#shubenacadie

[juliesandothings]

Three from Una Abrahamson’s Crafts Canada: The Useful Arts published by Clarke Irwin & Co. in 1974

Top: sterling silver necklace, with pearls and moonstone, by Haakon Bakken

Centre: plastic table with three heights, designed by Stephen Hogbin

Bottom: Indigenous designed and created chair back, Mi’kmaq at Shubenacadie / Nova Scotia about 1890  

[taamlok]

seasonal depression cured, shout out to my boy wiarton willie for the early spring prediction

[spockvarietyhour]

Groundhog Predictive Success Rate

[super-oddity]

sir is not happy with punxsutawney phil’s prediction

[bossymarmalade]

- september 30th, national day for truth and reconciliation -

Survivors experienced horrific atrocities while prisoners in these institutions. It is important that this image show the love and strength that colonialism tried to steal from us. Despite genocide, we are still here – still fighting for justice and restitution, as true Warriors. - Dorene Bernard, Mi’kmaq Survivor who attended Shubenacadie Residential School

[fleurcareil]

Nova Scotia: North and West shores

Before heading to Nova Scotia, I'm visiting the Hopewell Rocks which are at almost high tide this morning so that people kayak around the flowerpots rather than walk on the ocean floor. The Bay of Fundy is infamous for its fog so many viewpoints did not have much to show but the walk along the cliffs was still a great way to start the day!

After having rounded the end of the bay through Moncton (which I visited a few years ago but didn't find interesting), I dove into Acadian history at the Monument-Lefebvre National Historic Site in Memramcook and at the Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site. The first time I had heard about the Acadian people and their horrible deportation by the English had been in Cape Breton many years ago, so I knew their story but it was interesting to learn more... many of the original settlers came apparently from the area of La Rochelle in France, which is close to where my grandparents lived! The Lefebvre monument is at the first French college in the Maritimes, which allowed Acadians to get educated in their own language, which in turn spearheaded efforts to reclaim their identity. It was also the location of the first Acadian Convention in 1881, which continues to be held every 5 years celebrating Acadian culture across the world. Driving along Nova Scotia's north and west shores, the display of the Acadian flag everywhere shows that people remain proud to this day! 👌 The visit to the fort gave pretty views over the bay but also sobering thoughts as this was the site where the English deported many Acadians after having taken over the fort from the French (who had forced the Acadians to fight with them despite having proclaimed neutrality) ... It makes me shudder to be reminded time & time again of how brutal humans can be against each other!

A completely different type of history is told at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, which is a UNESCO world heritage site recognised for its preserved sequence of Carboniferous sediments and, due to the high tides continuously exposing more rock face, a tremendous collection of fossils from the Coal Age. Not only are there tons of fossilized trees (the 3 pics below are from left to right of the outer cast of a tree trunk, a tree root embedded in the rock, and a trunk that tumbled down from a rockslide), but it is here that a fossil was found of the first reptile which could reproduce on land and which therefore is the ancestor of all land-based animals, including the dinosaurs and ourselves 😃. A guided walk along the beach allowed us to pick up random rocks and ask whether it contained a fossil, and most of the time it did! 😁 It was a shame that we were not allowed to take anything home (I already have a little fossil collection from Oman), but that's what conservation is about.

Final activity of the day is setting up my tent at Five Islands Provincial Park, close to the highest tides in the world (up to 16 meters!) in the Minas Basin, where I arrived at low tide so that I could walk over the seafloor to the first of the islands and have a look at the magnificent red cliffs (that don't contain any fossils). No single mosquito meant that I could watch the sun set over the bay in peace 😊. Next morning, the usual fog wasn't too bad so that I still had a bit of a view over the rocks from up high on a hiking trail.

Driving around Minas Basin the next morning, I tried to see the tidal bore that happens when the high tide water rushes into a shallow river but missed it twice (at the first place in Truro I was an hour too early and at the next place along the Shubenacadie River it had just passed), but to watch the speed of the water coming in was impressive nevertheless (I had taken a video but sadly only one is allowed per post & I got a cooler one further down).

Having spent enough time on the high tides, I drove slightly more inland and had a great time wine tasting at Luckett Vineyards in the Annapolis Valley. Similar to around Niagara, this region has many different wineries who have tasting rooms, restaurants and little trails for visitors. The highlight here is the red telephone booth, from which you can call free to anywhere in North America, so I made a call to my colleague Kathryn who had recommended the place! 😍

Before leaving town, I also visited the Grand-Pré National Historic Site, which was the largest Acadian village before the deportation and where a statue of Evangeline graces the grounds in front of a memorial church. Evangeline was a fictious character from a poem that became to symbolize the Acadian plight so she's quite a heroine around here with streets, shops and everything in between named after her! The Celtic cross indicates the place where the villagers boarded the deportation ships before the town was burned down.

On that gloomy note, it started to rain and it didn't stop for two days 😒 the delicious chowder (seafood soup) at a harbour restaurant in Digby helped to warm up after which I was very happy having booked a hotel for 2 nights!

Despite the crappy weather I still had a great day at Digby Neck, which is a series of 2 islands jutting out into the Bay of Fundy, connected by two little ferries whose timetables are aligned so it's one drive through. I had however left an hour early so that I could hike to Balancing Rock on the first island, where a large piece of granite hangs precariously over the edge of the sea. It's a beautiful, rugged coastline and also the boardwalk to it (with big-leafed skunk cabbage around the trail) was pretty so well worth braving the rain!

And then I had the most awful but also the coolest whale watching tour I've done so far... we spent about 3 hours off the coast of Brier Island in the driving rain on an open boat on a rolling sea looking for whales and seabirds... About a 1/3 of the tourists vomited and although I kept it in and was warm & semi-dry due to my many layers, it sucked!! There was nothing to see for a long long time apart from a few swimming seals and shearwater birds so the mood wasn't great, until two humpback whales called Foton and Litte Spot (according to the marine biologist) showed up right next to us!! They kept coming close to the boat and flapped their pectoral flipper on & on the water for some 20 minutes...something I've never seen before, really special! Swimming so close by, you could see their massive, grooved bodies and ofcourse their tails when they were diving deeper. On the way back, when the rain briefly stopped & the waves subdued closer to the shore, everyone was smiling 😃 however never been so happy to sit dry in my car waiting for the ferry ;)

The next day there was rain nor fog (woohoo!) so had a pretty drive along the west shore, where there's mostly small Acadian villages, the bigger town of Yarmouth where I got some beers from the local microbrewery and many, many lighthouses of which I chose three to visit. The first one was at Gilbert's Cove where you can walk up a ladder to stand next to the old light (now decommissioned). Outside, there were male eider ducks close by the shore so that you could see how truly large they are.

The second lighthouse I visited was at Cape Saint Mary, a tiny square (still active) building that you can't enter, but which has impressive rocks around it. Nearby Mavillete beach has pretty dunes and would be a great place to chill if it were warmer!

The third lighthouse that I saw is at Cape Forchu, southwest of Yarmouth, which is called the "apple core light" because of its shape. I can't imagine living on such an outcrop during a winter storm!

On the final stretch to my camp cabin for the night, I passed through badly burned forest west of Shelburne, which had been doused only the week prior... The fire had grown to more than 235 square kilometres and forced more than 6,000 people from their homes, destroying over 200 houses and other structures. It was very sad to see the "apple green" trees turned into all this black, stinking mess... That night, the smoke alarm in the cabin went off from time to time, which I was later told is due to remaining ash in the air.

Just before turning into the campground, I walked briefly around Shelburne's historic district, which was built largely by British Loyalists who fled from the US and started a new life here. It only being 4pm, the town was deserted apart from a few prom photo shoots which was funny to watch as they are still soooo young :)

Wildlife: 3 seals & 2 humpback whales (Digby Neck), 15 male Eider ducks. There's ofcourse also lots of shore birds all around the Maritimes, but whose name I don't know apart from gulls and cormorants which I'm not fond of, so ignoring those 😉

SUPs: none

Hikes: two at Five Islands PP, one at Digby Neck

[warningsine]

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Officials in Canada's Atlantic Coast province of Nova Scotia said Saturday a wildfire that forced thousands of residents from their homes over the past week is now largely contained because of rain.

David Steeves, a technician of forest resources with Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, said the fire in the Halifax area is about 85% contained, sits at 9.5 square kilometer (about 4 square miles) and is unlikely to grow due to a combination of firefighting efforts and long-awaited rain.

The news was also good across the province, where Premier Tim Houston said the total number of active wildfires declined from 10 in the morning to five by mid-afternoon.

"If you step outside you will see something beautiful: rain, and hopefully lots of it," he told an afternoon briefing.

The only fire that remains out of control is one in Shelburne County in the southwestern corner of the province which remains "scary," Houston said.

The blaze that broke out Sunday in the Halifax area raced through a number of subdivisions, consuming about 200 structures — including 151 homes — and forcing the evacuation of more than 16,000 people.

Meanwhile, at the provincial wildfire center in Shubenacadie, north of Halifax, about 20 Canadian Armed Forces soldiers stood in the pouring rain outside a light armored vehicle.

Lt. Col. Michael Blanchette said the initial contingent from Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick had arrived on a "fact-finding mission" to see what military support was needed in the effort to combat the fires.

In Shelburne County, meanwhile, 6,700 people — about half the municipality's population — remained out of their homes as the blaze that forced their evacuation continued to burn out of control.

The Barrington Lake wildfire, which started Saturday, reached 230 square kilometers (93 square miles) — the largest recorded wildfire in the province's history. It has consumed at least 50 homes and cottages.

Dave Rockwood, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, said there was "cautious optimism" that there would be no further growth and that firefighters could use more direct tactics to contain it. Two other fires considered out of control as of Saturday morning were classified as "held" later in the day, he said.

Houston confirmed that schools in Shelburne County would be closed Monday and Tuesday.

[syliboywarrior37]

Eskasoni have taught me life skills to a degree. But learning all life skills like doing my taxes for GST and Carbon Tax, is another thing. I know that certain people want control over my finances and they don't care if I go hungry or want money for myself. So I gave up on getting better in terms of upgrades and updates on my online financial independence. I know there are scams and schemes and I don't trust anyone not letting me protect myself online. I find my aunties and uncles old school/Colonial system runarounds is tedious or quick. They don't keep me well informed or have any respect for me. They figure pass on their traumas and use a generational stereotypes and curses for control measures. They use a type of cultural ageism in their biased treatments and prejudicial distinctions and egocentric solipsism.

I've faced many troubles, problems and having lingering issues; I know that people don't want me to call them out because they are moral cowards. My whole world was surrounded by moral cowards; moral cowards with active addictions, moral cowards who are former addicts and moral cowards of bigotry. They don't want to save what pure love that my biological mother have created. Especially the Morrison family of Eskasoni. They would remind me that I'm weak and disempowered. I know that they dangle real power over me because they are moral cowards. Deniers of truths, deflectors of descendants' words, professional liars. I know that I need my biological mother back because she makes it alright. I have no rights to have my own saying.

I know that I have been dealing with toxic financial abuses, economic abuses and other abuses I've suffered as a child, as a earning teenager, in my early twenties and at Mawita'mk Society. I know that I don't have any respect from certain people because the culture of Mi'kmaqs dictates everything. I know that I didn't benefited from work or had my own banking system until I'd moved to We'koqma'q community; still I had financial abuses. The Morrison family of Eskasoni are good to force forgiveness and accepting that I won't get my money. Financial justice is their responsibility and there is no consequences.

They have the prejudicial authorities to decide what I need and what I have as a right. That's been the Morrison family of Eskasoni's permission system. I know that the Morrison family of Eskasoni, and Eskasoni's infrastructure wasn't adequate when I needed the resource, services, supports and benefits of Eskasoni. And I needed to have a fuller life, better quality of life and better family. There is no financial protection from people that are close ta ya. That's the toxic relationship easements they have with me: take a full mile when I gave them little to take. They set me up for financial burdens in the future and they expect full financial compensation for their upbringing and teaching.

Learning that they didn't really value me, for me and they expected monetary gains from this. My biological mother taught me genuine self-esteem, self-efficacy and personal leadership before she left this world. I know that I've been learning that I had it right before in a way but that's feeding the Morrison family of Eskasoni's ego and petty selfish interests. There wasn't any consequences for them abusing me in all sorts of ways when I started at my age of five years old. Why in the hell should I serve them?

This is a complex issue with a good/bad paradigm of a relationship. I have been silenced and didn't get any justice or they didn't get any consequences that I have been learning as a second generation Indigenous descendant from Shubenacadie Indian Residential School: I have been learning the culture of healing professionals, mental health care professionals and professors of psychological works. Learning that I have to fully appreciate my past, with full impactful healing and recovering, becoming emotionally literate, psycho-spiritually resilient, financially independent and professionally thriving. I have learned love and genuine self-esteem from a post-truth reality. Now it's my time to learn how the reality works for me instead of serving a bunch of hypocrites.

I know that I have been learning to talk about my past with a full impacts of hypersexual struggles, hyperagency/hypoagency struggles, addictional/poverty struggles and losing out on independence because my parents have allowed such influences to be in my life. Hometown is where the struggles of good and bad lays in my mind because because I was ruined by the hyper-reality of their addicts' and fiendish minds. I found agency, self-efficacy and personal leadership when my step uncle and biological mother and stepfather have greatly influenced me into mental health; with post-truth reality acceptance and forgiveness.

I've been active since I was five years old. I'd kind of learnt about sexuality through online, credentialed sourced sites but than again there is no room for truth online. There is professional liars/truth explainers that have been debunked and discredited over the years. There have been public controversies and a lot of people talking shit because they hate. I've been online since I was in the late 90s/early 2000s and I have been learning there have been public controversies over anything. Post-truth realities that couldn't get the full discourse and disclosure of the book because you would get black-listed for Indigenous truths.

I've been trying to accept my past life in terms of full impactful truths and facts. And heal from that for my stepfamily(adoptive family/mixed family), bloodline(relatives and close childhood friends), extended family(Mawita'mk Society and associations). I have a lot of people caring for my truths and facts. Learning that I need to say it in court in order to get the full impacts. I've been trying to heal, forgive and love without the courts. They would tear away the family and that concept/philosophy is complex: family because it's more than a lifestyle, it's a way of life. It's been a love/hate relationship since I could understand relationships, loyalty and respect.

There is a ayahuasca tea (psychedelic) that I wanted to try out but scared I would lose my mind. Schizophrenia is a complex disorder, much as addiction and grief are complex processes. I know from life experience healing from my culture and tradition. I've been learning that Eskasoni Rehab and Cultural Supports, or Mi'kmaq culture is a healing journey of my people. If they are emotionally brave to sober up and past dry drunk and that paradigm shift. I've been through the grief of an era of addictional/poverty struggles and a good way of working.

[writingat3inthemorning]

I Lost My Talk - A Child's Plight

ID: An image of Shubenacadie school

Frankly, I don’t know where to begin. Essays, stories, they come easily to me. Putting argument or imagery down on paper feels like child’s play compared to this, for this is to convey my soul. That’s what poetry is, isn’t it? Poetry is the connection of souls, across time and thought and culture.

What is voice? A child could answer. Your voice is what you use when you talk, of course. But what is talk? And what happens when you lose it?

Let’s take a look at this poem:

I LOST MY TALK – Rita Joe

I lost my talk

The talk you took away

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:

I speak like you

I think like you

I create like you

The scrambled ballad, about my word.

Two ways I talk

Both ways I say,

Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

Perhaps a child could answer that question. Perhaps too many could. But only a few have put it into words, and thus there are only a few windows through which we can look. If you skipped the poem, read it. I don’t think it’s possible to convey, with so many words, what Rita Joe conveys in so few. Should I attempt, I know I’ll only ruin it. Thus, you must read it.

Look at the title: “I Lost My Talk.” You can almost hear the child’s whimper, almost see the hands clutched to her chest. The phrasing is mournful, short with a childlike simplicity. It’s an epigram—it sketches out the atmosphere of the poem, even before it begins. Taste these sentences again: “I speak like you/I think like you/I create like you.” She uses parallelism, both in sentence structure and repetition. By repeating the word “like”, she also creates repetition. She speaks, she thinks, and she creates—Rita Joe uses these things to identify herself as a fellow human in a synecdoche. “Two ways I talk/Both ways I say/Your way is more powerful.” Here we see parallelism in structure again, as well as repetition by the repetition of “way”. “Way” in this case is a metaphor for a way of life. Rita Joe has learned the hard way that it is the white man’s path that holds the most influence, a tragedy and unfairness that she now presents before us. In addition, the First Nations would pass on their culture and wisdom through ballads and by word of mouth. Thus, the “scrambled ballad” in the poem is a symbol of the author’s culture and how it was lost.  “Shubenacadie school” gives us an allusion to a residential school and the horrors experienced within. Thus, we can conclude that the people the author speaks to in an apostrophe are her absent abusers, or at least those who inherited their legacy. Finally, “offer my hand” holds connotations for reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness.

The poem itself is simple, without a rhyming or syllable scheme. It is written in free verse with a scattering of iambic phrases, such as “I lost my TALK” and “The talk you took AWAY” (emphasis added). The phrases are short, the words arranged in almost a song-like way, like the ballad mentioned in the poem. The author uses enjambment: “Let me find my talk/So I can teach you about me.” The use of enjambment emphasizes talk and connects the two; she wants to find her talk, her culture, not only for herself, but to share. The simple structure and the connotations of her word choice reminds the reader of the little girl that was snatched away from her family and plunged into a harsh and unforgiving place that cared not about her wellbeing. Does not your heart ache for this lost childhood? Mine certainly did.

But what is this poem about, besides mourning a lost childhood, a forgotten history? We find the answer in the last few stanzas. “So gently I offer my hand and ask/Let me find my talk/So I can teach you about me.” In these few words we find the poem’s theme of grace, forgiveness, and hope for reconciliation. After all, the first step towards peace is to understand one another, and how can they understand if nobody explains? We see the little girl, now a woman, surveying the ashes of her people and yet not growing bitter from them, but offering her hand to her absent abusers. Thus, the primary theme is solidified as loss and forgiveness, segregation and reconciliation. We see this reflected in the title: “I Lost My Talk.” Her voice isn’t angry, or vengeful, but mourning, and in the poem’s flow, we see her hope.

This is my favorite line: “The scrambled ballad, about my word.” As I mentioned before, ballads were used to pass on culture and history. “Word” here seems to be a metaphor for her culture and history. The author lost her heritage—not because it was completely gone, but because it was scrambled, muddled, made unwhole. I love it because it’s simple, it’s meaning half-hidden but rich. It shapes the poem. It builds its meaning. I wish I could ask Rita Joe if she ever felt like she got her culture back. Did she ever un-scramble that ballad? Perhaps she managed to find a person who could decipher the words and make them understandable again. Perhaps the plight of the lost child isn’t permanent for them all.

We see Rita Joe’s resilience all the more when we consider what Shubenacadie School really was. It was the only residential school established in the Maritimes, and from the day it opened it had issues with bad construction, terrible maintenance, and overcrowding. Children operating laundry and kitchen equipment led to some of them having serious injuries. In 1934, there was even a federal inquiry after nineteen boys were flogged until they scarred permanently. The judge in charge of the inquiry dismissed it, as “they got what they deserved.” (NCTR, n.d.) This was the place Rita Joe endured. This was the place where Rita Joe’s voice was snatched away. And, isn’t she one of thousands? Though she may have regained her voice, many never did.

Rita Joe was a little girl, once. She mentions this in her poem. It makes us wonder about the psychological impact this whole ordeal had on her. Did she struggle with anger? Did she struggle with fear? Though we see no evidence for the former, it does not mean that it didn’t happen. As for the latter, we may ask: why wouldn’t she struggle with fear? Perhaps she continued to have lasting psychological trauma, her mind locking her once more, perhaps even decades later, in the fear of a little girl. The violent words she uses, such as “lost”, “snatched,” and the begging cadence of the second paragraph may hint at such scars.

In identifying herself as once being a little girl, Rita Joe also draws attention to her gender. However, gender doesn’t really play a big role in the poem as a whole. One could even argue that it would be easy to change the words from “little girl” to “little boy” without changing the meaning or theme. However, it is worthy to note that as an indigenous woman, Rita Joe would have been vulnerable in ways she wouldn’t have been as male. In addition, the gentleness portrayed would typically be attributed easier to women than to men, as males would archetypically be portrayed as more vengeful, though this is not universal. Ultimately, we see from the other lines of the poem that it is not about man contesting with woman, but rather the unfortunately common archetype of human against human, race against race, First Nations against white, and so on. And thus, in leading us through this archetype, Rita Joe guides us to the conclusion that we’re not different after all.

Rita Joe learned to survive in the harsh world she was plunged into: “Two ways I talk/Both ways I say/Your way is more powerful.” Given her race as First Nations and her reference to Shubenacadie school, her childhood background could be assumed to be poverty or working-class. A quick Google search shows that to be true: she was an orphan by the age of ten and was forced into foster care (The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017). She had no power, no money, a despised as a woman and despised as a First Nations survivor. But she held on to her identity as a human and didn’t let them dehumanize her: “I speak like you/I think like you/I create like you.” Throughout history, vengeance was considered a trait of resilience, but here we see true resilience in her forgiveness: “So I gently offer my hand and ask/Let me find my talk/So I can teach you about me.”

Poetry is timeless, and this one, with its message of a scrambled culture, the evils of racism, and hope of reconciliation is no different. Maybe, like me, you sometimes feel like the people of long ago were very different from us. But that is a lie—we all speak, we all think, we all create. In putting her story into words, Rita Joe reminds us that their plight is still relevant, and that they still matter.

To learn more:

Rita Joe – 1932-2007

------------

Sources

CBC. (n.d.) The Shubenacadie residential school operated from 1930 to 1967. [Image] Retrieved December 6, 2024, from https://i.cbc.ca/1.6047377.1687271321!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/the-shubenacadie-residential-school-operated-from-1929-to-1967.jpg

Joe, R. (2007). I Lost My Talk. Poetry in Voice. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.poetryinvoice.com/poems/i-lost-my-talk

National Arts Centre. (2024). Rita Joe, C.M. [Image] Retrieved October 31, 2024, from https://nac-cna.ca/en/bio/rita-joe

National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. (n.d.) Shubenacadie (St. Anne’s Convent) Retrieved November 15, 2024, from https://nctr.ca/residential-schools/atlantic/shubenacadie-st-annes-convent/

The Canadian Encyclopedia. (2017). Rita Joe. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 31, 2024, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/rita-joe

[liminalweirdo]

Also this, but for place names on the east coast of Canada.

Tatamagouche, Whycocomagh, Ecum Secum, Musquodoboit, Kejimkujik, Miramichi, Chedabucto, Shubenacadie, Penobsquis, Aroostook, Cobequid.

Nova Scotians know if you're from out of town based on whether or not you can pronounce these place names correctly (albeit bastardized)

Also in eastern Ontario: Etobicoke, Kapuskasing, Kitchissippi, Mississauga, Madawaska, Gananoque, Bobcaygeon, Scugog, Muskoka, Napanee, Oshawa.

Also, literally Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Winnipeg

i do desperately need everyone on this website especially people who arent american but want to rag on america to familiarize themselves with the basic romanized spelling conventions of native american languages because every day i come on here and i see people making fun of massachusetts or connecticut or mississippi or passamaquoddy or mashpee or nipissing and its like PLEASE. PLEASE THEY ARENT ENGLISH WORDS. PLEAAAAASEEEEEUUUHHH. USE YOUR MINDS TO IDENTIFY WHEN A WORD LOOKS LIKE IT MAY NOT BE ENGLISH. I DONT CARE IF YOU MAKE FUN OF AMERICA JUST PLEASE STOP BEING RACIST WHILE YOU DO IT

[tylerhillsound]

Electric Pines Music Festival, 2024

Electric Pines Music Festival was last weekend in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. I played a set from 10-11 PM on Sunday, Sept 1. These video clips were kindly shared by DJ & Producer Josette, @josette.ok who also played a set on Saturday.

[steveskafte]

LIMBO OF SPRING The wind came howling all evening off the Shubenacadie River, blowing unimpeded through branches still bare of leaves. With the chill so hard and heavy through me, it's tough to believe that the next two weeks will bring a full canopy of green. It's the last gasp of dereliction's understanding neighbours. Dead buildings and dead limbs, and only one will come back yearly. The dark limbo of spring is a good six weeks in my part of the world, from when the calendar ticks over, till when the bugs wake up and everything gets growing. I've learned to love the loneliness. It seems to run deeper through me, even more than autumn with life ending, or winter with it still so far away. Spring has a pending promise, and it seems to wake the weight of all the others that can't come true. Beauty makes the best of it in me. April 29, 2024 Princeport, Nova Scotia Year 17, Day 6014 of my daily journal.

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

White Canadian here. I live in Nova Scotia and that easternmost blue dot in Canada? That's out in Shubenacadie, where the Residential School grounds abutted the river.

Survivors of that particular residential school have been claiming almost since its inception that the bodies of kids who died on its grounds were dumped in the river more often than buried. Administration has always denied this, and there's no way to prove it. But administration at the Residential School in Kamloops made similar claims right up until the mass grave was excavated so I know who I'm more likely to believe.

Hey remember when they found over 200 bodies of native children buried behind a residential school and the world cared for... what, a week?

They've counted about 6,000-7,000 now, for those of you who do still care

[nedsecondline]

Reflected on the Water

Lake Banook is the first natural lake in the Shubenacadie Canal Waterway. It is located in Dartmouth and is directly connected to Lake Micmac.Reflected on the Water

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] Residential school survivors in Nova Scotia are sharing their stories in a new video to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th. They say the project serves as a testament to the resiliency of survivors and ensures the legacy of residential schools is not forgotten.“Mikwite’tmek, We remember: Shubenacadie Indian Residential School” was created through a partnership between the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre and Parks Canada. The video features the voices of several survivors, including Dorene Bernard.She was a student at the Shubenacadie Residential School from age 4 to 10. The facility was in operation from 1929 to 1967 and was the only residential school in the Maritimes. The former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School is seen in this undated photo from the Congregational Archives. Parks Canada It was created by the Canadian government and run by the Catholic Church under a national, colonial policy aimed at assimilating students through prohibiting their culture and languages. Story continues below advertisement Bernard and her siblings — older and younger — were at the school, Bernard says.“We came in stages, but we all left together, and we stayed together. We’re very close.”She says the new film is a way to honor the resiliency of all the children who survived the schools and the people who kept their culture and language alive.“In my family alone, there were 53 survivors from my grandmother’s family, from my mom’s family, and my dad’s family and all our cousins and all our first cousins that went to the residential school,” she says. Dorene Bernard is a survivor of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. Skye Bryden-Blom/Global News “Collectively we spent 153 years in the residential school just in Shubenacadie. I can imagine over those 38 years how many families were impacted similarly, where whole families, on both sides of their family, were taken away as children and spending that much time away from family and traditions and language, their culture.” Story continues below advertisement She says imagine the far-reaching impacts on Indigenous people across Canada where residential schools were operating over 100 years.Ahead of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Bernard sees education as an important tool.“The lack of education for generations of Canadians on the true history of Canada, on Indigenous peoples, has contributed to the the ignorance, the racism, and the violence,” she says. “With this education, people will see and know what it is that we’re healing from. They’ll understand and promote that understanding, compassion — that friendship.”The power of  sharing residential school survivor stories: ‘They got away with it all these years’Mary Hatfield agrees there is power in sharing the stories of survivors and honouring the memories of the many children who never made it home. She also speaks in the new film.“This being kept underwraps all these years, hoping it wouldn’t surface,” she says. “They got away with it all these years.”Hatfield was born in 1953 and attended the Shubenacadie school from 1959 to 1964.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5176YRvcVA[/embed]She was from a family of sixteen. Most of her siblings were students. Her mom was also a residential school survivor. Story continues below advertisement “I remember arriving there and we had to go up this big flight of stairs and two big oak doors, that we had to go through to get reigistered” she recalls. “From there you were given a number and you were no longer Mary Hatfield. You were number 57.”Her personal belongings were taken away, she was deloused, and handed a uniform, which also carried the same number. Hatfield says many children — including her brothers and sisters — were separated from their siblings because the school was segregated by gender.“Where we ate, the one side would be the boys and the other side would be the girls, so I would see them from a distance but you weren’t allowed to wave or say ‘Hi,’ or anything to them,” she explains. “You were supposed to look directly at what you’re eating or looking at the nuns.” Mary Hatfield was born in 1953 and attended the Shubenacadie school from 1959 to 1964. Skye Bryden-Blom/Global News Trending Now Calgary Flames’ AGM Chris Snow suffers brain injury, not expected to recover Alberta not reinstating masking in hospitals even as respiratory illnesses increase Despite her time at the school, Hatfield is fluent in Mi’kmaw. Her grandmother encouraged her to keep her language close to her heart. Story continues below advertisement “She would say ‘Now that you’re going back to the residential school, you’re going to have to speak English again, and I don’t want you to ever forget your language or you culture.’,” Hatfield recalls. “‘If you can’t speak it through your mouth, speak it in your head.’, so that’s what I did.”She says there was one time she spoke the words aloud.“The teacher slapped me,” Hatfield says. “So I never spoke the language there again, but I sure spoke my language in my head.” She hopes to see big crowds at the truth and reconciliation events. Education, she believes, is one of the best ways to shine a light on the “dark history” of residential schools.Healing from intergenerational traumaIt’s not just survivors who were impacted by the schools, but also their descendants. Michael R. Denny sits down in the video to talk about intergenerational trauma. His father was a survivor.Denny says he’s honouring his dad’s resiliency and healing journey.“I felt that it was it was important to talk about my family, to talk about my family connection,” he says. “Breaking generational curses, breaking generational things that are bad, and passing on the good things to my children and passing on culture, passing on our language.” Story continues below advertisement The former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School was designated a national historic site in 2020. A commemorative plaque now stands at the site along Indian School Road in Nova Scotia. Skye Bryden-Blom/Global News He describes one of the first experiences his father had at the residential school during the 1950s. He was there for nearly a decade.“They just throw delousing powder on his head and throw him in a tub. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He just remembers that stuff burning his eyes, burning his mouth, his nose,” says Denny. “They scrubbed him because he was so dark. His skin was very dark. The nuns were trying to scrub the dark off him because they thought it was dirt.”He says despite the dark history and battling addiction, his father overcame his demons.“He found healing in our our traditional ways and our traditional ceremonies and also some incorporated things from other other nations, other tribes, such as powwows and Sundance,” says Denny. “That’s what saved him. It took him to sobriety. It took him to learning.” Story continues below advertisement He is passing those traditions on to his three young daughters.“As soon as they were born, the first voice they heard was me speaking to them and welcoming them to this world in our language,” says Denny. “I want that to be my legacy. I want that to be my father’s legacy, my mother’s legacy.” [ad_2]