Uncover - S16: “Kuper Island” E2: Nights on the Boys’ Side

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

What was it like to be a student at one of the most notorious residential schools in Canada? Survivors James and Tony Charlie share their own account of recurring sexual abuse at the hands of their teachers, starting with a fateful trip to Montreal's Expo '67. Their stories speak to how abuse rotted all facets of school life — and how at Kuper Island, no child was spared. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551

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Before we start, this is a podcast about Canada's Indian residential schools, and it contains descriptions of sexual violence, suicide, and abuse. If you need support, you can find information about where to turn for help at cbc.ca slash keeperisland. It was a warm day in June, 1966. Tony Charlie was 15 years old and he was heading to the gym at the Cooper Island Residential School

to play basketball. But something held him back. I got to the door and I grabbed the doorknob and I was just overcome by hesitation. It almost seemed like there was something stopping me from going opening the door. So I held on the door and I let the door go. And I went back. And so that happened to me twice. I went to the gym and I got the door and I couldn't go in. So he didn't go inside the gym that day.

The next day, they learned a boy had hung himself there. At least that's what they were told. It's just on the other side. This is where the gymnasium was. No, it was right here on the left here. On the left. Yeah. It was an old barn.

Red barn, and they made it into a gym. We're standing on the road in Penelaket. Where that gym used to be is now an empty lot, close to a modest res house. More than 50 years later, James and Tony Charlie are telling me more about the boy. His name was Richard Thomas. Richard was a very quiet guy in a way. He wasn't down in sports.

He was no gifted athlete but he had a very charismatic laugh. Yeah and he had glasses? Yeah. Yeah the black dark rimmed glasses they had in the old days. He had a very nice personality. Because when you're a senior boy, it was common for them to pick on younger ones. Richard didn't have that in him. He was nice, nice and gentle. Richard was on the verge of graduating from Cooper Island when he died. The brothers told all the young guys

in the residential school, this young man's parents were going to separate it, and he said, this young man wrote a note and put it inside a Bible of all things. And that sounds quite odd because, you know, I don't think we're all attached to the Bible as much as people would like to think. But anyway, he was asking his parents to forgive him.

He wanted them to stay together, and he loved them. This is what I was told, yes. That's what the brothers told you? Yes, they told all the young people, all the young men, all the friends of the young man who took his life. So that's disturbing enough.

But here's where Tony's story gets worse. What occurred is some of the Catholic nuns and brothers took the children up there to view the body. You know, and that was the shocking part. They took kids to see the body? Yes, they had to go up and look at the, yeah.

Why did they do that? I don't know what the logic of that would be to show a child something unhealthy like that. It's really not my story, but I do hear it from others who have had that impact of viewing that. Is it possible that nuns and priests took school children to view a dead body hanging in the gym? And why would a boy who was just days away from his graduation kill himself? But before we get to that, you'll need to understand what life was like on the boys' side of the school.

I'm Duncan McHugh, and this is Cuper Island. Episode 2, Nights on the Boys' Side. One of the first things that happened when any child arrived at the school was they were given a number. They said, your number is 10, eh? So that's what they said. All the other kids had all numbers, eh? And so that was something that we identified with was just our number. Sometimes it wasn't even our names, it was just the number.

The number was stitched on every't even our names. It was just the number. The number was stitched on every piece of their clothing. And whenever they were assigned chores, clean the washrooms, mop the floors, scrub the windows, they put their numbers on a big list on the wall. And then there was the praying. Getting up early in the morning, kneeling down to pray, giving thanks to the Lord for another day, kneeling down and praying every morning, and then into the shower, and go down to the rec room for about five minutes, and line up and pray to go into the dining room, get to the dining room, sit down, and pray again to receive your,

be thankful for your meal,. We're forever praying. Yeah, we'd line up to go say the pledges to the Canadian flag, and then we'd march into our classrooms and we'd pray again, and then sit down and do our work. This religious and patriotic indoctrination was part of a system designed to change the children. Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott said so in 1920 when he made residential schools compulsory. He said, quote,

I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Indian problem. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian department. If there were no Indians, there'd be no treaty payments, no Indian reserves, no Indigenous land rights. Residential schools weren't created to deliver a proper education. They were created to assimilate Indians and went hand-in-hand with other policies meant to steal land. And it was little kids sleeping in rows upon rows of bunk beds who paid the price. What was it like to have to sleep over at the school? You mean sleeping or being sexually abused?

Oh, I was just asking about sleeping first. Oh, sleeping first? It's one of the most horrific aspects of Indian residential schools, and one that took the longest to be revealed. They were rife with sexual predators. The abuse poisoned every aspect of school life, even stuff that was supposed to be fun. When you go digging through the archives, there aren't a whole lot of photographs of the Cooper Island School, but there are lots of pictures of the bands. The boys all wear army-like uniforms with shiny brass buttons

and matching pillbox hats. They pose solemnly, holding their instruments. Okay, explain the band to me. What's that mean, the band? The band, the school band, the Drum and Fife Band, they called it at the time. I had no music abilities, so I initially started out with the flag bearer, they call it, just carrying the flag, Canadian flag. And then from there I went to the bass drum,

and I was like one of the littlest guys, but I had this great big bass drum in front of me, strapped onto me. Showing off the musical talents of Indigenous children was a way to impress the general public with all the good works the church and government were bestowing upon the Indians. And where would you guys play?

Well, we played at all the local places here. Lady Smith, Jimenez, Duncan, Victoria, Nanaimo, wherever it was requested. Parades or special events, Memorial Day, whatever. They would ask the school band to come there so that's what happened. And the public responded enthusiastically when one of the young Cooper Island missionaries, senior boys supervisor Brian Dufour, hatched a bold plan to raise money to take Indian school children to perform at Expo 67. He says well well, we're going to Montreal. He says, do you want to come with us, be part of the band?

Did you even know where Montreal was at that point? Basically, but I had no idea what the life was. I didn't know how big the city would be or anything. So I said, OK. Local newspapers lapped up the story. What I can't ignore as I explore these archives is how complicit the media was in manufacturing public support for residential schools. In one feature, the missionaries are portrayed as fighting an uphill battle in their efforts to educate children because, quote, as soon as a boy or girl returns to a home environment,

they lose all ambition and initiative, reverting to the reserve to become drunks. Though the reporter does acknowledge there was, quote, a certain prison atmosphere to Cuper Island. I got the video of the band playing. Wow. So would you like to see that?

Of course. Okay. You might see my brother. You've got to look at the bright sides. He's a little brother. That's me with the drum. That's you with the drum? With the big one, yeah.

That's you with the big drum? Yeah. And I have the tenor drum. Tenor drum, which one's that? So you're in there too, James? Yep. For the big trip to Axbow, the children were dressed up in Hollywood Indian garb,

buckskins and feathers, even though it looked nothing like West Coast traditional regalia. What was with the outfits? They make us look Indian, eh? The chaps and we had to wear swimsuits. And they were plastic. They weren't beaded, they were plastic. They were plastic? Yeah, all the designs and coming down are just plastic sewn on and glued on. Oh wow.

Yeah. The kids were a hit. Led by the charismatic Brian Dufour, the school raised more than $10,000. In July of 1967, the children, 34 of them, were flying across the country to a big national party. Canada! We were on the big bus from the airport, a big national party. We were on the big bus from the airport,

and they said, oh, we've got to stop off at City Hall. And we all got off at City Hall, and we went into Mayor Drapeau's office, his office, and he was talking to us. I want to welcome you all to Montreal. We all hold it to itself to bring together his office, and he was talking to us. I want to welcome you all to Montreal. You hold it to itself to bring together the nations of all the continents in a place where there could be an exchange of ideas, a meeting of minds, mutual understanding, love, and peace. love and peace.

What I remember was a very happy time for our band. You know, it was an eye-opener seeing Niagara Falls and a lot of the things were good. You know, first time in my life I see a great big pizza that big and half a gnat. Overall experience of the trip was very entertaining, very good. But I came across a very strange and revealing news story about the trip.

A reporter interviewed Tony and said he was shy but excited, especially by seeing the Indians of Canada pavilion, which had made him proud. This is the part that really jumped out at me, though. The reporter observes Brian Dufour's intense interest in Tony. The whole thing has been an experience out of this world for them, said Brother Dufour, as he gently massaged the bared shoulders of Tony, 16, bared shoulders which were aching where the straps of his heavy bass drum

had left their angry marks. There was more to come. After a whirlwind week, Brother Dufour had a surprise for Tony and James when it came time to return to B.C. Brian Dufour came over to me and my brother James. Well, you guys can take your bags because you're staying with me. And we had no idea that was his plan to keep us back there in Montreal.

We had no clue, me and my brother. This is when everyone else is getting ready to go back to British Columbia. To go to the airport, eh? to go to the airport, eh? Did you find it odd that you had to stay there when all the kids left? He chose me, Tony. He says, do you guys want to stay here? I'm going to stay here for another month.

You guys want to stay with me for another month? We didn't have no parents. We didn't have to answer nobody. We didn't have to phone him We didn't have to answer to nobody. We didn't have to phone them for ads permission. We just stayed. The school had signed off on it. One news report even mentioned the impromptu summer vacation approvingly, calling it an exciting thing for two outstanding students. Dufour's parents lived in one of Montreal's working-class neighbourhoods, Greenfield Park,

and they took the two young Indian boys in, no questions asked. They opened their home to Brian and my brother and myself and were placed in the basement. There was this one little single bedroom down there and then they had a living room, and it just had a hide-a-bed kind of thing in it, and it wasn't much of a basement,

but that's where we were. And so we didn't see much of the parents. They were upstairs all the time. The first night, he says, Well, Tony, you can take that bedroom. It's not a very big room. It's just a bed in it. So I went to sleep in there.

And they pulled out this hide-a-bed, made it into bed. He said, James, you're sleeping with me tonight. I said, okay. And so the next day, next night, he says, well, your turn to sleep. You're in hide-a-bed. Do you? Yeah, he said to well, your turn to sleep here and I to bed. Do you? Yeah, he said to me, yeah. I said, okay. So anyway, I slept with Brian. I was on the outside and my brother says, well,

he says to me, did he do some funny stuff to you? me, did he do some funny stuff to you? And like we really couldn't talk because Brian was with us initially a lot beginning that time there. And I just nodded my head to him. I said yes, you know, he nodded my head. Brian Dufour was very young. And his parents being devoted Catholics, he had to play that image what his parents thought he was. And that's exactly what he did. Highly devoted Christian, helping the poor Indians.

That was part of it. That was part of it. Except at night. Yeah. So they didn't have a clue as to what their son was abusing us. Didn't have a clue. abusing us. Didn't have a clue. Coming to your bed at one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock, and sexually abusing you. It was an elaborate and slow play by Dufour. Grooming, it might be called today. At the end of the summer, when Tony and James finally returned to the Cooper Island School,

Brian Dufour did not. He'd been transferred to a different Catholic residential school in Alberta. The newspaper published his goodbye letter, where he thanked everyone who had donated to get the kids to Expo. He wrote, I need not say how much I will miss the children and the good and kind people of Cooper Island. But Tony and James' troubles were just beginning, because Brother Dufour was far from the only perpetrator at Cooper Island.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. In September 1967, another oblate was unloading his bags onto the wharf at Cooper Island. Before I get to Glenn Dowdy, the new childcare worker for senior boys, let me explain a little bit about the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. They're an order of Catholic missionaries who ran nearly 50 residential schools in Canada, including Cooper Island. They were founded in the 19th century with a mission to evangelize the poor. This missionary spirit was far more important to be hired at an Indian residential school than any teacher

training. Few teachers at residential schools had a university degree, and they were paid piddling wages. So imagine a young oblate such as Glenn Dowdy, trained to sacrifice himself to God, deny himself human comforts as a sign of that commitment. Stuck on a remote island with nothing to do except watch over a whole bunch of kids. Here's Tony. Well, he was a very young man at the time. He was probably about 5'10", about 160, 170 pounds. Curly hair, dark black black rim glasses that he wore. And he always had that smile like that.

It wasn't a smiley smile. It was just... Showed his teeth. Yeah. Brother Doughty, he had thick glasses and short wavy hair people would today's would call them a geek

but they got off controlling us and then ruling us Brother Dowdy had been transferred to Cooper Island after spending three years at St. Joseph's School in B.C.'s interior and like many Oblates, James says he had a harsh manner with children When he first became a brother

he used to go out in the woods bring a Bible and he'd shout, read the Bible, shouting, so that he'd train his voice to be strong and aggressive so that his normal voice would be almost a shout. So that's what he told me anyway. That's where he got his control, his power through his voice. You guys must have been scared of him. Yeah, you get scared, but again,

over time, just like anything else, you just let it bounce off you. Right? You say right like I would know. I don't. Mm-hmm. The Oblates ruled the school, relentlessly cowing the children, even the nuns, into meek obedience.

They had a separate dining room where they were served fresh food, nothing like the meagre rations the children were forced to eat. And given all the sacrifices they were making for God, they had a strong sense of entitlement. He says, well, he came to me one day, we got a lot of room here, so I think we're going to give you a room. You give you your own room. I said, okay, you know, I thought, well, I'm just getting my own room, and I'm still a bit naive and still pretty green about being guarded.

There were day students at Cooper Island who attended school but slept at home, and then there were the boarders. Tony and James started as day students, then after the Montreal trip, moved into residence. Let me emphasize, Tony's interactions with Glenn Dowdy happened the first week he was in the dorm. He invited me to his room. He said, well, I think we should get to know each other. And I said, OK. He said, I want you to come to my room. And

I said, okay. Yeah, we should get to know each other. It's all he said. And so we went and I, we sat and I talked and talked. And then he says, well, well, I think it's time to go to sleep, he says. And I said, okay, I was going to go to my room. He said, well, you're going to come sleep with me tonight. And I thought that was very odd to have that request come from an adult. I've slept with my brothers in the same bed before, my younger brothers and stuff. So I went over to the bed reluctantly and I went on the other side. I was in my pajamas and on his bed he had one of those those little lights. He just clicked it off. And he grabbed his hand, he put it inside my pajamas, and he started to rub my penis.

And then he says, well, he grabbed my hand and put it over his penis. So I did the same thing. And it was just very shocking to have that happen. Because I was just meeting him. I didn't know him at the time and stuff. So I did that. But all that night, I just laid there and I couldn't sleep. My mind wouldn't go to rest or anything.

I was just like in a guarded situation to myself. And I said, well, what do I do? It wasn't just Tony. Brother Dowdy was friendly with many of the boys in the dorm, often inviting some to his room for what he called magic tricks. That's how he got people into his room, hypnotizing them. Hypnotize a lot of them. What do you mean?

Hypnosis. He'd hypnotize you, and some of the guys go under his spell in the Bank. What do you mean? Hypnosis. He'd hypnotize you and some of the guys would go under his spell in no time. Like what would he do? Well, I told you it was entertainment.

But at the end he used it to his advantage with exactly what I thought would happen. No hypnosis required to get at Tony, though. He was captive in a room by himself, dreading what were becoming regular nightly encounters with Brother Dowdy. He tended to do that most nights.

He would do that to me, come to my room while I was sleeping. And some nights I couldn't even, had a hard time sleeping because I knew what was going to happen. I knew he was going to come visit me and I would just finally drift off to sleep. Then he would come and wake me again and do that, eh? sleep, then he would come and wake me again and do that, eh? And so I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward. I that occur, you know? What do you do? This is supposed to be a holy man.

This is supposed to be a Bible man, you know? Why is he doing this kind of thing? And at that time, I didn't know much about sex or sex abuse directly or anything. So my late uncle and my late aunt didn't really share that much about those things as you grow older, go through puberty and all that. The abuse lasted months, from September to December, until one night Tony decided to move from his bottom bunk up to the empty top bunk. For a powerless young boy, it was an act of resistance. And with that, Doughty's visit stopped.

Tony avoided him during the day, and in the night, Dowdy moved on to other boys, including James. Brother Dowdy used to like whiskey. And sometimes he'd get drunk, and we all knew every night he was going to, sexual pleasure, he was going to come and look for somebody. And everybody knew he was going to pick somebody up that night. And some nights he was so horny, he'd jump in and abuse one of the boys right next to you. And the whole dormitory was awake, but everybody pretended they were sleeping.

And the next morning, the poor guy could hardly walk, but nobody said nothing because it could be their turn tonight. But most time he took you to his room and he had to do sex with you. But once in a while he would just jump in bed and then you could hear the bed squeaking all over the dormitory. But everybody would pretend they were sleeping. There was no word spoken of it the next morning or any morning or any time it happened. The boys stayed silent about the abuse. For many, the silence would carry on for years, bottled up, ravaging their hearts, minds, and souls. When I first started telling the stories, it was very painful and a lot of tears. Now Now I bring a little bit of anchor in my voice also to protect me.

I don't want to be crying like a big baby trying to tell my story. So I have to protect myself too. Because when I get triggered, my wife has to put up with me being triggered. She has to bring me back down to who I am. There's nobody here to go see. If I get triggered, all I have is my wife. Which is one of the reasons why I asked you at the beginning of this what you felt okay about me asking about.

And I'll be honest with you, watching you, I could see that there were times that you didn't want to cry. There were times that we're both men. We're comfortable in that space. We're comfortable pulling back from that. I understand what you're saying about it being your wife that ends up having to clean up the mess. Yeah. I know that feeling.

She's got a gift. A big heart and very understanding. Yeah. Glenn Dowdy later pled guilty to multiple charges of sexual abuse involving multiple victims at two residential schools, including Cooper Island. Brian Dufour, on the other hand, was never charged criminally for abuse at the Cooper Island school. I'll get to the ins and outs of all the investigations and court battles in future episodes of the podcast. But downstairs, as we're getting ready to go, James pulls out a big legal binder. He sued Glenn Dowdy in civil court.

These are the documents from that case. Yeah, go ahead. As long as you turn it. I will. As we drive out of the driveway, an older woman pulls in in a big van. I take a guess it's James' wife, Lexi, returning from her job at the school. She teaches Hul'q'uminum language. I explain who we are and that we just

had a long talk with James about his school days. So I'm letting you know that, um, he might be... I don't know where he's at. We just left. We just left. Oh, okay. Lexi tells me that sometimes James gets triggered when he talks about the school. That's what I'm worried about and that's why I want her to know. It's remarkable that you managed to keep it all together. That's why I keep working. You must be a very strong woman. You guys are a team. Yeah. Anyway, this is a weird way to meet, but hello.

It's been an exhausting day. Jody and I head for the ferry. While we wait in the car, I take out the binder James gave me. Okay, so it is a very, very large binder with about, I guess, a typical legal binder. Probably 150 pages in it, maybe. Plaintiff James Francis Charlie, JFC, is 46 years of age, born 30th of July 1952, resides at Penelope. He was in residence at the school in the approximate years of 1966 to 1968. During this latter period, he was repeatedly assaulted, sexually and physically, by a dowdy and by a person known to him as Brother Dufour. James' claim goes on to document the abuses. I'll just say they're graphic

and help me understand why James was protecting himself during our interview, handing us a binder to do the talking instead. Something else James didn't mention. He wasn't silent. He told the principal at the time, Father Larry Mackey. JFC reported these assaults to the defendant Mackey and other members of staff. Mackey told this defendant that it wasn't a sin, that the brothers were just relieving themselves. He was told to forgive them.

It's the Catholic way. The next page sets out how the abuse impacted James's life. It's an astonishingly long list, written in legalese, bullet points A through Z. JFC suffered and continues to suffer damages which include, but are not limited to the following. Deprivation and the love and guidance of his parents and siblings. Loss of his aboriginal language and culture and his family roots. Loss of the friendship, companionship and support of his friends and community. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Loss of self-esteem.

Sexual trauma. Inability to undergo normal and healthy peer development. Inability to undergo normal and healthy sexual development, inability to undergo normal and healthy sexual development, inability to complete his education, impaired ability to deal with persons in authority, impaired ability to trust other people or to form or sustain intimate relationships, impaired ability to provide a normal and healthy home for his family, impaired ability to sustain a normal and healthy marital and sexual relationship, fear, humiliation, and embarrassment as a child and an adult, and sexual confusion and disorientation as a child and young adult,

impaired ability to express emotions in a normal and healthy manner, impaired ability to control his anger and rage, depression and anxiety, attempted suicide, sleep disorders, physical pain and suffering, stomach ulcers, alcohol abuse and addiction, impaired ability to obtain and sustain employment resulting in lost income and loss of income and earning capacity, requirement for ongoing medical and psychological treatment and counseling, impaired ability to enjoy and participate in recreational, social, athletic, and employment activities, impaired ability to maintain employment, and impaired ability to function when employed.

James has made two little marks at the bottom. It says communication skills and loss of bonding with children. and loss of bonding with children. That's the first two pages of this very large document. So, probably don't need to be surprised as to why James's wife might say, Oh, he's going to be triggered when she finds out that I've been talking with him. Let's leave it for now. Let's leave it for now. That's a bit much. I don't want to go through the whole thing.

I first reached out to James and Tony to learn more about deaths at the school. They shared what they knew, particularly about the haunting death of Richard Thomas, that boy found hanging in the gym. You'd think being surrounded by death would be the most damaging kind of trauma any kid could experience. death would be the most damaging kind of trauma any kid could experience. But that's not why, most of his adult life, Tony slept with a nightlight in his bedroom, or why James grew up a bar brawler fighting to prove he wasn't gay. What tormented them were monsters. Hungry monsters preying on children. Terrified children cowering in shame. In the next episode of Cuper Island, we track down Richard's older sister, Belvie,

who had a phone call with him just days before he died. When I talked to him that last day, he was happy. He was graduating. He was getting the hell out of that place. I would have loved to have seen him get out of there and just tell, because it wasn't only him. It was a whole lot of other boys. Cuper Island is produced by Martha Troian and Jody Martinson Thank you. of CBC Podcasts. Theme music by Zibiwan. Art by Elliot Whitehill.

Hajka, Jimmy Gwich, to James and Raymond, Tony, Charlie and family and the CBC Reference librarians, especially Kate Zeman. If you need support, you can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line

1-866-925-4419. Or for more resources on Canada's Indian residential schools, go to our website, cbc.ca slash cupereisland. And if you liked this episode, please help others find it by rating and reviewing us. Miigwech Bezindayik. Thanks for listening. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.