Residential school life was highly regimented. Chores, class work, vocational training, and religious services dominated the school schedule. Times were also set aside for play and recreation. Some of the schools had small libraries that provided students with books and magazines they could read, particularly during the long winters. Choirs, brass bands, and organized sports were common at many residential schools. Authorities believed that these activities, in addition to whatever pleasure they might give to students, would contribute to their cultural assimilation. This flowed from the confused belief that one could not be ‘Indian’ and play the trumpet or ice hockey; a belief that ignored the fact that cultural and recreational activities had long had a central role in the lives of Aboriginal people. This belief also failed to recognize that, for centuries, Aboriginal people had managed to incorporate a variety of Euro-Canadian technologies and activities into their lives, including arts and sports, while remaining Aboriginal.
The cultural, artistic, and sporting activities of the students at residential schools, particularly during this period, have received only limited attention. This chapter provides an overview of the cultural and recreational activities at the schools. Special attention is given to reading, brass bands (which flourished at many schools), and organized sports. The chapter concludes with an examination of the history of the cadet corps at residential schools and the links between the corps and the enrolment of former students in the Canadian military.
Musical training, particularly the singing of hymns and patriotic songs, was part of the residential school curriculum. At some schools, the teachers also organized concerts and pageants throughout the years. These featured choral singing, dramatic presentations, and recitations. The audiences included students, parents, and residents of nearby communities. From Kuper Island, British Columbia, in 1898, Principal G. Donckele wrote, “Our concerts consist of recitations, dialogues and choruses, with vocal and instrumental music. Several of these entertainments were given to the public; at times for the white people of the neighbourhood and at times for the Indians, who all appreciated them very much.”1 Principal J. E. S. Thibaudeau, at the Lestock school in what is now Saskatchewan, wrote in 1903, “Concerts were given during the winter months and it is with pleasure that we noticed how greatly surprised the people were at the ability and deportment of the pupils.”2
Louise Moine recalled that her performance in a play at the Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, school in the early twentieth century was judged a success. “Some of the village ladies informed me, the next day or so, that I played my part so well that I had them crying.” Moine also had very strong memories of the pantomimes that other girls performed.
The Sisters had created some sort of lighting effect causing the lights to turn into different colours, red, blue, and green. While the chorus sang in the background, “Nearer My God to Thee,” the girls took different poses following the words of the hymn. Young as I was, I found it breath-taking and spectacular.3
Residential school choirs also participated in local music festivals. In 1932, a choir from the Morley, Alberta, school competed in the Calgary school music festival. According to a newspaper report, the students “won high praise from Adjudicator Maurice Jacobson for musical instinct and great possibilities for musical achievement.”4 At the Hobbema, Alberta, school in 1908, there was a fifteen-girl mandolin orchestra that performed in concerts in local communities.5
Christmastime often was marked with a student concert. In 1905, Port Simpson, British Columbia, principal Hannah M. Paul wrote:
This year at Christmas we had a concert in a public hall. The programme, with the exception of a few selections, was rendered by the girls. The boys from the boys’ home gave calisthenic exercises, with bells and club-swinging, which were very creditably rendered. The programme consisted of choruses, drills, with songs, Calisthenic exercises, with bells by the smaller girls and club-swinging by the bigger girls. A doll’s cantata was much admired. Then we invited all the parents and friends of the girls for an afternoon and gave them refreshments, prepared by the pupils.6
At the Elkhorn, Manitoba, school in 1909, the program consisted of “Songs, Drills, Recitations and Dialogues, and every number showed that no mean amount of training had been required and Miss Baldwin deserves great credit. Some of the drills were exceptionally good.”7
A Methodist missionary at Ahousat, British Columbia, J. W. Russell, wrote home about the Christmas celebration the school held for the entire community:
A small box of presents was sent us from Victoria and we were able to have a very pretty tree. In the afternoon the old people were given each a present and the evening was entirely for the children. I suppose you can hardly think that the people had never seen or heard of a Xmas tree. The entire population almost turned out to see it.8
Not everyone shared the enthusiasm for brass bands. In his 1897 report on industrial schools, Indian Affairs official Martin Benson complained of the proliferation of brass bands at the schools. They were “for outward show and help advertise the school. More solid comfort and enjoyment,” he felt, “could be had with the other kinds of music in which all could join.”9 A decade later, Indian Affairs departmental secretary J. D. McLean felt it necessary to issue an instruction that “pupils should be given plenty of time for sleep and out-door recreation, and that no occupation should be allowed to interfere, such as band practice.”10 From these reports, it is apparent that not only were brass bands common at residential schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but also, in the minds of some government officials, they were too common.
Missionaries had been quick to establish bands at the schools. The brass band at the Mission, British Columbia, school performed at the Queen’s Birthday Celebration in 1867 in New Westminster, British Columbia.11 In 1871, Anglican missionary William Duncan had introduced brass instruments to the colony he was establishing at Metlakatla, British Columbia.12 The spread of brass bands to residential schools was part of a broader expansion of brass music that was associated with social and moral reform. Prior to the nineteenth century, most brass bands were either military or church bands. They were restricted to a limited number of instruments, particularly the trombone, the trumpet, and the horn.13 However, in the mid-nineteenth century, the number of community-based brass bands in Britain began to increase dramatically. The growth was sparked by such factors as the development of new instruments such as the saxophone, the introduction of valves to traditional instruments such as the trumpet, the belief that music could be morally elevating, and the hope that working-class participation in bands would undercut class conflict.14 One 1850 article on an industrial workers’ brass band in Wales, after praising the music, concluded that the “habits and manners of these men appear to have been decidedly improved by these softening influences.”15 Many of the bands were established and supported by employers, temperance societies, or mechanics’ institutes (which were educational centres funded by employers).16
As Benson had noted, school principals used the bands to generate a positive image for the schools. The principal at Kamloops, British Columbia, A. M. Carion, wrote in 1896, “A brass band is also a desideratum [a thing to be desired] which will be filled as soon as our means permit it.”17 The Alert Bay and Cranbrook schools, also in British Columbia, had brass bands by 1906.18 In 1893, the band at the High River school in what is now Alberta had been “engaged to play at agricultural fairs, picnics and church socials.” The money earned at these concerts was used to buy music and instruments.19 Inspector T. P. Wadsworth reported that, in 1896, the Qu’Appelle school band won first prize at the Territorial Exhibition in Regina. In his opinion, “Probably nothing did more to open the eyes of visitors to the fair as to the possibilities contained in the Indian youth of this generation, than the proficiency of this band.”20 Joseph Hall, the principal of the Coqualeetza Institute in Chilliwack, British Columbia, thought the school band not only generated good publicity for the school, but also introduced students to the more “civilized” and influential members of settler society. In 1900, he wrote:
Scarcely a garden party is given by any of the churches in the settlement but our band is engaged to furnish music. We are pleased with this; for we feel that the more our children are brought into contact with the right kind of white people, the better it is for them, and the more sympathy is felt for them, and for the work which we are striving to do.21
In some cases, the principals’ enthusiasm for the bands was tempered with their overall low opinion of Aboriginal students. In 1896, for example, E. C. Chirouse, the principal of the Mission school, wrote that “the young musicians have made wonderful progress under the tuition of Rev. Brother Collins; one is often tempted to wish that the Indians were equally talented in other respects.”22
The bands did provide an opportunity for students to take initiative within the schools. At Elkhorn, there was no band instructor, but, according to Principal A. E. Wilson, the “band maintains its efficiency under the leadership of one of the senior boys. It has already filled several engagements out of town, and has arranged to visit other towns during the coming month.”23
Indian Affairs departmental secretary J. D. McLean’s concern that band practice consumed too much of the students’ time may have been justified. The eighteen members of the Qu’Appelle school brass band were supposed to practise two hours a day. The first hour was during the time when other students were doing chores. The second hour, however, was their nightly recreation hour.24 In his 1936 report on the Presbyterian school in Kenora, Ontario, A. G. Hamilton noted that band practice cut into both the half-day of work the students were expected to do and their class time. It was, however, he said, “a great credit to the school,” and even if it might “be of little service to the students when discharged, the present effect is good.”25
After leaving the schools, many of the students continued to play in community brass bands, particularly in British Columbia. Aboriginal band leaders and composers emerged. Tsimshian First Nations composer Job Nelson, for example, wrote the “Imperial Native March,” a tune that was played at the New Westminster Exhibition in 1905.26 The Port Simpson band won the Dominion Day Prize in Vancouver in 1900 and, the following year, entertained the future King George V and Queen Mary.27 The members of the adult bands often wore elaborate costumes that were paid for by the community and passed on from member to member. The costumes mixed elements of European military uniforms with Aboriginal motifs.28
In his report for 1884, Inspector T. P. Wadsworth recommended that at the Battleford school, “a children’s library be established, containing interesting tales for boys; for the larger boys, the ‘Boys Own Annual’; for the smaller, ‘Chatterbox,’ and similar books, in which they would, during the long winter evenings, be able to find both amusement and instruction.”29 It was not until 1893 that Indian Affairs was able to report that a library, with “111 volumes of useful reading,” had been established at the Battleford school.30
In the following years, an increasing number of principals mentioned the establishment and use of a school library in their submissions to the Indian Affairs annual report. The Anglican school in Wabasca in what is now southern Alberta was reported to have a library in 1895.31 Principal C. W. Whyte of the Presbyterian school in Kamsack in what is now Saskatchewan reported in 1896, “We have a library of upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes, containing many of the very best and latest publications for children.”32 In the same year, Regina principal A. J. McLeod reported, “Our school libraries are used to advantage outside of school hours.”33 The Wikwemikong school on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, and the High River school had libraries by 1897.34 The following year, High River principal A. Naessens reported, “The library continues to be used in winter evenings, and is a great aid to the pupils in learning English, beside sfostering a love for reading.”35
According to R. Ashton, principal of the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario, in 1898, “those who prefer to read are furnished with magazines and books from the school library, the boys have the daily newspapers sent to their reading-room.”36 At the Regina school that year, it was reported, “The books of the school library, all carefully selected, are in demand, especially during winter.”37 Principal N. Coccola reported that at the Cranbrook school in 1898, the students had “a library of choice books, and delight in reading or listening to interesting stories.”38 The following year, Qu’Appelle principal Joseph Hugonnard reported that in the winter, the “library books are well patronized.”39 The Mission school gave its first report of a library in 1899.40 In Manitoba in 1900, the newly constructed Pine Creek school had a library,41 as did the Birtle school.42 In 1901, Sault Ste. Marie principal George Ley King listed books and magazines from the school library as part of the school’s recreational program.43 Port Simpson principal Hannah Paul reported in 1903, “Through the donation of a friend we have started a library for the home besides the books owned by individual pupils.”44 The newly established Lytton, British Columbia, school also reported having a library in that year.45 A 1903 inspection of the St. Albert school in what is now Alberta noted the existence of a library. Since the school had not been inspected for six years, the library may have already been in operation for several years prior to that.46
In 1908, the principal at Red Deer, Alberta, Arthur Barner, reported, “Libraries have been opened for girls and boys respectively, and have been very highly appreciated by the pupils, which is manifest by the fact that several of the children have read from six to twelve good-sized story-books each, during the winter.”47
Two years later, Barner wrote:
Reading still continues to be one of the favourite forms of recreation. We have a reading-room for the boys and one for the girls, where current newspapers and magazines are kept on file. We keep adding good books to the library, which now contains considerably over one hundred volumes all systematically cared for.48
At Hay River in the Northwest Territories, A. J. Vale reported in 1908, “A good library of suitable books is provided.”49 According to Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, principal O. Charlebois in 1910, “A children’s library, of the very best literary and moral character, has been added to the class equipment. The children are very fond of reading, and we notice a marked improvement in their oral expressions and written compositions.”50
The libraries depended on donations. Principal Thomas Clarke had established the Battleford library with books obtained “from friends in England.”51 In 1913, the Yukon Anglican diocese urged its readers not to “throw away your old books and magazines. Wrap them up and mail them to us. We are always glad to get books, especially copies of Boy’s Own Paper, The Girl’s Own, Shop Notes, Technical World; and, in fact, any publication that might prove of interest to young people seeking after information and knowledge.”52 According to Lucy Affleck, a teacher at the Round Lake, Saskatchewan, school in 1929, the only reading material the children had other than school books were the Eaton’s catalogue and the “funny papers.”53
Given the fact that the schools were church-run institutions, it is likely that religious works comprised a large portion of the books in these libraries. The Boy’s Own Paper, for example, was a magazine published by the British Religious Tract Society. It featured adventure stories that stressed courage, cheerfulness, and Christian values.54 It was just one example of an entire genre of children’s and young people’s literature that flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain and Canada. Novelists such as Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Connor (the pen name of Canadian Presbyterian minister Charles Gordon), and G. A. Henty wrote numerous adventure novels in which young boys proved themselves as men, usually through service to the British Empire. These books, along with Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days, extolled the virtues of Christian manliness, and the benefits of membership in the empire.55
Schools also produced their own reading material. The Battleford school published a monthly newsletter called The Guide. Each issue contained the proud statement: “All the mechanical work in connection with the guide is performed by our students.” The paper included sections called “Notes from the boys” and “Notes from the girls.” In December 1895, George Fiddler wrote, “I am glad to see the Indian people getting treaty payment again, because I like to see them come to Battleford sometimes.” Jennie Lane wrote, “We were all glad to see our friends when they come into Battleford. There are a great number of them in just now. I hope we see them all before they go home.”56 In the Yukon, the Anglican Diocese published Northern Lights, which included regular reports from the Carcross school. One issue reported, “Johnny John is our business man; he runs the school store. You can always rely on Johnny giving you the proper change and weight; he is very good at figures.”57 The motto of the Red Deer school paper, which was printed on a duplicator, was “By Treaty, My Rights, By Myself, My Success.”58 The Anglican school in The Pas, Manitoba, commenced publishing a monthly paper, The Advocate, in 1915. Much of the paper was written by staff, but it included notes from students, including Emma Suttee’s report on how the students at The Pas school were exchanging letters with the students at the Anglican school at Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan.59 In the 1930s, the Anglican schools in Onion Lake, Saskatchewan, and Alert Bay published newsletters aimed at least in part at parents, as well as at ex-pupils.60
The Hobbema school’s Moccasin News provided coverage of local sports and carried a warning that the paper was not responsible for “black-eyes or broken limbs resulting from articles published in this paper.”61 The Blue Quills, Alberta, school published the Moccasin Telegram. In one issue, student Eric Martineau provided an account that had been handed down through his family of the conflict at Frog Lake during the 1885 rebellions.62 At the Thunderchild school in Delmas, Saskatchewan, the publication was the Thunder Report.63 All these papers appear to have been intended for various audiences: the students, their parents, and church members—sometimes distant church members who would make donations to the school. Other than brief reports from students and coverage of school sports and recreational activities, much of the material in the papers provided religious instruction. For example, the story in the Gazette, the paper from the Anglican school at T’Suu Tina, Alberta, explained that “the idea of lent is that we should go into spiritual training. Having made a good start by self-examination, we set to work, so to speak to make a real effort to improve ourselves before Easter.”64
First Nations children had always had their own games and recreational activities, many of which were intended to help develop skills that would be needed in adult life. For example, in his memoir of growing up in what is now southern Alberta, Mike Mountain Horse spoke of how young boys were given ponies once they were old enough to ride. The older boys would then help the younger ones to learn how to ride. In the evenings, the boys honed their skills in archery competitions.65 Charles Nowell, who was born in 1870, recalled many of the games that the Kwakiutl children used to play, some of which could be dangerous or painful.
The funny part of it is that our parents and the old people never stop us from doing any of these things, because they want us to be brave like they were in the olden days, when they was fighting and hunting all the time. If we wasn’t brave and couldn’t play all these games and be strong, they didn’t think we was much good.66
When they were left to themselves, Simon Baker recalled, many of the children at the Lytton school used to play games they had learned in their home community, including one called “stink hole,” which he recalled as being similar to cricket.67 Contests that tested and celebrated skill, strength, and endurance were common throughout Aboriginal societies. Hunting skills played a large role in these competitions: contestants might shoot arrows or throw spears at still or moving targets. Young men also tested each other at wrestling, foot racing, and high kicking.68
The Aboriginal people of the Americas also had a long tradition of ball games, such as the Mohawk game of tewaarathon, which evolved into lacrosse. Another game, often referred to as “shinny,” was played across western North America. It involved driving a ball along the ground with a curved stick. The Mi’kmaq and Maliseet of the Maritimes played a ball game that was referred to as “old fashion.” The Inuit game of anaulataq continues to be played today. Less is known of the games women played, although there are records of their playing their own ball games.69 Games served a range of purposes. They might further military aims by preparing young men for conflict, and ceremonies at which games were played against other groups could also serve to cement diplomatic alliances. In 1603, Samuel de Champlain reported that races, with prizes for the winners, constituted part of an Innu celebration commemorating a recent military victory.70 Spiritual elements also became incorporated into games. Games could also promote community stability.71 Games and recreational activities were not a novelty or innovation introduced to the lives of Aboriginal people by residential schools.
In two popular novels of the mid-nineteenth century, Tom Brown’s School Days and Tom Brown at Oxford, British writer Thomas Hughes drew an explicit link between the organized sports played at British private schools (generally known as “public schools”) and the values of empire and what Hughes termed “muscular Christianity.” In Tom Brown’s School Days, a student described cricket as being more than a game; it was “the birthright of British boys old and young.” The book’s hero, Tom Brown, concluded that team sports are superior to those games that stress individual victory.72 Muscular Christianity, as defined by Hughes, included recognition that the strength a Christian gained through sport was to be used for the “subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men.”73
Such ideas expressed in these books both influenced and reflected much nineteenth-century thinking about sports and education. The idea that organized sports would contribute to the development of “manly” qualities was quickly picked up in North America. “Manliness” was a difficult concept to pin down and the line between strength and roughness was never easily or clearly drawn.74 In Canada, manliness often was seen as a particularly British quality that mysteriously connected sport with the rights and responsibilities of empire. A 1911 letter in the Toronto Globe claimed, “Sport is a fundamental essential not only of English life but also of human life itself, and the question that confronts us today is this—upon what can we better build up and establish the character and physique of the future builder and maintainer of the Empire than upon the foundation of sport in its highest and noblest form?”75
Since competitive sports fostered manliness, they were, by definition, inappropriate for women.76 In the late nineteenth century, women were seen as physically and mentally frail and vulnerable. Involvement in sport could, it was feared, interfere with a woman’s ability to carry out her central social role: bearing children. They were not welcome as members in most sports clubs, and the bulky clothing they were expected to wear, in the name of modesty, made their participation in many sports difficult. Croquet, skating, and tobogganing were among the few physical activities deemed acceptable for girls and women.77 Prior to 1900, in private and public schools, physical activity for girls was limited to walking, calisthenics, and the use of light weights, all training intended to improve deportment and health.78 An 1893 textbook warned that girls who were overly competitive might be placing themselves at risk of physical harm. Not surprisingly, girls were not encouraged to play contact sports or any games that required lengthy bouts of physical exertion.79
Sport played a significant role in Indian boarding schools in the United States also. After initially banning football, the Carlisle school in Pennsylvania initiated a major football program. In 1899, the school hired as team coach the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner, the man credited with the introduction of the huddle, numbered plays, and the spiral punt. During the course of his twelve-year tenure at the school, the Carlisle team regularly played and defeated the major college teams of the day. The school director, Richard Pratt, attributed the students’ success to their growing assimilation. In a speech celebrating one victory, he told the students, “We put aside Indian thoughts, and Indian ways, Indian dress and Indian speech. We don’t want to hold onto anything indian.”80 Despite this, Warner concluded that the school teams developed a ‘racial’ rather than a ‘school’ spirit and, he felt, took their greatest pleasures from beating the army team.81 The best-known graduate of the Carlisle program was Jim Thorpe, who went on to fame as both an Olympic champion and a professional football and baseball player. He was selected as the greatest male athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press sportswriters.82 Other schools, such as the Haskell Institute in Kansas, developed strong football programs. In 1925, the Haskell Institute raised $185,000—much of it from tribes with oil revenues—to build a football stadium.83
The Canadian residential schools were established at the same time as the rules were being standardized for games such as football, baseball, and hockey, and agreement was being reached on what constituted a standard playing field and the length of play.84 In the late nineteenth century, such sports spread throughout the country.85 As with band music, the promoters of these games argued that organized sports would help reduce conflict between the classes.86 And, while manliness and sportsmanship were supposed to reflect the values of the empire, Canadians not only played British games such as cricket, with its associations with the private schools of the elite; they also played sports popular in the United States such as baseball, and uniquely Canadian games such as lacrosse and ice hockey.87 These games also were played at the residential schools.
It was hoped that these sports would contribute to ‘civilizing’ residential school students. In his 1889 report, Indian Affairs inspector J. A. Macrae wrote of the Battleford school:
A noticeable feature of this school is its games. They are all thoroughly and distinctly “white”. The boys use the boxing gloves with no little science, and excellent temper and play good games of cricket and football with great interest and truly Anglo-Saxon vigor. The girls dress dolls, make fancy articles of dress, and play such games as white children do. From all their recreation Indianism is excluded.88
Macrae seemed to believe that “Indianism” was a static phenomenon and that to play a European game well, a boy became less of an “Indian.” “Indianism” was, by definition, undesirable: an 1895 report on the Middlechurch, Manitoba, school noted approvingly, “The manly games of cricket and football, introduced and practised by the principal, have done much to take ‘the sneak’ out of the boys.”89 Some school officials also said that the role that sports played in the schools had to be closely controlled. If this were not done, instead of spreading the values of manly Christianity, sports would simply delay the process of assimilation. For example, a resolution adopted by the Indian Workers Association of the Presbyterian Church for Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 1911 identified a need “to have rigid regulations made as to the amusements permitted at each school. Nothing that encourages the survival of previous Indian customs, the excessive desire of sports, or associations with the evilly desposed [sic] sporting white population should be permitted.”90
Identity was more complex, however. At the Regina school in 1897, the principal reported that the
most popular game in which the boys indulge is the ‘national game of lacrosse,’ for which their fleetness of foot and keenness of eye soon make them most formidable opponents. Two things helped to popularize the game with our pupils; first, the complete suits that from one source and another we were able to give the members of the first twelve, and secondly, a brilliant victory they gained over a strong team of boys and young men from Regina.91
That the opportunity to play and beat a team of settlers was so satisfying suggests that students were finding ways to use sport to help them maintain, rather than lose, their Aboriginal identity.
Since Indian Affairs provided little in the way of sporting equipment, principals turned to outside sponsors for supplies. The principal of the Calgary school reported in 1897 that sports at his school were largely restricted to “football and cricket, materials for which were provided privately.” He went on to thank “the various football teams in this district who have taken the trouble and expense to come here and play with the boys from time to time. The effect is most marked; the boys take a pride in thinking they are treated like human beings, and the indirect education they acquire from mixing and contact with white people is incalculable.”92 The Alert Bay school newsletter reported in 1928, “Thanks to our good friend, Dr. Mandy, we have two complete sets of football uniforms, one red and white, the other blue and brown.”93
By the 1890s, there were reports from schools across the country of boys playing football, baseball, and ice hockey. Middlechurch principal John Ashby reported in 1896, “In summer the boys’ chief recreations are cricket and foot-ball; these they play in an effective and gentlemanly manner.”94 High River principal A. Naessens wrote in 1897:
The boys take well to football and baseball, and their football eleven is a fairly good one. Athletics are gone in for extensively, especially in the early summer months. In winter skating is the principal amusement. Last year we commenced curling with home-made stones, and the boys took to it immensely.95
Metlakatla principal John Scott reported in 1898, “During the hours set apart for play the boys indulge in foot- and baseball, in favourable weather swimming and boating.”96 When the weather was poor, students played dominoes, chess, checkers, and a variety of nineteenth-century board games.97 The Dominion Day field day at the Anglican school at Fort George, Québec, featured races, jumping contests, and a competition in which students carried loads over a simulated portage.98 The school also had a tennis court for the staff with a net constructed of chicken wire.99 A report on the Morley, Alberta, school in 1933 noted that there was a hockey league on the local reserve and that the students also played against teams from local communities such as Calgary and Cochrane.100
On occasion, the schools provided students with the opportunity to partake in traditional activities that were both recreational and a continuation of traditional practice. Ernest Duke, the principal of the Moose Fort, Ontario, school, reported in 1910, “The boys delight especially to shoot birds with the bows and arrows provided by their fathers, or manufactured by themselves. Every boy has a bow and arrow, and their aim is true, so many a poor little bird is carried home in triumph ‘after the hunt.’”101 This practice also increased the quantity and variety of the students’ diet.
Ben Calf Robe was enrolled in a residential school in what is now southern Alberta in 1897. There, he played kickball, baseball, and lacrosse. He recalled that lacrosse was played with
curved sticks that were partly covered by nets. With them we threw a small ball back and forth to each other. It was a fast and dangerous game, and a lot of the boys got hurt while playing it. When we went to visit our homes our mothers would ask how come our faces were bruised. When they found out it was from playing that game they went to the priest and complained, so the priest finally told us we would have to stop playing lacrosse.102
The girls were expected to lead a far more sedate existence. The following excerpts from Indian Affairs annual reports of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries make it clear that while the boys might be playing baseball, football, or hockey, the most the girls could look forward to was a closely chaperoned walk, a game of croquet, or some “quiet” indoor activities.
•1896: Wikwemikong principal J. Paquin: “The girls love the quieter amusements of the swing and the like. There are also play-halls for rainy weather, winter and night recreations.”103
•1896: Middlechurch principal John Ashby: “The girls play croquet, hand-ball and go for walks in charge of a female official; they also have swings and teeter board in the yard, of which they are very fond.”104
•1899: Alert Bay principal A. W. Corker: “The girls have dolls, draughts and parlour croquet.”105
•1901: St. Boniface principal J. Dorais: “The girls are fond of playing ball, skipping, picking flowers, and other quiet amusements. During berry season they are often taken to the bush to gather the fruit—nothing gives them greater pleasure.”106
•1902: High River principal M. Lepine: “The girls amuse themselves during playtime at croquet, basketball and other healthy exercises.”107
•1902: Coqualeetza Institute principal Joseph Hall: “The girls, too, love recreation, and they like variety. But they like outdoor exercise and plenty of it. It does not matter so much what it is if it be outdoor recreation. They are fond of walks in the woods with a teacher. They now keenly relish games of croquet on our beautiful lawn. A new set has just been purchased for their use.”108
•1909: Red Deer principal Arthur Barner: “The girls have found ample recreation all winter on the skating rink. In the summer they walked and played outdoor games.”109
Walks could be fairly limited events. At Kitamaat, British Columbia, schoolteacher Margaret Butcher recorded, “Our village path takes exactly twelve minutes to perambulate and there is nowhere we can go, at any rate for a walk.”110
Occasionally, principals did allow girls to play team sports. Not surprisingly, they enjoyed it. Middlechurch principal J. Thompson wrote in 1903, “The girls are very fond of football and play the game on their own grounds, and I have found that they derive a great deal of benefit from the exercise. They also skate, and play basket-ball and other indoor games and exercises.”111 Examples of this sort remained the exception. In a 1921 report on the Mission school, Inspector R. H. Cairns noted that while the girls sang sweetly, “they do not practice calisthenics. The sisters do not see that organized play and a course of physical culture would be beneficial from a health point of view. The principal looks at it from the same standpoint.”112
In some cases, the boys were subject to less supervision than the girls. In the 1890s at the Coqualeetza Institute, the boys alone were given “full liberty” on Saturday afternoons. Many of them used this opportunity to visit relatives who lived nearby.113
The Canadian schools never had the large-scale sport facilities that were constructed for several boarding schools in the United States. In St. Boniface, Manitoba, in 1896, there was no recreation room or yard for the girls, while the principal felt “the boys’ recreation hall is far too small.”114 At the Battleford school in 1909, an inspector thought the students were left to organize their own recreation and there was no physical education or calisthenics.115 That same year, P. R. Soanes, the principal of the Chapleau, Ontario, school, wrote to Indian Affairs, “A gymnasium would be a great boon to the boys, and drilling appliances are really needed for boys and girls.”116
In his 1907 report on the boarding schools in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Dr. Peter Bryce, the chief medical officer for Indian Affairs, reported an
almost complete absence of any drill or manual exercises amongst the boys or calisthenics or breathing exercises amongst the girls. One would suppose that in boarding schools the need for such exercises would be looked upon as an elementary necessity; but it was found that it was only in some isolated cases that it had ever been heard of or put into practice.
He attributed the lack of attention to physical exercise to the difficulty the schools had in recruiting “high quality” staff.117
The publication of a manual of games and simple calisthenics by Indian Affairs in 1910 may point to an increase in the physical exercise at day and residential schools in the following years, but, in reality, most schools were sadly lacking in playground equipment.118 A 1929 report on the Anglican school in The Pas noted there was “no equipment for the amusement of the children, and swings and teeters could be erected at little cost. Football, volley ball, and basketball equipment could also be used to great advantage.”119 Teacher Lucy Affleck at the Round Lake school wrote in 1929 about the lack of attention that was given to the students during their recreational hours. “The little fellows badly need some one to take a little fatherly interest in them. From supper until the bed time bell they get together, big and little, and get the time in with ‘horseplay’, wrestling, fighting, quarrelling, not knowing what to do with themselves, in the cold and dark.”120 Her opinion was confirmed the following year by Indian Affairs inspector J. P. B. Ostrander, who reported that at Round Lake, “during recess and play time, the children wander about the grounds or sit in corners, doing nothing.” Indian Affairs official A. F. MacKenzie informed the principal that it was thought “organized games would be a great benefit.”121 Six months later, Ostrander returned to the subject, writing that “only a feeble effort has been made in this connection and I think a real effort is needed. There are now male members on this school staff, who are well able to teach the games if they had the equipment and were given the time to do so.”122
During the Depression, when school budgets were subject to repeated cuts, supplies, uniforms, and facilities were all in short supply. When, in 1936, the principal of the McIntosh, Ontario, school put in a request for toboggans, hockey sticks, boots, and skates, he was told that the only athletic equipment the department funded was “footballs, playground balls, basket balls, or volley balls.”123 In 1937, Kamloops principal Martin Kennedy drew attention to the problems created by the poor condition of the recreation hall at the school: “Every year since my coming here we have had two or three broken arms. This year we have already had three boys who broke their arms. Owing to the dangerous condition of the recreation hall we have to stop all inside games.”124 Despite repeated requests, Kennedy’s Oblate superiors declined to give him permission to ask the government for a grant for repairs.125
The expectations of those who believed that brass bands and team sports would take the ‘Indian’ out of a child went unfulfilled. It is more likely that Aboriginal children who participated in bands and sporting teams used these activities, at least in part, to meet their own needs.126 For many students, the bandstand or the sporting field represented a world into which they could escape from the daily routine and avoid some chores, and not be guilty of truancy or subject to discipline.
While some government officials and principals saw music and sport as a way of assimilating students, senior officials did not share their enthusiasm. As with most aspects of the residential school system, recreational activities were woefully under-funded. As a result, many principals sought to supplement their programs with the establishment of a cadet corps, which brought the possibility of funding from the Canadian military.
There was one recreational activity that brought together exercise, brass bands, discipline, and support for the British Empire: military training. Early Canadian public schools provided very little in the way of physical training; few schools even had gymnasiums. Often, the only training available was military drill provided by officers from local military garrison or police barracks.127 The Protestant churches mixed militarism and Christianity in the Boys’ Brigades they organized.128
By the 1890s, some residential schools had begun to provide students with training in military drill. Even when there was no military drill, life at the residential schools was militarized, as Inspector T. P. Wadsworth observed in his 1884 report on life at the Battleford school: “The boys parade (military style) for prayers morning and evening, for meals, and upon retiring.”129 Wikwemikong, Ontario, principal Dominique duRonquet reported in 1891 that “the boys have had military drill, not occasionally, but hundreds of times.” He admitted: “To say that they liked that exercise would be saying too much; nevertheless, it was very pleasing, indeed, to see with what precision and exactitude they could manoeuvre at the end of the year and how military were their mien and appearance.”130
Regina principal A. J. McLeod invited officers from the local North-West Mounted Police barracks to provide the students with instructions in drill. In 1893, he wrote that many boys were becoming quite “dexterous in the different evolutions, and take great pride in their marching. It is a common sight to see a squad of boys somewhere in the grounds being drilled by one of the larger boys, some of whom naturally take their place as commanders.”131
At the Mohawk Institute, the boys were provided with quasi-military uniforms and wooden muskets, and regularly drilled, “forming squares, marching in column and line, Counter marching, and marching in echelon.” On viewing their drill in 1895, Indian Affairs official Martin Benson wrote that he had seen “very few volunteer companies that do better.”132
By the 1890s, the federal Department of Militia and Defence was providing supplies to cadet corps that had been organized in public schools. Shingwauk Home principal George Ley King sought to organize such a cadet corps at the residential school in conjunction with the nearby Sault Ste. Marie Rifle Corps in 1899. Departmental secretary J. D. McLean supported the plan, although he stressed that Indian Affairs “is not to be put to any expense in connection with the uniforming or equipment of the company.” McLean asked that the Department of Militia and Defence supply “arms and accoutrements” to Shingwauk Home boys, as was done for the public school cadet corps.133
The Boer War of 1899 to 1902 led to an increase in cadet training in Canadian public schools. Calgary schools, for example, had a cadet program by 1900, and Manitoba introduced a program in 1902.134 However, the spread of cadet training was restricted by limits on available funds.135 In 1907, Donald Smith, the former chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company and by then Lord Strathcona, established the half-million-dollar Strathcona Trust. The fund, managed by the federal government, was intended to promote physical training and support military cadets in public schools.136 Under the terms of the trust, the military was to train and pay teachers who conducted cadet corps, provide the cadets with arms and equipment, and conduct regular inspections.137 By 1926, the federal government was spending $412,000 a year on the cadet program across the country.138 The cadet corps served as a supplement for teachers’ incomes, since teachers received $140 a year for every ninety cadets they instructed. Some schools also used the program as a substitute for physical education.139
Although Indian Affairs supported cadet programs in theory, it continued to refuse to finance them. Departmental secretary J. D. McLean approved the establishment of a cadet corps at the Elkhorn, Manitoba, school in 1912, stipulating that “no additional expense will be entailed and that the drill will not interfere with the work of the school.”140 Similarly, McLean refused a request from A. K. O. Ockoniy, a teacher at the Stuart Lake, British Columbia, school, for uniforms and “cadet guns” for a cadet corps he wished to organize at the school. According to McLean, “Owing to the war, the appropriation for school purposes has been considerably reduced.” Once again, McLean asked the Department of Militia and Defence to supply the requested equipment.141 In 1922, Ockoniy organized a cadet corps at the Fraser Lake, British Columbia, school. He did so “to develop in these boys some notions of patriotisme [sic], some feeling of pride in belonging to the British Empire. In the second place I knew how greatly these boys need the physical drill which is an important part of the cadet drill.”
Ockoniy believed cadet training would instill in the students a sense of discipline, “teaching them to obey immediately and without murmuring.” The army provided a subsidy of $1.25 for every student who was in uniform at its annual inspection. However, since Ockoniy could not get the money until he had the uniforms, he used his own funds to purchase many of the original uniforms. His wife altered several used uniforms provided by the army so they would fit the students.142
In the 1920s, church and peace organizations began to raise questions about the morality of military training in schools. By the 1930s, they had succeeded in convincing the Toronto board of education to disband its cadet corps.143 By the end of the 1930s, many Canadian public school systems were no longer participating in the cadet program.144
In keeping with a United Church policy opposing the cadet program in schools, the church disbanded its cadet corps at the File Hills, Saskatchewan, school in 1931. Russell Ferrier, the superintendent of Indian Education, asked the principal to reconsider his decision. Ferrier thought the church policy of opposition to cadet training was limited to the public school system. “Residential schools,” he argued, constituted “another proposition, and I believe you will find that a cadet corps at an Indian institution will assist greatly with both the esprit de corps and the discipline.”145 Principal F. Rhodes responded that military training was not popular with the boys. He said there was already more military discipline in a residential school than in a public school, as File Hills boys were “constantly under supervision.” He went on to remind Ferrier that the school had no facility for drills. It was necessary to remove the table and the benches from the dining room in order to hold cadet drills during the winter. He concluded by pointing out that the school had made several requests in the past for funding for a gymnasium or a playroom, but, to date, nothing had been done.146
It appears that some schools attempted to establish cadet corps in an effort to improve the quality and quantity of clothing they could provide to students. In a 1928 letter asking for Indian Affairs support in establishing a cadet corps unit, Shingwauk Home principal Benjamin Fuller stressed, “Our present system of clothing the boys for sunday [sic] service and special occasions is not as good as it should be. We have nothing uniform for the boys, their suits are of different colors and patterns, and do not look well as pupils of a school.”147 The replacement for J. D. McLean as departmental secretary, A. F. MacKenzie, refused Fuller’s request, saying “it is not the practice of the Department to meet the cost of uniforms.”148
Like the brass bands, cadet corps were used to generate positive publicity for the schools. The Brantford Expositor contained a glowing report of the annual inspection of the cadet corps at the Mohawk Institute in 1920.
The cadets were particularly smart at physical drill. This has been regularly carried on throughout the year and the boys showed the benefits derived from this branch of their training in their steadiness and endurance. The Colonel was surprised to see them carry out the table of exercises such as have made many wish this army instructor a few thousand miles away.149
Many of these cadet corps had but brief lifespans. James Dagg, the principal of the Middlechurch school, had boasted in 1901: “We have a band of thirty instruments, that provides music every evening, which they all enjoy, and our system of military drill, by the cadet corps, and calisthenics for the girls, as well as fancy marching for the smaller children, interest them very much, so that they rarely ask to go home.”150 But, by 1904, a new principal at Middlechurch had put an end to both band practice and the military drill. He thought the time could be better “devoted to those things which will be more beneficial to those having to make their way in the world when they leave the institution.”151 Similarly, the Qu’Appelle school had received a supply of equipment from the Canadian military in 1912 when a cadet corps was established at the school. By 1918 and the end of the First World War, the corps was no longer active and the military was making repeated requests for return of the uniforms. School principal A. J. A. Dugas argued the school should be allowed to keep at least the hats and belts, which had been incorporated into the boys’ scouting uniforms. McLean supported the principal’s request.152
Some residential school cadet corps competed in provincial competitions. In 1912, Mohawk Institute principal Nelles Ashton noted, “Our Cadet Corps, No. 161, took first place in No. 2 Military District (Central Ontario), a fact of which we are justly proud.”153 The Alert Bay corps won the International Order of the Daughters of the Empire (iode) Challenge Shield for the best Indian Cadet Corps in British Columbia in 1928. The Alert Bay corps also fielded a rifle team in the Canada Miniature Range Championship in that year.154 The Alert Bay school went on to win the iode shield four times in a row.155 The corps from the Anglican school at Cardston, Alberta, won the “Army and Navy Shield for the best rural physical training of Cadets” in 1925.156 In 1933, the school reported that, over the years, the cadet corps had won “four silver cups, three championships, and three silver medals.” In 1920, it had received the R. B. Bennett Shield, awarded in “open competition with the white cadet corps of Alberta.”157
Despite the obvious military nature of cadet corps training, it was not uncommon for church officials to stress that the cadet corps was not necessarily training boys to be soldiers. A booklet on the Anglican school at Onion Lake said the schools’ cadet programs were meant to “develop the boys to the fullest extent physically, and to give them the alertness of mind, decisiveness of action, and precision of character which perhaps no other form of training can give.”158 In keeping with this argument, in the nineteenth century, Indian Affairs was not receptive to proposals to use the schools as military recruiting grounds. In 1898, William Hamilton Merritt wrote to Indian Affairs, requesting the right to form a permanent militia unit made up of residential school graduates.159 Merritt was a mining engineer with a long and close association to the military and Six Nations, having been granted the position of honorary chief by the Cayuga.160 He suggested the residential school principals be asked to select a “proportion of their boys” to be “drafted into a regiment upon completing their education.” He felt that the training a student received at a residential school “would enable him to make himself extremely useful regimentally.” The plan was rejected because it was thought “it would be a great waste of money to go to the expense of giving an Indian lad both a good education and an industrial training and then allow him to be drafted off as a soldier.”161
The question of military service had come up on several occasions during the negotiation of the numbered Treaties. During the negotiation of Treaty 3, one chief told Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris, “If you should get into trouble with the nations, I do not wish to walk out and expose my young men to aid you in any of your wars.” Morris assured him that England would not “call Indians out of their country to fight their battles.” During the Treaty 6 talks, he told a group of Cree chiefs, “You will never be asked to fight against your will.”162 As a result of these commitments, when the Boer War broke out in 1899, Indian agents were instructed that “no Treaty Indians can enlist for service.”163 Despite this ban, some First Nations men did enlist and serve in that war.164
When the First World War broke out, Aboriginal leaders and communities declared their support for the war effort, and many young men sought to enlist.165 Initially, the government discouraged the recruiting of Aboriginal soldiers.166 This policy was reversed in 1915 after a British Colonial Office request that all members of the British Commonwealth report on the possibility of raising “native troops in large numbers.”167 The staggering death rates on the western front led to an intensified recruiting campaign in Canada. By 1917, the government was actively recruiting among First Nations across Canada.168 It is estimated that over 4,000 people with status under the Indian Act—35% of the eligible population—served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. This is equivalent to the percentage of the general Canadian population that enlisted.169
Among the early First Nations recruits was Francis Pegahmagabow from the Parry Sound Reserve in Ontario. A skilled and daring sniper, he was awarded the Military Medal for acts of bravery on three occasions.170 Aboriginal soldiers served in a variety of capacities and were acknowledged to excel as snipers and scouts.171
Several First Nations soldiers had passed through the cadet corps at the Anglican school on the Blood Reserve in Alberta. In 1908, Principal Gervase Gale reported that he had started a fife-and-drum band at the school. “The boys are intensely in earnest. I have also a cadet corps and have applied for official recognition, which I am likely to receive.”172 The corps continued to operate after S. H. Middleton became principal in 1911.173 After passing through the program, Flying Star (or, as he had been renamed by the residential school principal, Albert Mountain Horse) took a summer training program in Calgary and was appointed a lieutenant in the Canadian militia. He was one of the few First Nations people who successfully enlisted during the early years of the war. He joined the army in September 1914 and was sent overseas the following month. Before leaving, he wrote to Middleton that he was “going forth to fight for my King and country.” He was present at the Second Battle of Ypres when the German army first made use of poison gas.174 After being gassed on three occasions, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was returned to Canada, but died on November 19, 1915, the day after he had arrived in Québec City. He was twenty-one years old.175 He was one of approximately 300 First Nations soldiers who died during the war.176
Some members of the Blood First Nation had been distressed at Mountain Horse’s decision to enlist and warned Middleton that he would be held responsible if anything happened to the young man. On hearing of her son’s death, his mother, Sikski, had to be restrained from attacking Middleton, who thought he might be driven off the reserve. Eventually, Sikski came to the conclusion that her son had died a hero. Two of her other sons, Mike and Joe, eventually enlisted as well, served overseas, and returned.177 A former residential school principal, John Tims, conducted Albert’s funeral service, where Middleton stated he had been “one of the Empire’s greatest sons who fought to uphold the prestige and traditions of the British race.”178 Middleton’s rhetorical flourish is a useful reminder of the ways in which the residential schools were an extension of empire and the degree to which Canada remained a colony.
As the need for soldiers grew, Indian Affairs loaned Indian agency inspector Glen Campbell to the Ministry of the Militia, where he had a special responsibility for recruiting from First Nations communities.179 In 1916, Campbell asked Deputy Minister Duncan Campbell Scott for permission to recruit from the Elkhorn and Brandon residential schools in Manitoba.180 With some hesitation, Scott approved the proposal. He thought “there should be some good material at Elkhorn where they have had physical drill for some years.” He also argued that if “the older Indians” tried to discourage students from enlisting, they were “breaking their treaty obligations, as they promised to be loyal citizens and it is anything but loyal to prevent recruiting.”181 Scott also gave permission for a seventeen-year-old orphan boy at the Roman Catholic school in Kenora, Ontario, to enlist. He said that other underage boys at the school could enlist if they obtained their parents’ permission.182 It is not clear how many recruits came from residential schools, but Campbell was able to recruit approximately 500 young First Nations men.183 One of those who were recruited from Elkhorn was Albert Edward Thompson, a great-great-grandson of Chief Peguis.184 In 1915, five graduates of the File Hills school were serving with the armed forces.185 Charles Cooke, the only First Nations man who was working for the Indian Affairs office in Ottawa, and a former Mount Elgin student, was assigned to assist with recruiting in Ontario.186 Eightysix former Mohawk Institute students enlisted; five of them died in service.187 One Mohawk Institute student, Foster Lickers, was captured during the Second Battle of Ypres. The torture he received at the hands of his guards left him paralyzed.188
In his Brown Tom’s School Days, Enos Montour wrote of the war’s impact on staff-and-student relations at Mount Elgin. The fact that both staff members and students had relatives who had enlisted created a new sense of fellowship. A roll of honour was posted in the prayer room that listed the names of former staff and students who had enlisted. According to Montour, “There was no distinction of race on it, with the names of relatives and friends of both staff and students intertwined. It was no longer simply a White man’s war. War had welded the soldiers into one national group.”189
The experience of Aboriginal soldiers in the First World War extends beyond the scope of this report, but it is important to note that many of these ‘sons of the Empire,’ to use Tims’s phrase, maintained and practised their own beliefs while in battle.
On the eve of battle, George Strangling Wolf kept faith with the warrior custom of cutting off a small portion of his own flesh to offer as a sacrifice. Francis Pegahmagabow, who would come to be recognized as one of Canada’s top snipers during the war, carried a small medicine bag for protection. To show that he was fighting in the name of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Mike Mountain Horse painted traditional victory symbols on German guns captured at the battle of Amiens.190 Not only had residential schools, cadet training, and service in an imperial army failed to separate these young men from faith in their own customs and traditions, but the men were strengthened in their belief because they were able to call upon those traditions to survive and succeed.