My Name Is Kenny Shae and I Am from Fort Good Hope N.W.T. I Was Taken

06/05/2006 15:37 8675'382744 AURORA COLLEGE PAGE 02/07 My name is Kenny Shae and I am from Fort Good Hope N.W.T. I was taken from my family at the age of 5, I say taken because I did not willingly go at least not in spirit. I was there from September to June for three years and at the end of those years I did not know Iny own parents even though they were standing right in front of me. Today sometimes I feel I still don't know them. When I was there I was there with my brother, Billy, along with many boys and girls from here, so I am one ofmany. Tod.ay 1 still feel alone inside: 40 years after being there. At a Residential School trauma program in Yellowknife I realized that aU the booze and dntgs and loneliness came from those three lost years ofmy life. My mother, Corrine Shae, was a very smart and caring person who practiced the traditional way, living off the land and placed the traditional values on her everyday life. She spoke to me at a young age about times when uur people were very strong and that we had to follow our Dene law: to help those who are sick and can't help themselves, to feed tllose who are hungry, to provide warmth to those who are cold, show respect to man and anima], for we are equal and most of all the importance of life you cannot take your own. If we do we cannot see each other ever again., we all need ea.ch other to survive. We become weaker if Ol1e of us is gone. Looking at the history of my people and the obstacles that they faced in life, the famine years, many people starved and families wiped out and again the TB epidemic that wiped out families and the changes of our Residential School Years, we have begun to wipe ourselves out through suicides, I can see how the Dene law applies and it makes sense. I can see how they protected their youth so they grew to become hunters and provide for their people (to feed those who are hungry). So in a sense, caring for their youth would Inean caring for your future. To me th,e Bible, the Charter of Rights And Freedom become secondary. The whole short sentence of the Dene law covers everything the Bible and Charter stand for. The only difference is you apply to yourself first: you heal your own sickness and help yourself first before helping others, feed yourself first then feed others, give warmth to yourself then others, respect yourself first then others and most importantly your own life. To deal with your own grief, depression, anger and to see how important you are to yourself, your family, and your people. Ironically, I have become a First Aid Instructor and apply some ofthe Dene law to help and show people how to help themselves and the importance of life. I use the tragedies of my people as lessons to be learned fl.-om: the passing ofmy mother from exposure to the cold, the passing ofmy 86/85/2886 15:37 8675982744 AURORA COLLEGE PAGE 83/87 three friends in a ski-doo accident. You hear Elders say all the time things happen for a reason so I ask myself what is the lesson that I have learned from these tragedies? Could I have prevented it? Probably not, but I can learn from it and prepare myself and otbers to be ready. Following my mothers words I am blessed to be here with all of you in the same sunlight today I see the whole system ofResidential school as one ofthe many social impacts that has effected my people in my short time of existence. For my people raised children without the necessary parenting skills they got from neither the nuns nor traditional way. I know this because I watched my mother raise a lot of children whose parents were too young and well into alcoholism. She explained to me that the young ones could not help themselves so she had to help them, so it's not surprising when some young people come up to me and ask about my mother. They would call her mom. In my view she's their mO.t1l too. I ask: how can 3. heart show love if it was not shown love in the most important years from neither the nuns nor the traditional way? I know this because I've seen the extreme violence in our home and in many homes while growing up here We need healing centers here out on the land where we can work on ourselves to free our hearts of all the anger, d.epression of residential school and past traumas. More importantly we have to pray for OUf ancestors and protect what they ha.ve left for us: Our land. We need to practice our traditional values, to becom.e healthy first, then help our people become strong in leadership and in unity to work with the government and industry to achieve our goals under Dene Law. We want to sit at the table, not across from each other~ not feeling smaller or greater than the other but as equals, side by side working on the bigger plan to be healthy and to grow stronger in everything that effects the Dene, our land, our Hfe. r see history repeating itself in a sense. In the beginning, we were free and traditionally strong and many elders were born out there on our land. I know, because they showed the spot on a map, with tears in their eyes to the Govt negotiator during the land claims process. They put us in one place and said "do it our way~ your way is not good, your beliefs are no good", You can say they used religion to scare the hell out of us. Now we have adopted their way in a sense. We put our own elders in one place and forgot about their traditional knowledge and Dene values. I wonder if anyone ever asked them if they would like to spend the summers at fish camps the way it was before when they were free, elders passing on traditional knowledge to youth and youth caring for their needs. This is where respect is given and received.. 06/05/2006 15:37 8675'382744 AURORA COLLEGE PAGE 04/07 I am fortunate to have seen the changes that affected my people. I have seen the time that the Govem.ment said it was OK for the Dene to own a bottle of whiskey. Those were the crazy years the late 60's and 70's: young people fresh out residential school, no direction from the nuns and too old to learn the traditional way so they were lost in spirit. What is the quickest way to forget the pain of the heart? Alcohol, drugs. We don't feel the pain anymore. I tell you the truth, I do not want to see what I have witnessed in those yea.rs ever again. Parentless children in homes dirty and hungry, public spousal assaults, teenage pregnan.cies with no parenting skills. To me, to try to take away the negative effects from the people by force through. restrictions and plebiscites, does 'not work and it hasn't worked in 30 years. I ask how long is one person going to bang his head on the door that will never open. You take away a bottle from one hand, another will appear in the other. It is better for him to realize the pain that it is causing and put the bottle down willingly. We have to have time to heal as a nation so we can lTIOVe forward in progress and. in life. Self detennination: My people have practiced that since the begilming of time as you know it: the clock. The thing is, my people did not follow your time. They followed the cycle of the animals and nature. Everything they did was determined by the animals and nature. The animals provided warmth, food, and shelter. We were self sufficient, we cannot forget the animals, and they have to be looked after. To me, self govenunent means to look after our own, to do what we say, to deal with any other bodies that affect our people but always in the Dene Law. I believe our young people proved that through the Fort Good Hope youth council ofthe early 80's which I believe was one of the first in Canada. We did what our youth said, we didn't do things that were determined by band. council or government. We were independent, we did only what om" youth needed to be done to achieve our goals. We did not belong to anybody but ourselves and our youth, In 1985, I believe that we proved self govern again in a sense. We fanned the WoodBlock Music Society. Again, we became self sufficient. We achieved Ollr goals, to have equipment, to host a festival every two years. We gave back to the people the traditional and contemporary music for everyone to enjoy. We did not focus on the negative things that affect our people, politics, and alcohol. But rather what is the purpose of our society and what do we stand for music traditional and contemporary. I see history repeating itself through Treaty 11. I call it the Norman Wells Treaty because the Dene did not benefit from it, only Nonnan Wells did.

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