Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 07/00) - A leading force in the territories for more than a century, the "Church" is working to find a new place among the people of the North.

The Anglican and Roman Catholic churches brought western medicines and technologies to the aboriginal people who populated this vast land.

With the introduction of western customs and spirituality, however, the seeds of change were also sewn. The aboriginal peoples would see their traditional ways of life change forever.

And as much good as the churches did throughout the Northern lands, it also brought pain: in the form of residential school abuse.

"I was just a junior boy my first time there," said Norman Yakeleya of his experience at Grollier Hall Residential School in Inuvik.

"It was exciting because I was going with my brothers and sisters but, also, I didn't know why I was going."

Grollier Hall is now synonymous with tales of residential school abuse. It was the last Roman Catholic school of a number of schools that began with the first mission at Fort Providence in 1867. The territorial government took over Grollier Hall in 1987 and closed it down for good in 1996.

It was at the school where four former supervisors committed and were later convicted of sex crimes against scores of male students between 1959-1979.

Yakeleya is now chairman of the Grollier Hall Residential School Healing Circle, a Yellowknife-based group working to help victims of residential school abuse.

He remembers being fed meals "not even dogs would eat" and being forced to sleep in cramped quarters with dozens of other children whom he had never met before.

It was a world of confusion for the boy who'd been forced to leave his home in Tulita.

"At the same time, you were told that these people worked for God, so we had to listen to them," he explained.

"It was kind of mixed up. If they said they were working for God, and they say that God is a loving person, a kind person, then how come they acted the opposite?

"I started to fear God because of the way they looked at you, talked to you and punished you."

It's stories like this that have caused some to question the church and others to take it to court in a search for compensation for past pain and suffering.

Across the country, more than 7,000 people have filed legal claims against various churches.

"...Every time I talk to someone intimately involved, the numbers keep going up," said Dr. Christopher Lind, president of St. Andrew's College in Saskatchewan and a specialist in ethics and theology.

"The people that are involved in this process are frustrated with lawyers involved in the litigation, who canvass for clients and advertise settlement records."

Although the Anglican Church isn't facing any lawsuits in connection with its activities in the North, other actions threatened to throw it into bankruptcy.

According to an internal study, the situation for the Anglican Church of Canada is so bad, that the General Synod's financial resources will be completely exhausted by 2001, as a result of legal costs going towards residential school lawsuits.

A time to heal

The Roman Catholic Church is the only church facing litigation in the NWT as a result of residential school abuses, it's already looking toward healing the rifts caused by abuse.

"I think the Church will continue, says Roger Ulasovetz, a lay presider with the Our Lady of Victory, Igloo Church in Inuvik.

"The Church has gone through a lot of tough times. I think the lawyers will make it necessary for the Church to change because of the legal problems."

Bishop Denis Croteau, head of the Roman Catholic Church, Mackenzie Region, agrees, but says the tide of lawsuits is holding back the healing process.

"It's in the courts right now and I hope it doesn't take so long, so people can start healing, because I think it holds back a lot of people," said Croteau.

"Some have already started the healing, but a lot are being held back by legal proceedings."

Rev. John Sperry, missionary legend and retired Archbishop of the Arctic Diocese, acknowledges the pain suffered by aboriginal peoples attending the residential schools, but also says that many early missionaries, like himself, worked to improve the lives of the people they had come to serve.

"In my 50 years of life in the NWT, I have yet to hear any of the Native people refusing the medical and hospital services of both churches, nor have there been any demands for an apology for healing the sick, treating wounds and that kind of help," Sperry said.

Some of those who benefited from church efforts continue to have faith.

Rev. Mary Teya, ordained by the Anglican Church in Fort McPherson last January, attended the All Saints Residential school in Aklavik, and has always been a staunch supporter of the church.

"My faith in the Anglican Church is pretty strong," said Teya.

"The Anglican Church has been here for many years (since 1867). They did all the schooling there (Aklavik), going back to my great grandparents. We're strongly into it, we work together as a team (referring to colleague, Rev. Hannah Alexi). We're happy to our duties as ministers in the community."

It is people like Teya and Alexi who hold the key to the churches' future.

"The Church is no longer an Euro-Canadian institution impressed upon a reluctant population," Sperry said.

"The majority of the clergy are Native, and the leadership in the Eastern Arctic, is under the regional direction of two Inuk bishops (Right Reverends Andrew Atagutaluk and Paul Idlout) and the vast majority of parishes in the dioceses are conducted in the local languages."

The Catholic Church, too, recognizes the importance of aboriginal leadership, passing a resolution in 1991 to develop local leadership and guide the healing process of those abused in residential schools.

Part of the reason is because of a shortage of priests.

"There are four Oblate priests in their 70s and eight sisters. So our goal, given those circumstances, has been to make the churches as local as possible," explained Croteau.

"We hope that the local churches will be self-sufficient, as far as leading sacraments, Sunday services, funerals and marriages."

For Yakeleya and other residential school survivors, however, the road to healing will be a long one.

"The role of the Church will be through a healing process, in terms of them meeting with the victims and their community members," Yakeleya said.

"You're looking at three to five generations long, as long as we're still alive."