Celebrated Dene filmmaker Raymond Yakeleya is raising money to shoot a documentary on Inuvik’s Grollier Hall residential school.
photo courtesy Raymond Yakeleya
A book on the residential school is also being written by former student Harold Cook, who suffered abuse at the hands of its staff.
“We want to alert people that this is happening,” says Yakeleya.
Yakeleya’s team has identified former students, as well as family members of those lost to suicide, who are willing to tell their stories for the film, called The Ghosts of Grollier Hall.
“I think all of us had went to Grollier Hall, we all suffered in some way or another,” says Yakeleya. “With myself it was dreams. I’d wake up covered in sweat.”
Among abuses documented at Canadian residential schools, Grollier Hall’s record was particularly horrific. Four supervisors were convicted of sexually abusing youth at the school between 1958 and 1979: Father Martin Houston, Jerzy George Maczynski, Joseph Jean Louis Comeau and Paul Leroux.
Yakeleya says at least 17 former students committed suicide, with many more effects rippling outwards from the trauma—some of which can be seen on the streets of Yellowknife today.
In what Yakeleya describes as a groundbreaking acknowledgement from the Catholic Church, which ran the school, the NWT’s Catholic diocese has contributed $5,000 to kickstart the film.
“I think that the bishop has made a positive turn into wanting to have the truth come out about Grollier Hall,” says Yakeleya, who is also looking to raise further funds to produce the film.
“I think what I want to say about Bishop Jon Hansen, I would like to say that he's a forward-thinking bishop. I feel good about that he's on board because that's the only way we can do it.”
Hansen, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, says reconciliation and healing has been his priority in his role.
“I've been very public that I do want to move forward the process of healing and reconciliation in the diocese,” says Hansen. “But I realize that it can't be always from the perspective of the church. For it to be really authentic, the stories have to be told by the people who were there.”
Hansen says that as a young man he was inspired by Yakeleya’s 1982 film The Last Mooseskin Boat and watched it repeatedly, so he was surprised to hear from Yakeleya. The bishop says he has seen Yakeleya’s “passion to preserving Dene culture and his love that he has for his people.”
“We’re just happy to be involved with the project,” says Hansen. “You know, the fact that (Yakeleya is) saying that we're making contributions—that was not the intention, to get our name up there. We just want to be a part of something like that and help as we can.”
Yakeleya says that the contribution is an important step but the documentary will not mince words about the church’s role.
“To me, the Catholic church, when they came into the North, it seemed like a dark black cloud descended upon all native people,” he says.
“They made a lot of money off of native people in the education of native people. But they also were one of the chief culprits in destroying the native culture.”
Yakeleya says it’s been positive to see Pope Francis making efforts to root out abusive clergy worldwide.
“A lot of them were good men and a lot of them were not pedophiles or anything. You know, they [learned our language and] were laughing and joking with our people, but the moment we got into Grollier Hall, all of a sudden, our language was no good. They tried to suppress it. They punish you for speaking the language. How did that change?”
Cook’s book will account his own experience. The Olympic skier experienced severe abuse at the hands of Comeau and was not believed when he told staff. He has been public previously about his healing journey, and with this book he is also opening up the process and inviting other former students to write chapters.
Yakeleya says he intends to write one, calling his time at the school “the darkest point in my life.”
News/North was unable to schedule an interview with Cook by press time.