BEHIND BIA DOORS… When we first came to boarding school.
When we first arrive in Wrangell They pick us up in town and took us to the boarding school.
When we came to the dorm all the old students came to the car and look at us through the window. The all look the same with shaved bald head, wearing the same kind of clothes and their face look so round and chubby. They keep calling us new meat. The Staff (matrons) took us to a place call the ‘Rumbus Room’. On the way to the room we were size up bumped and push by the older students. My older brothers Nelson and Ben bump and push them right back and they knew right away not to fool with them. Me…I was too scared for a 7 year old and didn’t know
what was this all about!
At the Rumbus room they shaved off our hair, put some powder on us for lice, strip us down naked and put us all in one huge shower. There were other students with us in the showers from all over Alaska. The showers were cold and I remember we used those old brown soap.
When the showers were turned off our privates were check and see if we were clean by both female and male staff members. We were issued uniform with our permanant number over the left pocket and under the neck color in back. I was 77. All our sears clothes were taken and burn at the big furnace down by the dock.
That number was our name those many years there!
I remember when the students first came from Anuktuvik Pass. It was awesome to see them with their Parka, caribou pants and mukluks. I remember how beautiful they look in their original clothes. Later looking into their history, I found out they just moved into a permanent settlement in this new village. They been living their entire life hunting and gathering until 1949 when the government made them settle in this village so the kids can go to boarding school. Before that they live in their original home like the Athabaskan use to live half under ground and above ground and followed the seasonal way of hunting and gathering.
The sad part is I saw them go through the shaving of the head. Showing( very embarrassing at the time because of the women staff watching… worst was when they pile up all the parkas, caribou pants, mukluk, an dried meat and fish and took it to the furnace to burn!
Later on I met some of them again and it was so good to hear them still speaking their original language. There were so many of them the can secretly talk with eac other in their language and it stayed with them!
We stayed for 2 years the first time. It was hard not to cry at night when the lights were turn off and hearing other kids sobbing in their beds and some older students trying to comfort them. Us younger ones didn’t know why we were there. Why we were beaten when we talk the only language we knew. Why the other students were so mean.
We didn’t knew that we were gonna be mean to other students the longer we were there. Before the first two years was up my langarage was taken and I was only number 77 almost forgetting my name. My two older brothers made sure I remember my name.
I still remember 77. It never left me.
I BET THOSE PRISONERS IN EUROPE NEVER FORGET THEIR NUMBER!
Fred John