Getting There
- Nishnawbe Aski Nation, 2005 -
The year 1955 was an eventful year for me. Apart from turning twelve in February of that year, I had to go to residential school far away from my home. Two of my older sisters had been sent to the Pelican Lake School near Sioux Lookout because we were Anglican and that was an Anglican school. So I thought I would be going to the same school, but I was sent to the Cecilia Jeffrey School near Kenora, which was a Presbyterian school. I don’t know whey this happened. It took a couple of days to get to the school. Sometimes in August a large plan landed on the lake and docked near the Hudson’s Bay Store. After saying goodbye to my parents and my little brother, I got on the airplane with ten other kids. The plan flew to Nakina and landed on a lake there. Then some of us were taken into the town of Nakina where we spent most of the night waiting around the CNR station. We finally got on the train and continued on our way. The train moved slowly along the tracks and we were on the train for many hours before we got off at Redditt early in the morning. When we got there we were picked up in a truck and driven to the school.
