The Decibel - Connie Walker’s latest investigation: Her own family's history

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

Journalist Connie Walker has been reporting on Indigenous stories for most of her career. From missing and murdered women to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, she has covered on some of the biggest stories in Canada in the last few decades. But it wasn’t until last year that she decided to look into her own family’s past. The urge to dig into her deceased father’s past appeared after her brother shared a story in the wake of the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. Connie talks about the importance of healing through sharing the truths, what she found out about her own family’s secrets and her new podcast, Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s.This episode originally aired on May 24, 2022.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

A Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award are some of the biggest prizes in North American journalism. And this spring, a podcast by a Canadian won both of them. That podcast is called Stolen, Surviving St. Michael's by Cree journalist Connie Walker. It follows Connie's investigation into her own father's experience at residential school. I spoke with Connie when Stolen was first released, and today we're re-airing that conversation. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Connie, thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me.

So you've had three other podcast series before this one, Connie, but this season is a lot more personal than your other work. When did you decide that this series was going to be about your own dad? Yeah, it was last May, actually, about a year ago. And it really, I think, was influenced by the discovery that was made at the Kamloops Indian Residential School a year ago, the discovery of the remains of what's believed to be 215 children who went to that residential school. And, you know, that was a really difficult time. And I remember around that time, you know, that it felt like people were paying attention to Indigenous issues in a new way, and were taking that news really seriously and really feeling the impacts of what that meant. And I think also what happened was that, you know, survivors were feeling for the first time

that they were being believed. The things that they had been saying all along about their experiences in residential school, they finally had space for that. And it was around that time people started coming forward and sharing stories about their own experiences in residential schools. And that was when my brother shared this story about my dad that I had never heard before. You know, coming just a few weeks after the news from Kamloops, it really shook me and it made me realize how little I knew about my dad's experience and how little I knew about how it impacted him and how it impacted me. And so it really seemed like a kind of natural evolution to then look inward and start thinking about how I was connected to this story as well. Yeah. Could you just give us a quick idea of what is that story that your brother told you about your dad?

Well, I was just scrolling through Facebook one evening and I saw this post from my brother Hal and it was a story that he had been told by our father. Our father passed away in 2013 but Hal said years ago like over 20 years ago he was driving with our dad one day and our dad shared this story with him about a time when he was in the RCMP. He was a special constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and he was on patrol one night, and he saw a vehicle that was swerving, and he thought the driver might be impaired, so he pulled it over. And when he got to the driver's side window,

he realized that he recognized the driver as a priest who had abused him in residential school, and that he beat him up on the side of the road that night and expected to get into trouble or for there to be a complaint. But nothing ever happened. And it just became a story that he told. But I never knew that story until last May. And you might be surprised, you know,

because given that I've spent so much time reporting on Indigenous stories and Indigenous issues, that I had just never really thought about what my dad experienced at residential school. And that revelation that he was abused as a boy, sexually abused as a boy, you know, it broke my heart. It made, you know, It was just devastating. But it also made so much sense in some ways, you know, that it helped me understand why he was the way he was when I was a kid. And I think like so many other residential school survivors, he really struggled and he was really angry when I was a kid and, and, and abusive. And, and that really shaped our relationship, of course, you know, and this somehow felt like

a chance to revisit it. Can I ask, so before you, before you worked on this series, what did you actually know about his time at residential school? I didn't know anything, honestly, like, I knew he had gone to a residential school, but I didn't know where or for how long or when. You know, I really did not even know the most basic things. You know, my parents split up when I was seven years old. And so I didn't have the closest relationship with my dad after that. You know, I really actually didn't even see him for another seven years. And then when I reconnected with him, it was really sporadic. I'd see him here or there once every few years. And, and I think I really kept my distance because of those memories I had of him,

you know, from when I was a kid when I was afraid of him, and he was so scary. And what are some of those memories? You've referenced that now, but can you tell me about your dad? What was he like when you were growing up? Yeah, I mean, like I think a lot of residential school survivors, he really struggled with what he experienced in residential school. And he drank a lot and he was abusive and angry. And, you know, I don't remember him ever being affectionate to me. And I think that when my parents split up when I was seven, you know, it happened really quickly.

We didn't say goodbye to him or anything. What I've learned is, like, his life didn't end there. You know, that was like a sliver of his experience. And what I've learned in now this investigation into what his experience was at residential school, he went on to heal from that experience. And he became, you know, reconnected to his culture and his spirituality. And he became a really important leader in his community. The experience that I had with him was a really different experience than my younger brothers and sisters. And the father that they knew just seems completely foreign to me.

And so, you know, that's what this journey of the podcast has been, feeling like I've been getting to know who my dad was through all of these interviews and conversations with my family members who knew him better than I do. And, and it's been amazing on one hand to feel like I'm getting to learn more about him and learn more about who he was. But it also, you know, it's, it's also really sad because I, you know, I didn't get to know him before he passed away. And I feel like I missed out on that chance to, to appreciate, you know, who he became. Yeah. Connie, I want to play a clip from the very beginning of this season. In this, in this point, you're talking about that story of your dad beating up the priest. Let's listen to this section here. It's a story that my father told that was later told to me. Hearing it has changed the way I think about my life.

How did it change the way that you think about your life? I am still and I have been still really affected by the trauma that I experienced as a young kid. By the things that happened to me in my childhood, the abuse that I witnessed and experienced from my dad when I was a kid. And I think that hearing that story kind of unlocked an understanding in me about where the root of that actually is. I think of my dad, and I think of the things that I went through when I was a kid, but this is kind of the first time having a realization that it didn't start with him.

It started somewhere else, like in this residential school and with this other priest. Part of my work in the last few years has been focused, you know, on reporting on Indigenous issues and specifically violence against Indigenous women. And through that reporting, you know, in my previous podcasts about Alberta Williams and Cleo Smegonis and Jermaine Charlo. You know, it's also been for me an education in trauma and the impacts of trauma, not just in their families, but I really feel like it's helped me kind of pinpoint and examine my own trauma.

And one of the things that I've learned is that one of the ways to heal from trauma is to talk about it, is to actually expose it, that there's so much harm that comes from trying to push it away and trying to bury it, because that doesn't actually work. And so this podcast felt like a chance for me to, you know, to expose this, to better understand my life, my dad's life, and to expose what happened to us. But what happened to, you know, my dad was one of 15 kids to go to this residential school. Like all of my aunts and uncles went there. Most of them from the time they were six years old until they were 16. You know, this was like a huge figure in our family. And my dad was actually the third generation in his family on both sides. When I went to the archives in Edmonton, Alberta, which is where they have a lot

of records from St. Michael's Residential School, you know, I saw my dad's mom and dad has had their attendance records. I saw their parents like this is like, and my dad's grandfather was one of the original students of this school. Like this school was open for over a hundred years in this community. And there are so many families that are impacted by what happened there. The school St. Michael's, I mean, it only closed in 1996 to like less, less than 30 years ago. It was operating for quite a long time. Yeah. I could, I mean, it only closed in 1996, too, like less than 30 years ago. It was operating for quite a long time.

Yeah, I could have went to that school. Like, I mean, I was not going to be going to that school, but like it was an option. Like, you know, kids my age, my cousins, my older sister, like, you know, I have family members who went to the school. You're just talking there about speaking through some of this trauma, like actually talking about it and engaging with it in that way. You were also very open in one of the episodes about the fact that you yourself were wrestling with the question of, can you actually tell the story about your dad, though? Is it your story to tell? What made you eventually decide that, yes, yes, you could tell this story? This question, I think, that I'm trying to answer started with my dad's story and started

with this story of him pulling over the priest. But our investigation broadens out and we actually, you know, we got advice from an elder from St. Michael's, you know, to let survivors speak for themselves, that they are capable and able and they're the ones who should be telling this story. And that really influenced how we proceeded with the podcast. And, you know, after hearing that from him and his name is Eugene Arcand. And so after we spoke to Eugene, we decided to try to speak to as many survivors as we could from St. Michael's. And we spoke to almost 30 survivors from St. Michael's. And episode four of our podcast is going to be them in their own words. It's a non-narrated episode

where they're reconstructing the school through their voices and through their memories. And, and I think that, you know, in learning and hearing from them and learning about my dad's experience, I also, it's also helped me understand how this, that our family was not unique, you know, that, that, that every family has been impacted by this. And, and I, and that has really been borne out, you know, in having the few first few episodes released, like, I'm hearing from so many people who say, this is my dad, this was my dad, you know, I had this responsibility and a duty to learn the truth about what our parents went through and what their experiences were. And I think, you know, it's one of the ways that we can hopefully heal from the trauma that we also experienced because of it. Yeah, I mean, you are focused on one story here at the start, but you do, you know, it broadens it out to the experience of many people, as you say. I want to play another clip from the first episode that actually looks at this point as well.

Someone once told me that there's not a single Indigenous person in Canada who has not been touched by the legacy of residential schools. And I know that is true. I felt it the moment I heard it. So bringing it back to the individual here to start, I guess since you learned about what your father went through at St. Michael's, has this new knowledge let you maybe connect the dots in a way, understand, you know, why your dad was the way that he was? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the person who said that, by the way, is Justice Marie Sinclair or Senator Marie Sinclair, who then was the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And he said that on the day of the final report that they were delivering the final report for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There's so much that I think just as indigenous people you're just born impacted and you don't

even understand how that's happened or what that is you're kind of just in the water it's just in the experience um but so many of us don't actually understand where that comes from and like and what was it about our parents and grandparents experiences that have led to the realities that we're living now. And that was really the goal of this podcast is to try to connect the dots and try to better understand how this one school and not only this one school, like the person who hurt my dad was a man, like it was an individual, a priest who was responsible for caring for the children in their care,

and instead abused him. And it made me want to know, like, what happened to that person? Was he ever held accountable for anything? Were any of the priests or nuns or staff members or people who hurt children in that one school ever held accountable for what happened to the kids there. And that became a driving focus of our investigation. And we've spent so much time uncovering just how widespread the abuse was at St. Michael's and really like illustrating just how that window for accountability is so tiny and it's shrinking every day. Because people are getting older too. Because survivors are getting older. Two of my dad's brothers have passed away in the last year. We're losing survivors. We're losing the chance to hear their stories, to understand their truth.

So yeah, as you say, it's important to do this work at this time too. I think the timing is interesting of the release of the season as well, because I think people are connecting the anniversary of the discovery of the unmarked graves in Kamloops. And I wonder, how do you see, I guess, the work that you've done on this series fitting into the broader conversation around this discovery? I mean, I think what I what I hope we're able to do is like what I hope, you know, the audience comes away with is like, you know, a deeper understanding of of the impact on on me and my dad and my family. And through that, I think that's one of the powerful things about podcasting is like that these deep dives that we do on a single individual can help illuminate bigger

issues. And I think also can help create space for people to have empathy. You know, my dad was six years old when he went to St. Michael's, like six years old. Like, it's just unimaginable for me to imagine my daughter, you know, going at that age or anyone's kids like, but this is what happened to him and all of his brothers and sisters and his parents and and i think that we're talking a lot there are so many conversations around reconciliation and what does that mean and reckoning and and and i think that we can't meaningfully have those conversations if we don't understand the truth. This is something that is long overdue. Yeah. Connie, how does it feel to have this story out in the world? This is, as you say,

like this is a personal investigation that you've been on for a number of months now. How does this feel? I mean, it feels terrifying. It feels like it's, you know, been really anxious. You know, I think I feel a lot of responsibility to my family, my aunties and uncles and my brothers and sisters who shared so much with me. And I want to do right by them and be respectful of their experiences. But it also feels like a relief in some way because, know I think this is this is so important and and and I really feel like this is my family's story but this is really so many other family stories as well and like I you know I feel compelled to to share and to expose what's happened and to help

people understand the truth because it has been hidden and suppressed for so long. And, you know, I just want to help people understand and have empathy for my dad and my aunts and uncles and all of the children who were impacted by their horrible experiences at that school. You mentioned your own daughter a little earlier is is she yet part of this journey at all like does she ask questions about things and want to know yeah I mean she's 10 years old and so um she's she's a little bit young to to listen to the podcast but she definitely has been part of the journey because we spent like six weeks at home in Saskatchewan last summer. And as part of the reporting was like, you know, I was doing interviews some of the time, but then

then we were visiting with family and we would have like a family dinner at my auntie's house and we'd go visit my sister. And so like, I feel like this is part of part of it as well. It's like the beauty and the gratitude I have is because I was able to reconnect with my family in this really incredible way. But I think of this work as absolutely for her and for future generations to understand the truth about what we've all experienced and how we've all been impacted. And she's not going to listen to it now. But I but I hope that when she is old enough to listen to it, that she also comes away feeling like she's gotten to know her her mushroom a little bit as well. Connie, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. that's it for today

I'm Mainika Raman-Wells our summer producer is Nagin Nia our producers are Madeline White Cheryl Sutherland and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin David Crosby edits the show

Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor thanks so much for listening. And I'll talk to you next week.