Out of the Depths, 4th Edition: The Experiences of Mi'kmaw Children at the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia

by Isabelle Knockwood

Book Overview

In the 1880s, through an amendment to the Indian Act of 1876, the government of Canada began to require all Aboriginal children to attend schools administered by churches. Separating these children from their families, removing them from their communities and destroying Aboriginal culture by denying them the right to speak Indigenous languages and perform native spiritual ceremonies, these residential schools were explicitly developed to assimilate...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552667294
• ISBN13: 9781552667293
• Release Date: April 2015
• Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Secrets from an Indian Residential School

In unflinching detail, Mi'kmaw author Isabelle Knockwood describes her years of fear spent in the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, which she entered at the tender age of five. Life in this bleak institution comes vividly before our eyes in scene after heartrending scene, from the harsh discipline of the classroom, where her language and culture were so relentlessly stripped from her soul, to the drudgery of the kitchen and laundry, where small children worked unsupervised with dangerous machinery. Presiding over all and often meting out brutal punishment were the nuns and priest assigned to act as the children's guardians. Amid the pervasive gloom are fleeting moments of sheer delight - glimpses of little girls skating on the pond in winter, or excitedly weaving skipping ropes in spring. The happiest moments of all, however, are the author's visits from her parents every Sunday throughout the years of her stay. Without them, she could not have survived. This is a courageous book. Woven among the personal memories and reflections are the stories of other survivors of the school - stories never told before. The stark testimonies have shattered a taboo. Like the blighted walls of the old school itself, the wall of silence protecting its secrets has at last come tumbling down.

Powerful narratives of Canada's genocidal IRS program

In the 1990s, ordinary 'white' Canadians were shocked by a flood of revelations of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse affecting thousands of First Nations women and men who as children had attended the church-run and government-funded Indian Residential Schools. As it turns out, these abuses were only symptoms of a deeper violence: the purpose of the IRS system was to eradicate Indigenous culture in Canada, to "kill the Indian, save the child" by teaching children to abhor their birth culture and accept a stigmatized and inferior position within Canadian settler society. Knockwood was one of these children, and Out of the Depths is an ensemble of personal narratives from her own experience and those of other students whom she interviewed. The stories are sometimes homely and humorous, more often chilling or atrocious. The rough and unpolished quality of her writing is more than offset by the sincerity and emotional rawness of the stories she has to tell. I assigned this book to a class of first-year sociology students, and many of them thanked me for giving them the chance to read it and to discover a dimension of Canadian society that they had not realized even existed.

A Distubing Account of Attempted Cultural Genocide

Isabelle Knockwood has a shocking story to tell. She will take you by the hand into her past and the atrocities commited within the walls of "Shubie" Indian Residential School in a way so simple and literal that will grip your understanding until the very end. Definitely the first book to read if you have plans to understand the Mi'kmaw people of eastern Canada and their modern culture. It will take you right to the depths of collective consciousness and the indifference of an entire colony that allowed this cultural massacre to endure for over 30 years. Read it with an open mind and you will have gained access to a wealth of hidden and opressed Mi'kmaw culture, one of the roots for many Mi'kmaw social problems and identity conflicts pending. As a foreigner to the Mi'kmaw culture I must say that this book has been of invaluable help to my research. Thankyou Isabelle.C. Milton