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The Current Transcript for November 17, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

The residents don't have X-ray vision, but when they look at you. It's as though they are drinking and your very soul is mesmerising. It's uncanny. You become captivated by that.

MATT GALLOWAY: Look what Jane Goodall has done for chimpanzees and Dian Fossey did for mountain gorillas. Birute Mary Galdikas is doing for orang-utans. Fifty years ago, the Canadian anthropologist was one of the very first people to study the mammals in the wild in 30 minutes. What she learnt in the Borneo jungle whether the pledges at the recent climate summit to end deforestation will help protect the habitat of the animals she's come to love and why she finds herself even now living with an orang-utan sense of time. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

You never know where kids will. You just assume as a child that they went home and they stayed home, but we don't know those things. We have to find all of the truths, not just some of the troops that people want us to find. We need all of them.

MG: A search for unmarked graves has begun on the site of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School. In an hour, we'll hear from survivors about how their voices are at the heart of this investigation, and the CBC's Duncan McCue will be here to talk about why the unique relationship between police and this community could be a model for similar searches across the country. We start, though, in British Columbia. The rain has stopped, but on the ground the situation is still dire. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

The challenges ahead for Princeton, B.C. post-floods

Guests: Mayor Spencer Coyne, Darren Swanson

MG: If there is anyone still in some mass prairie, you need to leave immediately. Get out of the area. Nothing is worth your life. That's Abbotsford, British Columbia Mayor Henry Braun speaking last night and warning about 300 residents who had been remaining in some prairie about a significant risk to life if they don't evacuate the farming community. An hour east of Vancouver is under threat of flooding three metres deep, has a local pump station is on the edge of failure. Elsewhere in the province, rescue work continues after mudslides washed out roads, all a result of record rains since Saturday in parts of British Columbia. Kathie Rennie was driving on Highway 99 in B.C. on Monday. It's a road flanked by mountains and she was just south of Lilywhite, heading toward Whistler and Metro Vancouver.

SOUNDCLIP

So we were driving along and just came around this band and there was cars lined up and couldn't really tell what was going on, and a couple of people were turning around. So I said to my husband, I said, Well, I don't want to sit here because it just doesn't look safe. It was kind of like a little bit of a chute, so to speak.

MG: She got out of the car to go, to talk to some others who were stuck and there had been a landslide. So Cathy Renee headed back to her truck.

SOUNDCLIP

No sooner did we get back into our vehicles. The people that were in front of us are just screaming and running towards the opposite end of where we're at. The look on their faces was like a tsunami was coming, and it was it was the scariest thing I've ever seen. Like, I had no idea. So I just turn around and I'm just watching the whole side of the mountain come down and taking out these cars and this everything just being swept away and just complete panic. And my first initial reaction was, everybody stay in the car because I don't know how far this is going to go. And I had my nine year old son and my husband with me and I said, Don't get out yet. We need to see that it starts before we move. That was my gut instinct was to just don't do anything. There's nothing we can do while while the Earth is moving. So stay here in our big truck where we might be safer because we didn't never know which way an avalanche is going to go.

MG: Kathie knew immediately that some of the cars ahead of her on the road had been hit by the second landslide and that the people inside those cars needed help.

SOUNDCLIP

So it finally stopped and everybody just came together looking for shovels, chainsaws, crowbars, tow ropes, whatever you could find, what everybody had and whatever we had in our trucks just to go running up the hill once it had stopped to try and get these people out. They pried open the doors and got these two guys out and they had to. Everybody literally had to crawl through the mud and debris. And then the third car, which we couldn't even find a trace of the vehicle to start digging out. And I'm telling you there is so many brave people that were willing to dig them out if we could have found that car, but we just, we just couldn't. It was organised chaos. It was compassionate and horrible.

MG: Kathy Rennie told that story to my colleague, Sarah Penton, the host of Radio West in Kelowna. Police have confirmed that one woman died yesterday in a landslide on that highway and others are reported missing. Search and rescue efforts are still underway there and on Highway seven. Peter Busse is the mayor of Lillooet.

SOUNDCLIP

It's tragic are our thoughts and prayers and feelings go out to the family members, and it isn't the type of thing that we wanted to see. There was so much destruction from the from the rains all throughout the province, and I guess it was unexpected that it would happen so close to home and our heart goes out to the rest of the province that's struggling at the moment.

MG: One of the places still struggling is Princeton. That town is under a state of emergency, with half the community underwater. Hundreds of homes have been evacuated. Spencer Coyne is the mayor of Princeton. Mayor Coyne, good morning.

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Good morning.

MG: How worried are you about the safety of residents where you are in Princeton?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Um, I'm still pretty worried. We don't have any natural gas right now, so we've got below zero temperatures and no heating a lot of homes.

MG: Tell me about that, I mean, there has been a rupture in the gas line in the community.

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Yeah, one of the main gas lines that come into the community is as ruptured, and for the screws, it'll be here to this morning, I was gonna say tomorrow, but this morning and they're they're going to start work on it. Hopefully by the weekend we'll have we'll have heat again, but in the meantime, it's still going to be below zero.

MG: By the weekend, I mean, it's it's Wednesday, and it's I know it is a cold night last night.

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Yeah, it's I think it's a real minus four and minus five right now. It's. Yeah, it's going to be challenging.

MG: Yes. Tell me about the flooding situation, what does it look like in Princeton right now?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Water has gone down. There's still a lot of homes that have water in them. We have quite a bit of mud coating that area that was submerged. We have we don't have full water capacity right now. We lost all water yesterday morning and we had most of it almost back up and running yesterday, I won't say who was it we have a river. We lost one of our water mains and it emptied all of our reservoirs, so we were getting, trying to get the pressure back up as of last night, when I went to bed.

MG: At its height, I mean, how much of the town was underwater?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Probably one third of our downtown. And then probably about a third of the the area that we call the flats on the other side of the river, so we both sides of the river are the two main river got hit pretty hard.

MG: And describe what that looked like. Had you ever seen anything like that? Could you have ever imagined seeing anything like that before?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: No. I've never seen anything like that. Nobody, nobody in memory has a memory of a flood like that. It reached- we have on our map, we have a 200 year mark and the water hit almost exactly 200 year mark was it's a- it's a once in a lifetime event.

MG: We've seen images of roads throughout the Lower Mainland and beyond. Washed out the mudslides, the debris from the hillsides coming down, how cut off is your community right now?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: So Highway three is our main artery. Highway 5A is, or I guess you could call it, our secondary of the original five. And it runs up towards Merritt. That's the only road that's open now. We have a secondary road to Princeton somewhere along the road, which is half pavement half gravel, and it runs from Princeton to Summerland. It's open, and that is it. The village at Tulane is cut off right now from both Princeton and Aspen Grove. And we're cut off from the South Okanagan via Highway three, and we're cut off from the Lower Mainland via Highway three.

MG: What does that mean for getting supplies into town?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: It's pretty challenging. Our grocery store is pretty bare. We can get, you know, normal gasoline as it comes from Kamloops, so it comes down the highway 5A. But like most of the interior right now, groceries is a is a challenge.

MG: And so what are you telling people? I mean, you could imagine that with the stores emptying out, people might want to try to figure out whether they could get out of town. But as you said, most of the routes are not accessible and that half gravel, half paved road doesn't sound like a viable option. So what are you telling residents?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: We're working on it. Our team is working with the with the local grocery store. There's going to be a massive rerouting of of goods from Alberta towards British Columbia starting today. So we could be a day or so before, you know, all that logistically can can be a reality for us. The conversation is already happening on social media about the fact that there is no where else to go to get groceries, that the Okanagan has nothing, that Kamloops is, you know, in the same boat. So most people have come to the conclusion that it's not good to try to get out of town to find stuff. And it's unfortunately for people in there, you know, they're underwater. People from Princeton, Meritt, Penticton, Kelowna or Kamloops for goods if they can't get it here at home.

MG: When you take a look at the state of those roads, I mean, again, the cleanup is just underway, but how long do you think repair is going to take to try to get those roads rehabilitated so that heavy trucks and, you know, passenger vehicles can move on them again?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Heading east, there's no ETA at this time they have to. They're going to have to be assessed. I guess it would depend on how fast they can remove all the debris from the slides that come down the block the the highway going West. I haven't been told the ETA on that either. I'm sure they'll have to be assessed as well for any damage, so we could still be, we could still be days before those get opened up.

MG: How are you holding up in the midst of all of this?

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: Ah, doing my best. We're all doing our best. You know, we lean on each other, so that's one great thing about a small community is everybody's there for everybody else.

MG: It's a beautiful part of the country, and it's been through a lot, certainly over the last couple of months, so wish you the best and I really appreciate you stealing some time to speak with us this morning, Spencer. Thank you so much.

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: You're welcome.

MG: Take care of yourself.

MAYOR SPENCER COYNE: You, too.

MG: Spencer Coyne, the mayor of Princeton, British Columbia We did request interviews with both Mike Farnsworth, the B.C. Public Safety Minister, and Rob Fleming, the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. Neither was available to speak with us this morning. The news out of B.C., at least one death damage to critical infrastructure like roads and bridges could be a sign of things to come. In other parts of this country, many communities are vulnerable to this sort of severe weather. My next guest is co-author of the recent report Advancing the Climate Resilience of Canadian Infrastructure for the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Darren Swanson is also director of Novel Futures Corp. It helps communities and organisations prepare for climate change. Daryn, good morning to you.

DARREN SWANSON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Let's start in Abbotsford, there's a pump station there, that's the only thing really, that's keeping three metres of water from flooding into the soumis prairie region. And it's that pump station is on the verge of failure. What needs to happen right now, do you think?

DARREN SWANSON: Well, yeah, the weather whiplash, that's yeah, that B.C. has experienced over this this year is just been absolutely brutal and devastating, right from the heat waves to the flooding today. So as you're seeing this need to be looking at sort of responding to, I guess, the the changing climate. I think what we're seeing is these changes that are happening so, so fast now are catching some people by surprise. And that's part of the challenge. I think that communities across Canada are having now is is building the awareness of the urgency of of the changing climate. So we're seeing and in. In communities across Canada, in some places, even on the prairies, even some communities that are seeing rainfall events that are one in 100 year type events we're seeing through climate projections that some of these events now could be 130 year events by mid-century, and that's coming up pretty quickly. So I think one of the big challenges right now is, I guess, building that sense of awareness of the urgency to do, I guess, risk assessments on our critical infrastructure and putting in motion. I guess the steps take needed to to help build resilience to our critical infrastructure. And there's really three, I guess, three ways to go about doing that. That's through risk informed planning and assessment and starting to site and build new infrastructure in, for example, less flood prone areas that will. Hugely reduce costs. Loss of life, disruption of life. A second method, of course, is to make changes now to existing infrastructure based on future climate projections, elevating roads, increasing the size of culverts, moving critical infrastructure to to to higher elevation, having redundant systems, for example, to help you know, for redundant power systems, for example, redundant systems, for poor access to certain areas, roads and things like that. Of course, now a third a third method that helps to build resilience, of course, is enhancing the monitoring and maintenance of critical infrastructure, whether it's roads, buildings, energy infrastructure. It's just knowing now that. With the climate changing so fast, we have to monitor our infrastructure frequently and take necessary steps to mitigate wearing of infrastructure due to changes in the climate.

MG: And pay for it. I mean, what how much money is this going to cost? If you take a look at the investment that is required? What are we talking about here?

DARREN SWANSON: Well, the numbers are that are coming out from the various research reports are quite staggering and intimidating. We see that from the Canadian climate choices report this fall. And they're projecting that, you know, as far as rainfall increases and flood damage, sea levels rise, the damage to homes and buildings they project could increase fivefold in the next few decades. And they're projecting about a factor of 10 by the end of the century. So that's cost of about 13 billion annually for buildings and roads alone. We're looking at damage to roads and railways. The numbers are looking like up to about five billion by mid-century and maybe as much as 12 billion annually by the end of the century for damages to those types of roads. So financing is going to be key and then that's another challenge that communities across Canada are experiencing. So it's not only building the awareness and they have the sense of urgency to to do risk assessments on existing critical infrastructure. But it's just leveraging the finance to really make the changes that those types of assessments will will illuminate. Well, let me ask

MG: you about the sense of urgency, because in the report, you say that there's an infrastructure deficit of upwards of a trillion that's with a T a trillion dollars. And you say that looking at municipal infrastructure in Canada, an alarming amount is in poor or very poor condition. How has it been allowed to get to this severe point if there's going to be further investment required, not even just to deal with the infrastructure deficit, but also to deal with the looming climate changes that are going to put a greater strain on that already damaged infrastructure.

DARREN SWANSON: Yeah, those yeah, those numbers are huge, I mean, just as you mentioned the infrastructure gap just sort of bringing infrastructure up to the needs and the demands of the future, the numbers are large, ranging from one hundred and fifty billion to a trillion dollars. That's just the deficit to really get our infrastructure sort of ready for it for the future. Yeah, the numbers, the numbers are huge.

MG: What are the conversations that we need to have to address those numbers? I mean, in the last minute or so that we have you see what's happening in British Columbia and obviously alarm bells are ringing, but people are paying attention to this across the country. So when we talk about resiliency, what's the most immediate conversation that we need to have?

DARREN SWANSON: The most immediate conversation is to be doing risk assessments on all of our critical infrastructure, and we have a lot of critical infrastructure, roads, buildings, energy, wastewater stormwater, marine infrastructure. It's all sort of levels of government and organisations and that are owners and operators of infrastructure to be looking at their infrastructure from a climate perspective. Will this infrastructure perform in a future climate? Using the information that is now out there for projections on climate change, to take a look at how the system will perform and then making the necessary changes to buildings or changing where future buildings are sited or enhancing monitoring and maintenance. It's really taking the steps to understand the risk and then taking the steps to put in the control measures, the changes to really help infrastructure perform better in the future. And as you said, the financing is a key part. Public private partnerships, non-government and the private sector is going to be hugely important to those numbers were staggering for the improvements in infrastructure to make them climate resilient, unlocking those partnerships across the private sector and governments to really leverage the financing, unlock the bottlenecks that may be occurring to leverage, for example, the huge investment portfolios.

MG: Darren, we'll have to leave. We'll have to leave it there. We'll see whether this is the motivation to have those conversations. I appreciate you joining us this morning.

DARREN SWANSON: Oh my pleasure.

MG: Darren Swanson, director of Novel Futures Corp. It helps communities and organisations prepare for climate change. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One i Matt Galloway. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

How Canadian Biruté Galdikas uncovered the secret life of orangutans

Guests: Birute Mary Galdikas

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, Dawn and Roberta Hill and their four siblings were sent to the Mohawk Institute Residential School in the 1950s. Like so many others, they were traumatised by the brutal treatment they endured. Now, ground penetrating radar is searching for the whole truth about what happened there in about 30 minutes. Dawn and Roberta will be here to talk about why, for them, the search is a step toward healing. But first, the inside story from the forests of Borneo.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Fifty years ago, a young Canadian scientist first waded into the rainforests of Borneo, Indonesia, with a mission in mind. She was there to study orang-utans. Little did she know that she would become one of the world's foremost expert on orang-utans and would still be there all these years later. She became part of a group of well known women studying our great ape cousins, along with Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. They became known as the tribe mates. Birute Mary Galdikas isn't anthropologist, a primatologist and a professor at Simon Fraser University. Birute MAry Galdikas, good morning.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Good morning.

MG: What do you remember about what it was like when you first went into those forests in Borneo 50 years ago?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, 50 years ago, the transportation and communication networks were not what they are now. So when I went to Borneo, it was like I was going into unknown territory. It was terra incognita. I had no idea what I would find. I had gone to the Indonesian Embassy in Washington DC because I started my voyage of discovery or whatever in Los Angeles because I was finishing up my Ph.D. at UCLA. And nobody, 50 years ago, in the Indonesian Embassy had any idea about Indonesian Borneo, which is Clementine. Nobody had ever been there. Nobody knew anybody who had been there. So it was really a voyage into terra incognita.

MG: What sort of reaction did you get from other researchers at the time when you said, this is what you wanted to do, that you wanted to go into terra incognita to study the wild orang-utans?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: I got scepticism. I got doubt. People said it couldn't be done because several researchers had gone into actually North Borneo and followed wild orang-utans have tried to find them, really couldn't find them, couldn't follow them because they went to towns were mainly founded Peat Swamp Forest and researchers were, you know, waiting up to their armpits in swamp water. And it was really very, very hard for people. But the reason I think it was hard is because they went to the wrong place. My mentor was Louis Leakey, who was known as the Darwin of human evolution and who was a living legend in his time and after he heard various people, various well known anthropologists, primatologist, what have you, I said that it couldn't be done. He said to me optimistically, I believe in you. He said, I will give you 10 years to find an orang-utan.

MG: You have to read a story. You approached him after a lecture that he'd given.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: No, I was a graduate student at UCLA. I was taken to actually a graduate class in archaeological dating techniques. And my professor was a friend of Louis. And so he said that instead of class, we should go and listen to the lecture. And when I heard him talk about Jane Goodall and Milligan passing, I knew he was the one who would unlock the universe.

MG: What was it about the orang-utans, given the difficulties, as you mentioned that people had had in trying to find them and part of that's going to the wrong place, but also what they went through? What was it about them that was so fascinating to you?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Orang-utans are different to most of the primates non-human primates because they have weights around their eyes. And they also have a different way of looking at you. But when they look at you as though they are drinking in your very soul. They look at you and they don't blink. They just concentrate on staring at you and their eyes look into your eyes. You know, it's mesmerising. It's uncanny. And you become captivated by that look. And it hasn't happened just to me. It's happened to many people. There's a way that orang-utans look at you, that capture you, capture your soul. And I think that's what happened to me.

MG: Before you went to study them, you got some advice from Jane Goodall. What did Jane Goodall tell you?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Oh, Jane Goodall, I asked her. We spent some time together. I asked Jane, What am I going to do? You know, what am I going to do when I get out there? And she said, Well, you'll do exactly as she did, and that is you, she said. Told me. Quote, you will go out and you will find them.

MG: What was it like the first time you saw an orang-utan in the wild?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, the first time I saw an orang-utan, basically it was on the river's edge. We were in a boat and the orang-utan were down immediately moved away from the river. [Unintelligible], she didn't throw any branches, but she she moved away very rapidly. And I think my first interaction with the world orang-utan, my first observation of am orang-utan lasted about a minute.

MG: The subsequent interactions lasted a good deal longer. How did you go about given the fact that nobody else had done this before? How did you go about studying them?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: I did exactly what Jane told me, and that is they found them and I followed them. Initially, of course, they were unhabituated, so they tried to get away the very slow moving creatures. It's like they live in a different dimension of time than we do. So they were sometimes relatively easy. I don't want to say, is it not hard. It went, but difficult to follow on dry ground if they were always in the canopy. You know, there were always 100 feet up in the air, but they're moving through the canopy and it's as typical, you know, move from branch to branch under arm locomotion that they use is called brackish, and so they would break it [unintelligible] to the canopy. I was able to follow them on the dry ground. But as soon as entered the swamps, especially the deep swamps, couldn't follow them. I lost them, it took me a while to get to them. There was an older female named Priscilla, and it took me 15 years to habituate her. When I say habituate, that meant that when she saw me, she didn't kiss, squeak, break up and throw branches, try to run away [unintelligible] the canopy. Sometimes even orang-utan females would come down to the ground and run because it's much more difficult to follow them on the ground because they were much faster on the ground. So it was, it was difficult.

MG: I want to play something from 1975. This is from a documentary from National Geographic. It's you talking about an orang-utan named Nick. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

We had decided to follow one Animal Day after day from sunrise to dark. Never letting him out of our sight. Our subject was a huge meal we had observed for a year and a half and had nicknamed Nick. We estimated that he was more than 20 years old and weighed at least one hundred and fifty pounds. Our objective was to habituate the animal to make our presence so natural that in time he would have no effect on his behaviour. In time, Nick began to reveal the true behaviour of the wild orang-utan totally unaffected by our presence. Nick was the first wild orang-utan ever to become totally habituated.

MG: What did you learn about orang-utans because of Nick?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Because of Nick, we learnt the orang-utan males, adult males, the ones with [unintelligible] and large, slow poachers avoid each other. So much so that in 50 years, I have seen two adult male orang-utans meet in the absence of receptive females, those females who want to mate with perceptive females. These are true loners, and the only time that they have a social grouping brings another orang-utan is when they are consorting with adult females. And other thing I learnt from adult males like Nick, not just Nick, Nick was a young male, relatively young. And, you know, the early days of research we totally underestimated the weight of the adult male orang-utans. We later figured out that Nick was probably not one hundred and fifty pounds. He was more like a hundred and fifty kilos. In reality, he was probably almost 300 pounds in weight. But you know, you don't know this. You're guessing in the early days of research.

MG: How did they come to regard you as they become habituated?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: They regarded me as though I was a tree stump or log on the forest floor. Once the males became habituated to our presence, you could follow them on the ground and it's been a similar amount of time on the ground. I mean, if you're a 300 pound animal, it is difficult to tiptoe amongst the twigs up of the canopy, so they often would come down to the ground, specially after they're habituated,walk along the ground under a tree and then climb up into the branches of the fruit tree up into the canopy and start eating fruit. And when they were finished eating, they would come down the tree trunk. Sometimes, go into an adjacent tree and then come down and then walk along the forest floor. But they would only do that once they were habituated. Once they didn't, even- sometimes they forgot that I was there.

MG: How did you develop the mindset to work as slowly as you did? You mentioned Priscilla and that that process took upwards of 15 years. With Nick, it was a year and a half. This is this is slow moving science. So how did you recalibrate yourself to be able to to play the long game, if I can put it that way?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Yeah, it was a long game, with orang-utans. I think my metabolism must have slowed down. I have an orang-utan sense of time, but when I come back to North America in particular - not to mention Indonesia because Indonesians also have a gentle rhythm when it comes to the time - that I really have to hurry myself up and give myself up to the fast pace of life in North America.

MG: What does that mean? An orang-utan sense of time?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: It means that you're not in a hurry. You're in the tropics, and a pear tree might might be ripe fruit for a month or two months. And what that means is an orang-utan knows that pear shape. She doesn't get to that tree today. Tomorrow, some fruit will still be there. The ripening process of many of the large canopy trees takes a lot of time to happen, so the first day there might be, you know, five percent of the fruit might ripen next day, another five percent. So you don't have to rush. That day there may not be right fruit, but the next day, well, the next five percent will ripen and there will be fruit. So what orang-utans do over the month or so, the fruit ripens in a tree is they visit it repeatedly. You know, they'll eat in it. And then a few days later, they loop around and come back to it. And that's the pattern of doing. Time becomes timeless. And oran-utans also live long time. There are probably orang-utans on this planet who have reached 70 years of age. Normally, the die in the fifties, sometimes in the sixties, but they live a long time. It's not like the dog. The 15 year old orang-utan is an adolescent. He or she might not even be fully mature. And in the case of a wild female, she might only have her first offspring when she's 15, 16 or 17 years of age. And a male in the wild might not [unintelligilbe] or not become fully mature until he is 18 or 19 years old or if his Sumatran, he might not be a fully mature until his early 30s. So time is extended, their life stage stages are extended.

MG: Have your children spent time with you while you've been doing your work?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Yeah. Well, my children, my three children actually spent their toddler hoods with orang-utans.

MG: What was that like for them?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: They enjoyed it. They played with the wild born ex-captive orphans that we had rescued and were rehabilitating, and they were equals.

MG: What do you mean they were equals?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, they were equal. I mean, they they played as equals. I mean, they roll around on the floor. I remember one time Benty and his friend orang-utan

MG: Benty is your son.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Yeah, my son Benti, my son found a sack of flour. They spilt it all over themselves, and the two of them were rolling around in the flour. This was in our kitchen. It kept leaking and they were very much equals. I mean, toddlers don't really speak that much. And what happened with Bently, who probably had the most intense engagement with his fellow younger brother, Jones, is that he had no, no children as play there when he was two years old and his best friend was actually not even an orang-utan, his best friend was a female gibbon. And Benty learn how to climb trees. I mean, he was amazing because his best friend was a given adventure in the wild and ninety nine point nine percent of boreal, we had some escapades with Benty where you disappeared and we couldn't find him and we were terrified that something had happen. And then we'd see him, in Jakarta once, he climbed up to the top of the water tower and he was stifling his giggles while everybody searched on the ground looking for him. That happened also with trees that we were looking for Benty. We thought something must have happened to him. Where is he? And there he is, sitting at the top of a small tree, stifling his giggles. It was very funny that people were calling his name and, you know, looking very worried.

MG: We've talked on this programme before about the impacts of deforestation on orang-utans. The demand for palm oil, the demand for timber as well. When you take a look at the time that has passed between when you first went into the Bornean jungle and now how much is that landscape changed because of that demand? And what what impact does that have on the orang-utans

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: and 50 years, half a century? The landscape has totally changed, totally changed and contribute to National Park. When I went there, it was a reserve which meant that the animals were protected, but the environment was not. The habitat was not. It's still relatively safe. And one of the reasons is still relatively safe is that we were there. And now the Indonesian government has stepped up, and now there's a strong, increasingly strong national park ranger presence. They do patrol the park for years. We were the ones that were engaging with illegal loggers and poachers and so on and so forth and all around the park that's been deforested and this has happened to much of Borneo, including Malaysian Borneo, which is the northern part of Borneo. Sabah, which is the state of North Borneo and Malaysia, well over 20 percent, its land is now covered in palm oil plantations, and this has had horrific repercussions for wild orang-utan populations. So now, what used to be wild orang-utans is now incredibly fragmented, and what you have with orang-utans is you have metro lines. These metro lines are very closely related. And then you have roaming males. And so the males are the ones who provide genetic diversity. Well, now the the males son't go anywhere. They're trapped in islands of forest and the early days. So the first 20 years of my research, you know, in a week, you might have three different adult males come to the study area, which is 35 square kilometres and then leave it. And then you might see that male never again. Or you might see her three years later or eight years later. But they never stay. The males never stay. They go back and forth. And that's stopped now. If we see a strange male once or twice a year, we're fortunate. And the question that we've been asking for a number of years now is where are the males?

MG: Are you confident in the agreement that came out of the COP conference on ending deforestation by 2030? This is something that the Indonesian government has said is unfair, but the world seems to be moving in that direction. Will that help stop the devastation that you're talking about and perhaps begin to restore some of those habitat?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, no, no. The reason that deforestation is going to stop is because there's no forest left. How can you cut down a forest that no longer exists that has been turned into palm oil? The only way that you can stop the deforestation is by starting to, you know, rescue the forests that have been turned into palm oil or rubber plantations or into timber estates for pulp and paper. You know, you have to make restitution. The only way you can make restitution is by replanting the forest and rewilding it.

MG: But you remain optimistic.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, I remain optimistic because I'm there, allowed by the Indonesian government, by Indonesian communities to do the work with the help of Indonesians, and so we have we're very small foundation, very, very small. But since 2017, our eight person local group crew have planted over 400,000 native trees areas that were burned by the massive wildfires of 2018 and 2019. And of those 400,000 trees, about 90 percent have survived. We're making a difference. And I know the Indonesian government is also planting, replanting. So because I'm on the ground, I do have some confidence that, you know, maybe we will be able to rescue some orang-utan habitat and orang-utans will not go extinct species in the wild.

MG: Which is important that that's the key thing in the wild.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Well, because then the processes of evolution can continue, well, unimpeded. If you put orang-utans in captivity, what you're producing, you're selecting a totally different kind of animal in the end. Because the kinds of characteristics that are optimal for living in captivity are very different from the kinds of characteristics that are advantageous in the wild, because the kinds of orang-utans that thrive in captivity are the kinds of orang-utans that are curious about humans, get along with humans, like humans and don't mind being in captivity, which is very different from a wild orang-utan that is suddenly put into captivity. Sometimes that just die of shock.

MG: Just before I let you go. I want to play one more thing from that National Geographic documentary. This is from 1975.

SOUNDCLIP

I like being alone in the forest. Whenever I'm in the forest, I always have the sensation of being in a place the slightly magical. The sounds change, the feeling of the air changes, poor quality, the world changes when you're in the forest.

MG: Is it still magical to be in the forest?

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: It's always magical to be in the forest. It doesn't matter what forest. As long as it's forest. So I recently visited Lithuania and I was in the forest there, ancient worst and the feeling is the same. You absorb the sounds, the air purity. I still feel the magic, and I still feel extraordinarily fortunate that God blessed me with years in the forest. And I've spent 50 years of my life up and on in the course in Borneo with orang-tans.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you about the work that you have done and the work that you're continuing to do. Birute, thank you very much.

BIRUTE MARY GALDIKAS: Thank you very much for having me on your programme.

MG: Birute Mary Galdikas has been studying orang-utans for 50 years. She is a primatologist and anthropologist and a professor at Simon Fraser University. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

a lot of people in Canada and I'm not saying that they're bad people or anything like that, they just never heard the truth. So it's important for me to say, here's what my experience was.

MG: the whole truth about residential schools. It's only just starting to be discussed in this country. Ground penetrating radar searches at the sites of former residential schools are starting to change that in 90 seconds. Two survivors tell their stories and talk about the conversations they want Canadians to be having right now. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

50 years later; and survivors discuss the search for unmarked graves at the Mohawk Institute Residential School

Guests: Dawn Hill, Roberta Hill, Duncan McCue

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Across this country, indigenous communities are starting the work of finding their missing children, children who attended residential institutions and never came home. The Mohawk Institute in Bradford, Ontario, was one of the longest running residential schools in Canada. It operated for one hundred and thirty six years. Survivors still call it the mush hole for the corn mush that they had to eat there. A warning that in these next interviews, we will be talking about abuse at the Mohawk Institute. Last week, a search using ground penetrating radar began on the site to look for unmarked graves. Kimberly Murray is executive lead of the Survivors Secretariat, a group for the survivors of the Mohawk Institute, which is overseeing that search.

SOUNDCLIP

I cannot stress enough the importance of listening to survivors and hearing their truths that they have to share about the children that were here one day and then gone the next, never to be seen again. The survivors are the ones that heard the whispered truths about where the babies and their children are buried. We must honour them and listen to their words. Modern technology and fancy machines and devices that you're going to see can help us uncover the truth, but they can never replace the firsthand knowledge of our people. Those who were here and are here with us today, they are our witnesses.

MG: Two of those survivors are with us. Dawn and Roberta Hill are sisters. They spent four years at the Mohawk Institute. Dawn and Roberta. Good morning.

DAWN: Good morning.

MG: Dawn, what does it mean to you to hear that acknowledgement that your voices matter so deeply that you, as survivors are at the centre of this process?

DAWN: Well, I think it's very, very important only because, like we've heard these stories for a long, long time. Oh no, I didn't hear any of the stories until I was an adult, like actually in my 50s. And then we started hearing from different people, different survivors and what they had to say about what they saw or their older sister or brother, or if somebody had seen it themselves. So let's get on with that search is what is important to me.

MG: Roberta, what about for you? I mean, what does it mean for you to have this search now underway?

ROBERTA: I think it's really important to pursue even what the truth and reconciliation was doing. You know, they found how many children that have not really been accounted for. And yet there's more there's more records to be found. And even as a child, if some kids left there, we wouldn't have known where they went. They could have gone anywhere or disappeared. We just would not have had that knowledge as children. So it was easy to move kids around. It would be easy to hide those deaths.

MG: I think I know that this is difficult to to go back over and to think about. So only say what you're comfortable and saying. But Dawn, when you see this search start, I mean, what goes through your mind about your time at the Mohawk Institute?

DAWN: I have to tell you, this is a little bit going back to the previous question, our own brother. He went missing one day like nobody told us where he went. We didn't fight, we were what? Seven, eight, nine, when he was gone and I didn't find out where Robyn. I didn't find out until like we were 14, 15 somewhere in there. And so it was easy to cover up a lot of things. So at least we found our brother eventually. But how many families were never told or never had a clue and didn't have the right to have a clue about where they went. So I think it's really important now that people are researching the records. The search has finally started.

MG: Roberta, what do you want us to know about what happened in that institution? What went on in that institution?

ROBERTA: I want people to understand the brutality of the place, and it's not. It's not so hard to understand once you hear how brutal some of the some of the people were there towards children. So it wouldn't really surprise me that kids could have died there at the hands of some of these people. Like when you can beat the heck out of a kid for doing what you know, there's rampant sexual abuse or physical abuse or, you know, making kids go hungry. So there was really no respect for us as children. They really could care less. And because we were so isolated from everybody, that institution, like all others, was pretty much closed off so they could pretty much do what they want. Like I said, it was a pretty brutal place. You know, all the runaways who got beaten reporting anything. If you reported anything, any kind of abuse would, you dare to report it because you would have to report to the minister who was also the administrator, and it would never get past that man because that would have got him charged. They would have all been charged. So this is why we, you know, we stayed silent because the punishment was so severe.

MG: Dawn, as sisters who who had attended there, did you and Roberta talked much about what happened to you in that school in the years after, after you left there? Did you talk much about what had gone on there?

ROBERTA: Actually, we never really talked about anything that went on there until we were in our 50s because everything you just kept inside and it wasn't something you shared. So even as sisters, we didn't share that until much later in life. And then we found out, like all kinds of stories, not just from us being sisters, but from other people who attended that school or, you know, their their families and stuff. Then we started talking.

MG: What was it like to have that bottled up inside you, Dawn?

DAWN: For me, I had left that behind. I moved on in my life. I just didn't talk about that. I just moved on with the life that I had at the moment.

MG: Roberta, what about for you? I mean, in not speaking about that for many, many years, what was that like?

ROBERTA: It's just something. It's a mechanism that you learn to deal with these things in them, keep them quiet because I learnt that as a kid. Would it have done me any good to speak about being sexually abused by the minister? It would not have done me any good at all. I probably would have been punished even worse. But it's a matter of survival of for a lot of kids in there. I mean, I'm one of probably many that were sexually abused, but you just don't talk about it. It's not a nice thing to talk about it. So you have to learn to deal with things on your own because we really didn't have any supports there. I don't ever recall anybody saying, you know, why are you crying so much? Because I cried a lot when I went there, you know? And after a while, you stop crying, you learn to be silent and shut your mouth, or else there's more punishment so you learn to internalise. You keep everything shut in, which is not it's not healthy. It's not good for you. And so I carried all that with me for years and years until the residential school stuff start coming up again. And then when I heard that I wasn't alone, you know, I wasn't the only one being abused. But when you're a child, you don't know that I didn't know all these other kids were being abused as well. So, you know, as a young kid, I went in when I was six. So that's a long time of keeping secrets and dealing with trauma, you know, that kind of emotional psychological trauma. So eventually it comes out and it's not a healthy place to be, but you have to open up about it and in order to, I think, to heal and move on that healing journey.

MG: Is there power in speaking about it now?

ROBERTA: Oh, absolutely. I think that the more because a lot of people in Canada and I'm not saying that they're bad people or anything like that, they just never heard the truth. So it's important for me to say, here's what my experience was. I can't speak for anybody else, but I know what I went through and I know that there's a lot more because people started to speak about it after the fact. Now I can understand why things were the way they were. And you know, there's a lot of fallout from all of this. Why when we left there, like, why did so many kids end up with alcohol or drug problems? Why were so many incarcerated? You know, why were kids from there sent to juvenile detention centres when it really wasn't us who were the criminals, the criminals were running the place. And that's that's just my point. It was like there was no escape for us.

MG: I'm sorry for what you went through, but I think it's really it must be really quite something to see. Dawn talked about the idea of possibly finding accountability. Is that what you're looking for in this search?

ROBERTA: Oh, absolutely. There's a culture. There needs to be accountability. It's been covered up for how many years, and the only way we're going to find out is if they if they come clean with all the records because it was so easy to move kids around from one place to another. Kids could have gone. We wouldn't know where they went to. You just assume as a child that they went home and they stayed home. But we don't know those things. We have to find all of the truths, not just some of the truths that people want us to find. We need all of it.

MG: Dawn, they are starting this search behind the main building of the Mohawk Institute. Why do you think they chose that location?

ROBERTA: Well, I know why they chose that location because like all of the research that had been done prior to starting the JPR or the search, there was a lot of research about listening to stories from survivors looking at old records and stuff, but mainly from looking at stories from the old survivors, the boys now men. But they had stories about the barns which are no longer there. But from the old maps and stuff, you can see where they are. And so they listen to all of those voices and said, This is where we need to start. And so it's all of that background on the boys side and maybe behind the school where they're going to be searching those areas first. So I think that it's important that they listened and they did because they're they are trying to find that truth. All of those people involved right now with the Survivor Secretariat are trying to move this forward. And I think it's really important that they listen to us as survivors that this is where you need to start. I mean, because I know they have found bones in the past. But maybe not just there, but around the muscle. And I don't know that I'm at liberty to say what happened with those because I don't really know. We talked to the coroner and they're looking into some of those recoveries and now thinking that maybe they're more important than they initially thought. So I think that's where we stand right now, that it's really important that they start in that area.

MG: This is hard to see unfold, given everything that has gone on in your own lives, what has been learnt over the course of this summer? We've been talking a lot on this programme about resilience and where people find strength and resilience. As you watch this unfold, Dawn, where are you finding resilience? What are you leaning on?

ROBERTA: I think I lean on our group mostly because there's a lot of people I didn't know until we started looking into this. There's a lot of men. They were boys then. I knew some of the names, but some of them are older and I didn't know them. But because of listening to all the stories that gives me strength that we're a group, we're a cohesive group and we all have the same goal. And we try to keep things out there, but also support each other. I think that's really important that we listen to each other, which we do all the time, and not everything was all bad. We have some, you know, funny stories to share because those were kids you're talking about and the things that they did. But I think that group now helps us stay focussed and stay within a group that's shared a lot of the same things that we did. And so that gives you moral support, mental support and just all that camaraderie that we have now that we didn't enjoy as kids.

MG: What about for you, Roberta?

ROBERTA: It's about resiliency. Hmm. I think that given the circumstances that we all lived in as kids in a residential school, I think that because of because of the isolation and everything, I think you don't have much choice. You're either going to adapt, be resilient, try to live in that space that you're forced into, you know, you can't get out of it. So I think our group of survivors right now and I think our community is behind us, it's not just a group of survivors, everybody's impacted by this. And so they've heard the stories over the years. A lot of our community have had, you know, grandpas, aunts and uncles that have gone to the Marshall. And now they're beginning to understand the reality of the school and what children went through. So I would say that we're stronger today where we weren't then, but there's quite a few survivors that still cannot stand up and speak, it hurts some still to this day. So even though some of them may show resilience, I think just the fact that that we're here today, you know, that's strength in itself and that we're able to speak about it. Our voices are being heard and there's opportunities where we can express our our concerns and deal with this in a public way. Well, just look at today, you know, there's many other opportunities out there for our voices to be heard. And that's really what I'm looking forward to is having conversations with anyone in Canada who wants to have a conversation.

MG: I'm really glad to have the chance to speak with you both. This is going to be a difficult process. And so I appreciate you taking some time to talk to us as it starts, and I hope we'll talk again in the meantime. Take care of yourselves and thank you very much.

ROBERTA: Thank you.

DAWN: Bye.

MG: Dawn and Roberta Hill, our sisters and survivors of the Mohawk Institute Residential School, CBC Radio as Duncan McCue has been listening in. Duncan is working on a podcast about residential schools for CBC Podcasts. Duncan, good morning.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Good morning.

MG: What is it that makes this search at the Mohawk Institute standard to you,

DUNCAN MCCUE: first and foremost, Matt, this is a death investigation. They have confirmed that there are at least 54 deaths that occurred at the Mohawk Residential School, but they don't know where those children are buried. So the school and the grounds around the school, that's two square kilometres are being treated as a huge crime scene. So that's that's the one thing that's really important to know. The other thing, as you heard from Kim Maori survivors are front and centre in this process. So the survivors secretariat is driven by survivors like Don and Roberta, but their arm's length from the Six Nations chief and council, it's not the politicians running this, it's they're trying to forge relationships with the police. And so it's this incredible kind of attempt at collaboration to find answers. It's never really been seen before.

MG: There's all these different levels of police involvement, right? And different police forces that are involved here.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Three different police forces here are a lot of overlapping jurisdictions. So there's Six Nations Police, there's Brantford police and there's the OPP. A couple of interesting things the Branford and the Six Nation police, the chiefs of police are both Haudenosaunee intergenerational survivors, so they obviously have an interest in getting their forces involved. But you know, the OPP and the community of Six Nations, there's a long history of distrust there.

MG: A strained relationship.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Really strained. So you know, why involve the police, I guess, would be the question. I think the way that the survivor secretariat is looking at it is the police have enhanced investigation powers. You know, they have better access to records. They're better at gathering evidence. One of the things that we've seen in complex investigations like missing and murdered indigenous women, is that when you have these overlapping police jurisdictions, there's often a lack of coordination and there are gaps between police forces. Well, what we're seeing here is that the police are saying they're going to use a case management tool called Power Case. And that's a really powerful tool for a complex criminal investigation to get names and archival records and witnesses pull all that and try to connect the dots in ways that other researchers may not be able to.

MG: Coordination is one thing. Trust is another matter entirely, particularly, as you said, given strained relationships in past. How do you go about and how have they gone about building trust in that context?

DUNCAN MCCUE: I had the privilege to be invited to witness a couple of the survivors secretariat meetings at a time when they were trying to figure out the mandate of the human rights observer. They have a human rights observer overseeing how the police are operating. They were talking about the importance of Haudenosaunee law. And you could see the police, you know, they're kind of scratching their head and saying, What does that mean? Oh, national law. And then the corresponding frustration of the survivors who say, you know, we're here to find the children. And one thing that you saw each of those meetings start with is is the whole nationally Thanksgiving address an important prayer that that that the Haudenosaunee are often use in their gatherings. Now our minds are one is an important phrase that goes throughout that Thanksgiving address. And I think what you're seeing when you know the research on was unveiled this past week is that for the time being, those tensions are there between police and six nations and survivors, but their minds are at one right now.

MG: But that's a difficult path to be on, and there have to be difficult conversations that unfold in those rooms.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Super emotional. And also, I mean, these are, you know, ceremonial considerations are also really key. I mean, again, when I was there witnessing they were talking about needing to start this with a tobacco burning ceremony, this is not the way that the police typically, you know, begin investigations. We are involved in a sacred ceremony. There are cultural monitors who are working alongside the police to give them cultural safety trainings. And you know, there are ceremonies and rituals that the whole nation we observe with regard to death, they are passing these on to the police. So it is a police investigation and they want to preserve evidence, but they also want to act in a culturally appropriate way.

MG: It seems as though this could be the template for a better relationship in future.

DUNCAN MCCUE: I mean, I think there are probably communities. There are lots of communities that don't want to have a criminal investigation. They want to be able to, you know, locate the missing children, honour the dead and try to find, find some healing for their community. But the communities that are looking at accountability, they're watching this closely. There are police forces right across the country, the RCMP, a coroners who are watching this as perhaps a template for not only residential schools but missing and murdered indigenous women investigations and other police cases.

MG: What does that word accountability mean in this context? Again, Don and Roberta talked about that.

DUNCAN MCCUE: You heard Don say the criminals were running the place. You know, it's one thing to say that. But when you when you asked the question, you know, how did these children die?

MG: How did they die? What was the crime?

DUNCAN MCCUE: Yeah. Well, that leads to more questions. And so, you know, perhaps in some cases nefariously, if there are bodies discovered. You know, and there are there have been difficult discussions about exhumation are coming up the forensic investigation. You know, that's that's one thing. But but you also heard Don and Roberta talk about poring through the records, and that's there are gaps in that as well. They're doing that. The Survivor Secretariat has already started doing that, and they're finding horrific evidence of of children who were malnourished, who lived in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, who weren't properly clothed. The question is, you know, will that add up to crimes, you know, failures to provide the necessities of life? Criminal negligence causing death. Manslaughter. You know, those those are crimes. You can't answer those questions unless there's a police investigation. So that's what's happening now. And the question will be will there be enough evidence to set up a criminal case to hold individuals or entities account? Did the church and the government fail in their duty to care?

MG: This is a large investigation and a large complex process, and I know that you put a dollar figure on these things, but they do. It does cost money. Oh, I

DUNCAN MCCUE: think you have to put a dollar figure on it. And certainly Six Nations has, I mean, chief and counsel put up a million dollars at the beginning to to start this off, they said this is something our community wants to support. They're expecting to get that money back from either provincial or the federal government, but they kick started the process. And you know, they're saying they have asked the provincial government for it for $9 million over three years. Provincial government has come back and said, Well, we can give you four hundred thousand over three years. And so I think you're going to see plenty more battles over funds both, you know, with with communities right across the country.

MG: We've talked a lot about centring survivors in this and the survivors secretariat does that. Donna Roberta talked about the importance of their voices being at the centre of this. What do you see as as this providing a model for for other similar investigations across the country?

DUNCAN MCCUE: I think it's really the ceremony is important. One one of the one of the things that First Nations are grieving so much is that they didn't have an opportunity to honour their dad in a way that is culturally appropriate in their communities. And they're looking at these investigations as opportunities to finally do that to bring the children home. You hear that refrain over and over and again in our communities and. And so I think ceremony is important. But as you heard, Dawn and Roberta say, there are still there were so many decades of silence, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was one opportunity for survivors right across the country to speak up. But there are still so many survivors who are grappling with what they experienced, trying to pull together the pieces, trying to look at the impacts on their families, having those conversations with their families for the first time. So I think going forward, having survivor centred process, what does that mean? It means making sure that they're safe in the telling of their stories and that they're honoured.

MG: Duncan, thank you.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Thank you.

MG: Duncan McCue, CBC Radio journalist and host He's working on a podcast about residential schools for CBC Podcasts. Jim Edgar is a survivor of the Mohawk Institute, and he wrote a poem, as he says, for the truth that comes before reconciliation. This is Jim Edgar and Grandmother's voice.

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[Indigenous speech]

There is a place I know far, far away. Where we get mush and milk, three times a day.

Oh, Canada. Do you think we should be proud. Oh, Canada to sing your name out loud?

The forgotten ones you scattered in the wind have come back to haunt you now, my friend.

Oh, Canada, your home upon my home. I grew up in the School of Racial Genocide, Self-hate and shame, always walking by my side.

You stole my tongue, tried to change my mind to turn me into a different kind.

Oh, Canada, your home upon my home. Many sky is covered over, many here to stay on our children, now, and those who are on the way.

Many struggle each day trying to find the door to hear grandmother's voice as we did before.

Oh, Canada. Your home upon my home. The so-called men of God who gave us care, many were perverts, and I'm sure you were aware.

They preyed on us, both girls and boys, fulfilling their fantasies, but left those destroyed.

May you hang your head in shame. Oh, Canada. Many brothers are gone now. Many sisters too. Who were trained in the mind from the residential school.

When you broke our families, you see with our feet, we hope for our children that it's not too late.

Oh, Canada, your home upon my home, reconcile with you would be hard to do. You have everything, all your wealth drew.

What do we have? Broken treaties. Church crap. Many little children. We'll never come back.

How do you reconcile that in Canada? Oh, Canada. I don't think we should be proud. After all, we're just a number in the crowd.

Who get everything for nothing. It is a myth that's perceived. How will you lie? Well, you deceive.

Oh, Canada, your home upon my home. When I came home, I knew no one there. Ten years in the mush hole with a lifetime of despair.

Still, I struggle each day trying to find the door to speak grandmother's tongue, as we did before.

May your God forgive you, Oh, Canada, for I cannot.

MG: Jim Edgar lived at the Mohawk Institute Residential School from 1950 through 1960. He now lives in Sault Ste-Marie. For anyone needing help, the Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can call 1866 925 4419. That is The Current for this Wednesday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q you might remember and recognise the actor. Hiam Abbas, for her role on the hit TV show Succession. She plays Marcia Roy. She has a new film out called Gaza Mon Amour. I'll talk to Tom Power about that coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio one. I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current and we'll see you tomorrow.

Wednesday November 17, 2021 Full Transcript

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