Welcome friends, family and blog readers. With National Truth and Reconciliation day happening tomorrow, I thought I would write a piece for my blog. At Hope’s homestead I’m not just wanting to chat about the environment and becoming more sustainable, or even sharing one of our family’s latest recipes, lately I’m finding this blog is evolving beyond just those topics.
Today I wanted to share a piece of my heart and something my family is feeling strongly about in the event of the discovery of the 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School last May. Since then, there have been even more at other schools across Canada. I hope you are feeling as outraged as I am and my story resonates with you. Come walk the path with me towards Truth and Reconciliation
~Blessings from Lee~aka Hope
The Path
Even though it was just after nine in the morning and our campsite was surrounded by the cooling forest, I knew the day was going to be another scorcher. On our first day at the Mabel Lake Provincial campground, after setting up our tents, we jumped in the frigid mountain lake and were refreshingly restored. In all the years we’ve been coming here, never have we swam in this lake so early in the season. Then half way through the week, another first, a campfire ban was declared. Temperatures were racing well over 35 Celsius. making the threat of forest fires imminent.
On this July 1st, 2021, I was stirring the bubbling oatmeal over the cook stove when my twelve year old son William opened the tent flap and emerged with porcupine like hair and a pillow creased face. He plunked down into one of the black, folding chairs, circling the empty firepit and asked, “what’s for breakfast?”
“How about some cinnamon spiced oatmeal?” I asked and then added, “or can you make some toast with jam and peanut butter.” “I’ll start with the oatmeal,” replied Will, as he dug around in our camp kitchen box, looking for his turquoise bowl and spoon.
As Will hungrily ate his oatmeal I pulled out our large Canada flag and some rope. I strung it from one fir tree to another at the back of our campsite. “I thought you weren’t going to put up the flag this year mom,” he said. I stood back appreciating the placement of the flag, admiring the bright red maple leaf amongst the deep green of the trees. I remembered the conversation we had had after the 215 unmarked graves had been discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School a month back. I had been so sad and then so flipping angry that I went on a bit of a rampage in our kitchen, the day we heard the news. The day I questioned the country I called home.
That day a discussion ensued around our kitchen table. Our ten year old twin daughters were sitting on the window seat and Will and his older sister Grace were in their respective seats. My husband David came quietly into the kitchen, his eyes opening wide as he questioned what I was so upset about. As we started to eat I shared the story I had just heard on the National News and everyone listened intently.
We had home-schooled the kids for the first year of the pandemic and I had encouraged them to learn the history of Canada’s indigenous people. It worked into the curriculum beautifully as we were studying the European explorers who had come to Canada. To get to the truth of the matter though we had to dig deep and reflect on that time in history to discover the ugly fact that settlers invaded this Country and basically took the land from the Aboriginal people. Will was learning about the various levels of Government and how Canada was established. Our Indigenous people’s history was woven throughout these stories but we were always questioning the truth and trying to understand the climate at various times throughout history.
When the news of the discovered unmarked graves in Kamloops was broadcast, it was one more story layered over what my children were learning. At the dinner table that evening, our daughter Grace shared her remembered experience while touring that school, a few years earlier. She said it felt like a tragically sad place that was deeply haunted. It was a field trip that taught her more than any reading on the subject could do, since she was there feeling the heavy energy at the site. Why hadn’t I been taught this 40 years before when I was in school? I knew why, because I was living in the thick of society’s darkest secrets and our Country wanted to bury the truth so they didn’t have to be accountable. Even my own family was burying something.
All these things poured, like a raging river over my mind’s jagged thoughts. Scant memories about my great grandmother, Mary Caroline Ling, also flooded in. She had been my maternal Grandfather’s mom; a First Nations woman. Our family’s skeleton in the closet if you will. An ancestor that was not talked about. I knew so little about her, except she was the second wife to Charles Herrling, and they had had two children together; August (my grandfather) and his brother, Joseph. Charles Herrling had emigrated from Austria and settled on the Island near Hope, which today carries his name, and is called, “Herrling’s Island.” I don’t recall any stories of Mary Caroline, but the impression my mom gave me of her dad, was that he was a man of few words. A picture I have of him shows a man with glistening dark hair and shining eyes. But what of his mother, Mary Caroline? I may never know, as my family seemed to gladly bury her memory.
I was thinking about all these things when Will asked me why I was hanging up the flag. I sat with a sigh on one of the folding chairs and looked at Will. “You know I have mixed emotions about Canada day this year. It’s not a simple thing. I love our country. I used to be proud to be Canadian but it’s hard to be proud of a country formed on stolen land and I can’t imagine how I would feel if society said I wasn’t fit to raise my children, and took you all away from me. What if I never saw you again?”
Will had stuck some bread to his marshmallow roasting stick and was toasting it over the propane stove while solemnly listening to my thoughts. Then he said, “I want to camp every July 1st ‘cause being in the forest and at the lake is the best. I like paddling in my kayak. I like learning to fish, even if I never catch anything. Even making toast on a stick makes me happy. “
Above…Will (12 years old)on his kayak, learning to fish. July 2021
“Yeah,” I said, and smiled at how the simplest things make us happy and wondered why we always want more. It was time to give back the land and long past time to apologize for missing children, lives destroyed, lost languages and culture.
But what could I do?
Just then we heard a siren and with that piercing sound my twin daughters excitedly popped out from their tent. We all ran to stand at the entrance to our campsite and looked up and down the road, trying to see where the noise was coming from. Around the bend in the road we spied the Green Fish and Game truck coming towards us at a snail’s pace. It’s lights were flashing and it’s siren was blaring. What the heck I thought! Then as it got closer it dawned on me that we were about to see a parade.
Here we were far from the city and people still came together to remember this Canada day. Riding behind the truck, were kids of all ages on their bikes or scooters decorated with red and white balloons. Canada flag stickers were pressed on their sweaty cheeks, people with dogs, bouncing along on leashes bedecked with red and white ribbons, smiled and waved their tiny Canada flags. Parents pulled little kids in decorated wagons or pushed them in strollers. Everyone was singing our country’s National anthem. “Oh Canada,” At the end of the parade was the camp attendant’s golf cart. On the back of the cart was a large sheet cake and the attendants were busy cutting and passing out cake to the campers along the parade route. My kids were were jumping up and down once they saw the cake.
Moments later, we all sat around our fireless pit, eating the yummy cake. All was quiet once again, only the crows were cawing as they looked down at my kids’ faces, smeared with white icing. I was thinking, “that was nice.” Maybe being part of a larger community of people who are working together to make Canada a good place for everyone to live is the beginning towards Truth and Reconciliation.
Any path with cake is a good place to start.
The End
Thank you for reading the above story which I wrote in honour of our first National Truth and Reconciliation day tomorrow. As I was writing, I was wondering what I could do next and I found this helpful link. If you want to join me on the path where we can make a difference, click on the link below to learn more.
Non-Indigenous people — here’s what you can do, right now
Until we connect again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Lee