SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Despite the passing of decades, financial compensation, an apology from the prime minister and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, painful memories persist for people who lived through the residential school system.

Robert Beaulieu of Yellowknife holds a picture of Peter Pond School – a federal day school that once existed in Fort Resolution – which he attended before being taken to residential school in Fort Smith in the 1960s. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

People such as Robert Beaulieu of Yellowknife.

"It still bothers me right 'til now," he said, in a call to News/North. "I'd like to let it out. That's why I called you guys."

Beaulieu, 58, told a story that will sound familiar to many aboriginal people in the NWT and other areas of Canada.

In the mid-1960s, he, two brothers and two sisters were taken from their home in Fort Resolution and flown to Fort Smith.

"The Social Services and the cops came right to our place and apprehended us," recalled Beaulieu, who also labels their removal from their parents as a kidnapping.

His sisters were flown to Fort Smith first, while the brothers were kept at the police station for an hour or so until another plane arrived to take them away.

"They wanted to take our identity. That's the way I look at it," Beaulieu said. "They relocated our people back then. That's how the people forgot all their history."

At that time, he was about eight or nine years old. His oldest sibling, a brother, was about 11, while the youngest of the family, a sister, was about five.

In Fort Smith, Beaulieu and his siblings spent time at a receiving home.

"They kept us in a home for a good six months just to learn English, because even at that time I had broken English, like using my language and English together," he said.

And he spent time at Breynat Hall, the residential school in Fort Smith, and would be returned to the receiving home during the summers and at Christmas and Easter, when some children would be allowed to visit their home communities, but not Beaulieu nor his brothers and sisters.

Beaulieu claims he suffered physical abuse at the receiving home and Breynat Hall, but no sexual abuse.

"A receiving home is the same thing as residential school," he said. "Lots of abuse took place in there, too."

In all, Beaulieu said he was in Fort Smith for seven or eight years, and he did not returned to Fort Resolution in that time.

While in Fort Smith, he also attended some classes at Joseph Burr Tyrrell School.

"I got to know friends from around town from there," he said. "It wasn't too bad after that."

Finally, he and his older brother got a chance to go home for Christmas when he was in Grade 10.

"Once we got that break, we never returned back," he said, noting he was about 16 years old at that time.

Beaulieu said he and his brother hid from Social Services when they came looking for them in Fort Resolution.

"I told my aunt, 'I don't want to go back there. Here is my home,'" he said.

However, his two sisters and his younger brother remained in Fort Smith for up to a dozen years in all.

Beaulieu received financial compensation about six years ago for his time in residential school.

However, he believes there should also be compensation for time spent in the receiving home in Fort Smith.

Plus, he thinks there should be compensation for former students of federal day schools, such as the one he attended for about three years in Fort Resolution – Peter Pond School – before being taken to Fort Smith.

"We had a home when we left, when they took us," he said. "When we came back, we had nothing."

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