A new podcast highlights recreation stories from former students and survivors of residential and day schools in the North.
How I Survived is co-hosted by Paul Andrew, a Shutoatine former broadcaster and chief, and Crystal Gail Fraser, a Gwichyà Gwich’in historian and Indigenous studies scholar.
According to a press release, the podcast – published by the NWT Recreation and Parks Association and the University of Alberta – will include interviews with former students and survivors over seven episodes.
Interviewees will speak about life before residential school and how the land, culture and their way of life gave them strength and helped them survive being institutionalized. The press release said they will also speak about their experiences with recreation, “which was at once a tool of assimilation and a site of resistance” at residential and day schools.
Guests include retired journalist Rassi Nashalik, former addictions counsellor and chief Dave Poitras, retired school teacher Beatrice Bernhardt and former social worker Ernie Bernhardt, textile artist and educator Agnes Kuptana, and four-time Olympian in cross-country skiing Sharon Anne Firth.
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“What I have always seen in this project is the resilience and spirit of the Dene through recreation, because that has always been an important part of Dene upbringing and continues to be that,” Andrew said in a statement.
“Even as kids, we found ways to survive residential schools. Even as kids, we found a way to survive in that environment.
“That’s where the interviews and podcast come in. They give people an opportunity to talk about those things. It is painful but, despite going through everything, we are still sharing the stories.”
Tim Van Dam, interim director of the NWT Recreation and Parks Association, described listening to the podcast as “the feeling of sitting at a kitchen table with someone catching up and then unexpectedly hearing a story I hadn’t heard before.”
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“The How I Survived podcast made me feel like I had been invited to listen, but also made me want to listen to honour their stories,” he said in a statement. “I am very grateful to the survivors who have shared their stories, and the people who have worked so hard to bring them to us.”
The How I Survived podcast grew from a research project of the same name, launched in 2018 by Fraser and the NWTRPA, to gather, preserve and share the stories of former students and survivors of northern and residential day schools.
“We still need to be researching, talking about and trying to better understand the histories of residential and day schooling in the Northwest Territories and across Canada,” Fraser was quoted as saying.
“How I Survived seeks to do that, but in a way that is uniquely Indigenous-based and northern. By uplifting the voices of survivors and those who directly experienced the system, we see the complex and human side of Indigenous cultures, childhood and recreation.”
The podcast will be launched at the NWT Recreation and Parks Association’s upcoming annual conference. It will be available on streaming platforms from October 22.
