Phyllis Googoo was just four years old when she gripped tightly to her brother’s hand as they were taken from their family and sent to Shubenacadie Residential School.
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“I could picture my mother. She was waving at the shore. ‘This is temporary, she’ll pick us up.’ You know, I kept hopes in my head,” Googoo said, now in her late 70s.
Googoo was forced to attend Shubenacadie Residential School for a decade of her life.
Alexa MacLean / Global Halifax
The shoreline of We’koqma’q First Nation is roughly 250 kilometres away from Shubenacadie, N.S., which was the site of the only residential school in the Maritime provinces.
During the 1930s to late 1960s, Mi’kmaw children from across the Maritimes were forced to attend the school, run by Catholic priests and nuns, and supported by the federal government.
From the moment Googoo arrived, the overall objective of the school to separate the children from their Mi’kmaw culture was made clear to her when she spoke in her language.
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“You’re not allowed to speak it or you get hit, you get strapped. We were always lined up like little soldiers, going in and going out, and during the process, you could hear children crying and screaming because the nun would be beating somebody in the line. So, it was really terrifying, you know,” she said.
Googoo said she kept her spirit alive by secretly speaking Mi’kmaw with her classmates whenever they were alone.
“I was scared to be caught but it gave you comfort — the language gives you comfort like you’re home. Otherwise, I don’t know what would happen if I didn’t hear the language.”
The other thing Googoo latched onto for comfort was finding ladybugs in the field. They reminded her of her grandfather’s yard back home.
“I treasured them [lady bugs] because when you’re a kid, that young, you need nurturing, you need protection, love. I didn’t think that way till later on, and I had to protect them, love them, they’re my children,” she said.
Googoo is one of several residential school survivors and Indigenous leaders from across Canada, meeting with Pope Francis this week in Vatican City.
The delegation is expected to ask the head of the Catholic Church for an official apology for the trauma caused by its operation of the residential school system.
“We have reiterated to the church that they must be accountable, and acknowledge their responsibility for the great harm caused by their direct role in the institution of assimilation and genocide that they ran,” said Gerald Antoine, a regional chief with the Assembly of First Nations.
Googoo will be joined by other Mi’kmaw delegates and said she is hopeful Pope Francis will respect their requests.
“I’m doing [presenting] the impacts of the residential school, the sexual abuse, being beaten, and terrorized. We went through a lot,” she said.