the reason for that is that I really don't like to be locked into rigid routines. I like to be able to choose what I want to focus on at any given time and the independence, I guess, quasi-independence that came with being the principal or the superintendent or the director.

of education. I had more latitude, I guess. Again, that element of independence of character came through a wee bit there. That's interesting. What about, well, let's, my brain is going to all different ways. What about Jack Kemp School? There was something that you have played a part in and helping build, I believe. Yeah. We took the process from the very beginning, which unfortunately involved the replacement and demolition of the old Neville Goss School.

Jack Kemp School became its replacement. The old Neville Goss School, at one time was the high school in Lloydminster and then converted to an elementary school. And it became somewhat decrepit, despite really good maintenance practices in this school division. And it just needed to be replaced. And as is the case with so many buildings, it costs more to renovate and bring up to code an old structure than it does to start from scratch on a new one. And so that was the impetus and it was a matter of acquiring the land for the school site,

which was an interesting process in itself. It took a lot of negotiating with the then landowner, and then figuring out the optimal design for the school. the building itself. And again, if you were to go over to that building, you would find one that is very, very functional. It's very well built. It's going to last 100 years without any problem.

And it was built with durable surfaces and all of those good things that make it easy to clean, etc. The provision was there for the addition of relocatable classrooms if and as needed, and they were needed. I negotiated with the city of Lloyd Minster to pay for part of the gymnasium because the building guidelines in both Alberta and Saskatchewan provided for a pitifully small. gym for an elementary school, totally unsuited to the needs. And so I was able to work with the city of Lloydminster, and we agreed that if the city paid for effectively what was adding 50% to the allowable size, if you like, that we would ensure that the gymnasium, was always available for after-school use for community recreation activities.

And the city was wise enough to make that investment, and as a consequence, we have a very good gymnasium over at Jack Camp. So, yeah, I'm pleased with that design. It's going to be there much longer than some of the throwaway, buildings that are being constructed nowadays for school purposes. What's one of the biggest changes you've seen in Lloyd over your years here? In the city or in the school system? I think in the city.

In the city? We've become bigger and bigger is not necessarily better. If you read Greek philosophy at all, you'll read Aristotle saying that the ideal size of a city is about 10,000 people. Because in a city of 10,000, you have enough population to have all of the services and opportunities one might want. but you're all so small enough to be intimately involved in its governance. As Lloyd, well, Lloyd Minster had about 17,000 people in 1988 when I came here, and we've grown to, well, we were over 30,000, goodness knows what it is now.

And with that increase in size, I've found that people are becoming ironically more distanced. from each other, even though we've got more population. There isn't the degree of involvement. For example, take a look at involvement in service clubs in the community. Many of them struggle nowadays to get people to join and participate in the activities. Churches, not that I'm a churchgoer,

but churches, you know, find it more difficult to fill the pews and, you know, to be the influences that they once were in the community. People have become more distanced from each other, even though there are more of us here. And there's a loss there. And, you know, even in city administration, I've noticed the organization has become much bigger, much more bureaucratic, even the school division. After I left, added more staff, more people doing specialized duties, and just making it a more complex

bureaucracy and I think there's a tendency to lose that human interaction in that kind of a context. What was Lloyd like then when you first came and it was 17,000 people? Did they have pavement everywhere? Were they, what did you do for fun when you came here? I mean, you're a guy who's went to a play. You know, it's interesting to watch. You talk about progression. And that's what it was. You started in the community of 100, and it went to 200, then a thousand, then, then, then, and you end up in Lloyd as kind of the culminating, you know, the final act, so to speak. And you get to a place that has 17,000 people. What were the highlights of moving to Lloyd at that time in 1988?

Well, again, moving to, and I'll contradict myself, the fact that Lloyd had 17,000 people in the town of Barhead where we lived had almost 3,000. There were more amenities here. There was a movie theater that actually had multiple theaters. within it, unlike the single theater facility in Barhead. Along ways from Collins, where you were showing movies in your one-room school. Exactly, yeah. And so there were those physical amenities that were, you know, nice to have. And again, the challenge of working in

our unique bi-provincial setting here. And bear in mind, I had worked, well, you know, as a teacher and had my certificates from Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and then Saskatchewan when I moved here, I've had a chance to see different contexts. and if you don't, well, my kids and are sick of me hearing this, hearing me say this from time to time, but you never ask the goldfish what she thinks of the water.

And the significance of that is that the goldfish has been in, little bowl all her life. She knows nothing else. So the water is what the water is in that bowl. And it's important to have other perspectives to bring on situations. In the education context, it was helpful, I think, challenging and frustrating to many of our teachers I'm afraid at the time. It was helpful for me to bring some of the perspectives that I'd learned in, especially Manitola and Alberta, to the Saskatchewan context here. Because frankly, this Saskatchewan education culture had become very complacent and very self-satisfied.

And people didn't challenge each other very much to change or improve or modernize. There was a great emphasis on interpersonal relationships among teachers with their principal, with their superintendent, the director, and with the Board of Education, and with them with the Department of Education. and we're all very comfortable with each other. We know each other well and we know we're good people and so we don't have to change anything. Because good people must be doing good work, right? Well, not necessarily.

Good people perhaps could do better work and they need to take a step back and ask themselves. So what are we doing? What are we doing? And how does it compare with what things are being accomplished by others? And so that was one of the greatest challenges in coming to Lloyd Minster into what had become a very comfortable work environment, professional environment,

and one that hadn't been moving forward. in terms of keeping up with curriculum development. Being a guy who would be deemed an outsider, was it a comfortable situation coming into, or did you have some tough years of slugging being that guy? They were always tough years. But again, as we've discussed, I've very often been the outsider.

Actually, all your life you've been the outsider. Yeah. And so I had learned to cope with that, again, to the annoyance, quite often of people I work with. But that's who I was. How did you cope? What do you mean cope? By paying attention to people to,

listening to them by politely disagreeing sometimes, by challenging them, by, you know, for example, on international achievement testing that was done periodically. Canadian provinces would have schools participate and schools from different countries around the world would essentially, you know, write the same exams at comparable grade levels.

Canada tended to be among the top half dozen, typically, but within Canada, Saskatchewan consistently was in the bottom third in terms of student achievement. You know, ability to read, ability to solve mathematical problems, ability to write coherently. So you saw that as a challenge to improve that? Yeah. And again, the idea, the very idea of using external benchmarks to measure local achievement

was something that was totally foreign and very threatening to the, to the the educators, to many educators, not all, in the community. Because they thought they were doing quite well, thank you very much. And who are you to come in and change the way we've always done things? But change was needed. And again, there were flaws, I admit, in in the testing program because Saskatchewan had nothing like standardized testing as a province at that time. And so I arranged for the Alberta tests to be used in our schools.

Now, it could be reasonably argued that the Alberta curriculum is a little different from the Saskatchewan, and that's true, but not substantially different. and when it comes to basic skills of students, really they should measure up to similar standards. But the very idea of bringing in an external standard, you don't trust me as a teacher to evaluate my own kids and give them the mark? Well, yeah, I trust you if you're using appropriate criteria. So let's talk about the criteria.

And if they're not really well defined, well, then let's get some benchmarks where we can find them. And let's pay attention to what they tell us. Unfortunately, there's a tendency among many teachers, and I don't want to use too broad brush here because Lloydminster has had and does have some excellent teachers. But there's a tendency when a different idea, a new idea, is put on the table. There's a tendency for some teachers, all right, if we have to adapt or adopt this change, we'll adopt it and we'll throw out what we were doing before. No, you don't have to throw out the base.

maybe with the bathwater. Take the best of this idea, marry it with the best of what you have been doing, because you have been doing some things very well, and everyone's going to be better for it. But to find that balance between change that is disruptive and change that is productive, that's a hard balance to strike. And that was the challenge to leadership.

Change is always, there are very few people who like change. So change to, I can see that as people find that threatening. Yeah. That's an easy thing to connect the dots there. I wonder over your lifetime now, when you look back at everything you've done, What was your favorite decade? What span of time did you enjoy the most? I'm living it.

Your 70s? Yeah. What about it then? I suppose if one were to use a building metaphor, it's not perfect. You know, as you live your life, you're constructing something. You're building it. And hopefully as you're building, you learn the skills and wisdom,

hopefully wisdom at some point, that comes along with that stage of life. And if you make a point of it and not become lazy, intellectually lazy, lazy. If you keep reading, if you keep thinking, if you keep current with developments in the world, if you keep engaged with your community, you grow. You know, when I was writing the family histories. It,

and I was doing the section, and I left it to the end, the section on me, I just added that in because I started with grandparents at that level. One of the choices I had to make was what picture, if I had to choose a picture to put in this document

that was the picture of Don Duncan, Which picture would it be? Would it be the youngster toddling down the street as a two-year-old? Would it be the 16-year-old in sea cadets? Would it be the young teacher up in the bush? Would it be the student at the University of Alberta? Would it be the Director of Education? Who is this person?

And I guess although I was each and every one of them, I'm now the sum of them. I'm different from each of them. And I've benefited, I hope, from some of the insights that each of those stages of life gave me and I'm delighted at this stage in my life to have the time to read and reflect, to learn and to try and round out a little bit what little I know. But then, if you could go back to your 21-year-old self, if you could sit down and have a conversation like this? You sit across from young Don. Don's sitting there.

He's full of piss and vinegar. He's on his way out into the bush. What piece of advice would you give him? Be humble. Don't presume that you've got the answers for other people. be humble but be engaged and if you can try to provide some leadership and make a situation better be engaged finally what is the biggest one event you've witnessed read a boat seen whichever way you want to take it Over your lifetime, what is the one thing that sticks out?

Which is probably pretty tough one thing. But if you had on a world scale, what is the one thing that you go, I remember I was sitting here, I could not believe this just went down. Yeah. Well, it's not so much an event as a process. And the extent to which we're degrading, the only planet that we have to live on, That's what I've been watching and realizing that the standard of material life that we have come to expect and demand is outstripping the capacity of the planet to support it. and as population increases around the world,

and we're at what something better than 7 billion people now, we're using the world's resources at a rate that would require three planets to support on a sustainable basis. And that's terrifying. You may have read that I spent a little bit of time in India. I did. I was there for five weeks.

And one of the reflections, I guess, again, as the outsider observing, was I really hope that I am not seeing our future here. with overpopulation, poverty, terrible living conditions, inordinate disparity of wealth with concentration of wealth in the hands of very few and abject poverty on the part of the many. I hope I'm not looking at our general future. And I'm not sure that I see the wisdom, among our leaders today to anticipate the challenges that we face and to figure out ways of dealing with them constructively. It's concerning.

And again, it's not going to be easy to change. to change our culture to the point where we address some of the issues meaningfully. Maybe we have some chances now. The lessons that we can learn from the current pandemic situation may be helpful. But unfortunately, there are always demagogues out there who blithely promised to lead the people back to an imagined golden age that probably never existed. And if we try to accomplish that image of a golden age, we're going to need five or six planets worth of resources to support those wants.

And those five or six planets simply are not there. then what does the average citizen do? The average citizen is going to have to get his nose out of his mobile device. He's going to have to see him or herself in the context of a challenging environment, social, political, economic and physical and be willing to make some changes. The problem, well there are different problems. it's awareness and again to come back to the challenges that come with modern communication. Even recently in Lloyd Minster, we had two local newspapers.

newspapers. We had a local television station. That television station had an hour-long news program every night of the week that featured the important things that were taking place in our community. Even goes smaller than that in Hillmont where I grew up, which was a farming community. Yeah. Had a part in the paper that was written by a local woman. Precisely. There was that engagement, a recognition, that where we live is vital to how we live.

And important. And very important to us. And so now, though, if you want news, where do we get it? Well, the newspaper, there's only one sort of now, and it really doesn't have much in the way of full-time reporting staff. they're essentially on a gig type assignment. There is no such thing as local news to speak of on the local television station. Even local radio, the content has been farmed out to the multinational.

We could probably go down this road for two hours, ten days, because I was just saying, you know, Wayne Wright FM. Wayne FM. Yeah. For a few years there, their show was lackluster, and now it's gotten better. It sounds really good. But you'll notice they never say, hey, we're coming alive from Wayne Wright. Yeah. Because what they've done is they've farmed it out to their top talented team in Calgary or Vancouver, wherever they're at.

I have no idea. And they never say they're in Vancouver. They never say they're in, well, maybe they say Alberta, I'm not sure. But when you listen to them, they're very good at never saying where they are. Yeah. which is great. I mean, you get the top talent on your local station, but you get none of the local to it. Yeah. And you see, this is part of, and unfortunately, I don't think, I'm not one to see conspiracy theories. I'm one though that recognizes, who recognizes that organizations take on lives of themselves.

and in the entertainment industry, they have become much more professionalized and much more concentrated, and they've gotten away from the local coverage to something that is much more general, much more corporate, much blander, much less controversial, much more soothing, much less thought-provoking for their audience, much less offensive to the potential sponsors.

And so everything becomes a whitewashed shade of something neutral. And the consumer of that, the person who turns his radio on or TV set on or listens to something on a smart speaker, and I'm guilty of all of the above. As am I. You know, you become soothed away from your environment. You're not stimulated. You're not goaded to become engaged politically in the affairs of your community or the affairs of your province or country.

And we're just settling into a very comfortable, blissful situation where we're giving up so much of our character and independence of thought. And if you read, again, I'll name drop here, There's a series of books by a chap from Israel, educated at Cambridge, an historian, Herreri is his name. And he wrote three books in a trilogy. Sapiens that takes a look at the evolutionary history in people and societies. Homo dais that looks at the ability of people now. to create their environment and again this gets into the potentially dangerous

potential of artificial intelligence and so on and then the last book in his series is 21 lessons for the 21st century and if I could write a book if I were smart enough to do that that's the book that I would have written I And, you know, again, it's a matter of appreciating ourselves as individuals in a context. And if you just lose yourself into that warm comfort of corporate blandness that Stingray music would give us, then you've lost opportunity to become something. It's not a pretty picture. Well, that's where we're going to stop.

I really have enjoyed this. Obviously, I've kept you talking for a long time. I was very reading your story. I was very interested to hear about your journey, and I've gotten to do just that, and it's been very, very enjoyable a couple hours. So thank you for coming in and sitting down with me. And I guess for, you know, you're part of the board that helped put this in motion for me to be sitting here

and to sit with people such as yourselves. And I've really enjoyed the first four conversations I have at. And I really do look forward to the ones to follow. But in particular, Don, thanks for coming in and sitting down. It's been a great pleasure. Hey, folks. Thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe.

Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time.