Halfbreed Read online

  About this same time I met Gilbert Anderson, and a little later, his wife, Kay. Gilbert was quiet, calm and radiated warmth and friendliness. He too was a Halfbreed. Kay was someone I could talk to about babies and diapers, as well as world affairs. Cheechum used to tell me when I complained about women, “You have many sisters out there, my girl. You’ll find them.” Kay became one of my sisters. Over the years Gilbert and Kay and I have remained close friends, despite some differences of opinion, and my respect and admiration for both of them is strong.

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  I was starting to get on my feet again. I had a job in a restaurant and the children were in a foster home. I had met their foster parents who were a warm and understanding older couple. When they found out I was living in a little housekeeping room, they took me under their wing as well, and treated me like a daughter. They’re still good friends today.

  I’d never heard from David since the day we talked at the hospital, and had pushed him completely out of my mind. I didn’t expect to ever see him again.

  During this time I began writing to AA inmates at Prince Albert Penitentiary. Within two months I had more mail than I ever had in my whole life. It was hard to know what to write about, so I wrote about the children, my job and my problems, my frustrations and hopes. They answered every week, and soon it was as if we had known each other all our lives. They blasted me, gave me advice and encouragement, and the concerns of my home and children became theirs. When I wrote to tell them that the children had come to live with me again, they had a celebration.

  Then one day an invitation came to attend a conference at the prison. I was excited because it meant that, while on the trip, I could also go home and see Daddy, Cheechum, and maybe my brothers and sisters.

  When I arrived at the prison, the guys overwhelmed me and asked about Robbie, and how Lisa was doing in school, and about Laurie. Later at the meeting, I listened as each speaker gave his story. They spoke about the homes and families they had lost, and how they hoped they would be able to go straight outside and rebuild their lives. When the chairman thanked the speakers, he added that a presentation was to be made to a very special person. He said that many of the men were serving life sentences, some had been in and out for years and had lost track of their families, or had none. They looked forward to getting news of someone’s garden, or a little boy having his first fight, or little girls going to their first party. He said that here in Prince Albert they were lucky because they had a family and the best-looking and most mixed-up broad in the world. She was a little girl who could sew, plant a garden, play poker and cuss. Then he asked if I would come up to the platform.

  They gave me a painting, and said it was from all of them to me and my children. The painting was of a burnt-out forest, all black, bleak and dismal. In the center was a burnt-out tree stump, and at the roots were little green shoots sprouting up. The forest was like our lives, and the shoots represented hope.

  There was one old man in his late sixties who looked and talked like someone in an old Al Capone movie. He was one of the first prisoners sentenced to the penitentiary when it was opened. He told me that he had not heard from his family for some twenty years. When I was leaving, he took my hand and said, “Maria, I’ve never had children and I’ve never thought much about them in here, as it only adds to the problems, but if I’d ever had a daughter I would have wished for one like you. You’re a good girl.” I wrote to him for two years, and when he was finally released in 1967, after serving thirty years for armed robbery, he came to visit me before returning home to rebuild his life.

  That evening after the conference, I phoned my aunt and learned that Daddy was home in Spring River. I got there about five in the morning, and as I approached the settlement I tried to find something that was familiar in the land around me. The old log houses were gone and in their place grew wild rose bushes. The store looked grey and desolate, and the trees that I remembered were all dried up. In the early morning light, our house—the house I had missed so much—looked lonely and dilapidated. Through the window I saw Daddy sitting alone at the table, eating breakfast.

  When I walked inside, he looked at me for the longest time, and then said, “My girl! You’re home!”

  We spent the whole morning and early afternoon talking. He told me that during the last year he had been allowed to visit the children. Dolores and Peggie were living in a small town and were in high school, and the little boys were on a farm about twenty miles from Prince Albert. Robbie, who had been a real thorn in the side of welfare because of his rebellious behaviour, was somewhere in Alaska. They had finally left him alone after placing him in fifteen foster homes. Jamie was living in B.C., married with three children. Dad asked me why I had never written, and I replied that there had been nothing good to write home about. He didn’t ask anything else, and I have never told him what happened.

  That afternoon I walked around the old tumble-down houses. Grannie Campbell’s was gone, but the delphiniums she loved still grew by the ruins where the kitchen once stood. I went to the cemetery and sat on old Wolverine’s grave. Later on I went in to St. Michel, and because it was Saturday night it seemed as if the pages had been turned back. Only now it was worse, like a nightmare too horrible to forget. The streets were full of Native people in all stages of intoxication. There were children running everywhere; babies crying with nobody to care for them. A man was beating his wife behind a building, while little children looked on as though it was all quite normal. The only bar in town was full of people so drunk they couldn’t walk. They were allowed to stay inside until their money was gone, and then they were cut off. Some of the men had dirty bandages on their faces, others had open, swollen infected cuts. There were drunken women with faces badly scarred and bruised from numerous beatings. The old angry bitter feeling came back to my stomach—the feeling of hate—as I saw people whom I had known as a child, now with such empty, despairing faces.

  As I left the bar, a man took my arm, and only when he smiled, did I recognize Smoky. Over coffee he told me a little of his life. He had never married, although he was living with a white woman and her sister. He laughed when he told me that, saying, “You remember how the white people used to hate us? Well, they’ve got Halfbreed grandchildren all over now. Times have changed here, Maria, even the whites have deteriorated, or I guess perhaps their deterioration shows now.”

  Smoky and I drove around visiting friends and family. The homes were the same—one-roomed log houses, ten to sixteen children, dogs and skinny horses. But something had changed. The gentle mothers of my childhood were drunkards now, and neglect was evident everywhere, most of all on the faces of the children. The countryside had changed too. Fires had swept through parts of it, often deliberately set by men out of work and money. Welfare was cut off in the summer months, but the Forestry Department paid wages for fighting fires. There was nothing left to hunt or trap, and only Daddy still trapped in the National Park.

  Smoky said, “The important thing now is getting enough money squeezed out of welfare to buy flour, lard, tea and wine—food for the kids, and wine for us to forget we exist.” When I drove him home, his blonde-haired wives came out and listened to him say to me, “Hell, some of us are lucky enough to have a white woman to make us feel we’ve moved up.” I went home, feeling like I wanted to get Daddy’s rifle and go out and shoot everything.

  The following winter Daddy wrote that Smoky had shot the two white women and then killed himself.

  Daddy and I went to visit Cheechum, who lived with her nephew and his wife. Driving into the yard was like old times. In the yard was a rack with meat hanging from it and a small fire burning underneath. I ran into the little log house and sitting on her pallet on the floor was my Cheechum. She hadn’t changed at all. She got up when I came inside and before there was a chance to say anything she hit me with her cane. She ordered me to get out until I had covered my legs—di
d I have no shame at all? I backed out of the door, remembering that I was wearing shorts. Luckily there was a skirt among my clothes in the car.

  Once inside the house again, Cheechum told me to come to her. She reached up and touched my face, then patted a place for me to sit beside her. We sat there for a long time, just the two of us. The tidy cabin and the familiar smell of herbs and roots and wood-smoke, and the rabbit soup simmering on the stove, all made me feel like I had come home again. We didn’t have to talk—Cheechum understood my feelings. After supper we went out and walked to the lake where we sat and listened to the frogs singing, and had a smoke. She asked me then what had happened, and I told her everything that I could never have told my father. When I had finished, she said, “It’s over now. Don’t let it hurt you. Since you were a baby you’ve had to learn the hard way. You’re like me.” When I replied, “There’s nobody I’d rather be like than you,” she smiled and said, “I wonder if that’s so good.”

  I told her about the Native people in AA, and she wanted to know all about them, especially Stan Daniels. I told her of my work with girls on the street and how I was trying to establish a halfway house where girls could come when they were in trouble. I explained that I didn’t believe I could help anyone solve their personal problems, but if I could give them a home and friendship, then they would in turn find their own answers. She said, “I’m glad you believe that, and I hope you will never forget it. Each of us has to find himself in his own way and no one can do it for us. If we try to do more we only take away the very thing that makes us a living soul. The blanket only destroys, it doesn’t give warmth. But you will understand that better as you get older.”

  Cheechum was one hundred and four years old. She was still strong, although her eyesight was failing. She told me that she was getting tired and that she was ready to go at any time. She hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer. When we left, she stood outside her little log house and waved—a little lady with long white braids, a bright scarf and long black dress, jewellery on her neck and arms, feet in tiny beaded moccasins.

  Daddy came back to Prince Albert with me and made arrangements at the Welfare Department for the children to come to town. Dolores was as tall as I was and looked just like Mom: she was quiet and gentle. Peggie was barely five feet tall, with red hair and freckles, and a bubbling personality. They were seventeen and fifteen. The little boys had not changed much, only grown a little taller. They cuddled up to me, sang songs, and showed off their magic tricks. They were lonely and wanted so desperately to be loved.

  Chapter 24

  WHEN I CAME BACK FROM Saskatchewan, the horrible conditions of my people and my talk with Cheechum made me feel there was no time to waste. The more I became involved in street work the angrier I became. At one meeting I talked to the AA group about a halfway house for women. I expounded at great length that there were soup kitchens, flop houses and hostels for men throughout Canada. Furthermore, society didn’t deal with men on the street as harshly as it did with women. One of the male members said that my problem was that I hated men and that probably what I needed was a good lay. I got so mad and frustrated I walked out.

  That evening I met Marie Smallface, a Blood woman from Cardston. It’s hard to describe her—for here was no ordinary Indian, let alone Indian woman. She was a militant and a radical long before we were saying those words in Alberta. She lived a completely free life. Knowing her made a big difference to me and brought a change in my life. She had just returned from a workshop in Banff for young Native people from across Canada, and she talked excitedly about what could happen through the Canadian Indian Youth Council. She introduced me to many young Indian people who had been involved with it. Listening to her talk, it seemed to me that here was a whole new breed of Native people who would make changes and give leadership.

  Marie was good for me, and through her I began to see a lot of things differently. I met students from other countries. I listened to everything they said, and brought home piles of books to read until late at night. I never joined in the rap sessions because I was terrified to open my mouth and make a fool of myself. They used words unknown to me, and sounded so sure of themselves and their position in the world as revolutionaries. I didn’t even know what that word meant, and felt that my experience and knowledge were so limited I would be like a child joining in.

  There were times when it was hard to keep quiet because I didn’t agree with what they were saying, but I would be lost in their flow of words. Many of the books were difficult to understand, and I would read them over and over again and be just as confused. Marie would explain what some things meant, but it made little sense. Finally, I got rid of the books: the Russian Revolution wasn’t important to me anyway. Instead I started reading Canadian and Indian history.

  During this time Community Development and Jim Whitford were being talked about. I didn’t see how a government organization headed by a middle-class white man could do anything for Indian people, and was even more disillusioned to learn that Native people would be on the staff. To me it was Saskatchewan, the CCF party and its projects all over again. Whenever they hired Natives to work with Native people, it ended in disaster, with our people being hurt. I remembered how our people were divided and fought each other once their leaders had been hired by the government. This is how my father was beaten.

  David and I were together again and were trying to straighten out our lives and start anew. I was free of drugs and alcohol, and my children were well adjusted and happy. Then Lee was born in February 1966 and for the first time in years, we were really happy.

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  Marie dropped in for tea one afternoon and announced that she had jobs for both of us, beginning in May. She said that Premier Manning was paying good wages for a research project in the poverty areas of Alberta, in both Native and white communities. We would be going to the Saddle Lake Reserve in central Alberta. The wages were five hundred dollars per month from May until August. I couldn’t believe what I heard—to be paid that kind of wage with no experience! Marie laughed and said, “Don’t worry about not knowing what to do because you’ve probably got more experience than they have. Besides, the whole project is going to end up in someone’s back room like all the other research material anyway.”

  My first impression of Saddle Lake was that of rich farm land, and if the government considered this a poverty area, what did they call the really poor areas in Alberta? Once we had paid our visits to the Chief and Councillors and the R.C. priest, we started work. The questionnaire was unbelievable. It was lengthy, with a lot of ridiculous stuff, and the people being questioned would look at each other as if to say, “They must be mad.” However they were friendly and patient, and answered all the questions as best they could. Many times my neck would grow hot when driving away, as we could hear their laughter, and knew that we were the joke.

  After about a week, the novelty began to wear off. The other co-worker was Milt, a political science student, and he didn’t get along with Marie. I was caught right in the middle, with loyalty to Marie on one side, and a big concern to save face for all of us in the community and do a good job on the other. By now I was feeling like some sort of messiah; these poor people’s future rested on the results of our work. I tried to talk to Marie but she became angry, and about the middle of July she was replaced. I could leave too and keep her friendship, or shut up and finish the work. I decided to shut up, but I will be very honest about my motive, as I’ve seen the same thing destroy so many good people in the last few years. I had never in my life felt so important, and I liked the feeling; in fact it was like I had just drunk a half bottle of whiskey. It took me two years to finish that bottle, and I was on the biggest ego and power trip any human being could be on.

  The job at Saddle Lake was never finished as planned. A report was compiled on the incomplete material we had gathered, and when it was made public, the people at Saddle L
ake were very upset. The headlines in the paper said, “The anatomy of a sick reserve called Saddle Lake.” That was my first experience as a scab. At the time I loved it: I was important, and I had helped to make Manning’s White Paper possible.

  I look back on this experience now with bitterness. Marie and I had been manipulated and divided just as my father and those leaders from my childhood had been. Although it was done in a more sophisticated way, the end result was the same, and today, when we should be working together, our feelings keep us apart.

  The last week of the research project was spent in the sugar-beet fields in southern Alberta interviewing the people of Saddle Lake, who were working there for the summer months. I had asked Stan Daniels to come and help me finish off the project. We’d been told that all welfare was cut off on the reserve and that people were forced to go to work in the fields. In order to make enough money to live they had to take their children out of school and work them as well.

  Although I had heard stories of the beet fields, I was not prepared for what we saw that Saturday afternoon. Lethbridge was overflowing with Native people from Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C. and even the States. There was a lot of drinking, the place was full of police and the jails were full. Lethbridge, like towns everywhere with a large Native population, is really racist, and although it accepts Native money, it in no way accepts Native people. We walked around in the evening and saw people being thrown out of bars or being refused service in restaurants.

  On Sunday it was the same, only now bootleggers were doing a thriving business everywhere, while the good people of the town hurried off to church. Monday we drove out to the beet fields, and the conditions we saw were unbelievable. Some of the houses couldn’t even be called shacks. Some families lived in old granaries that were clustered around the edges of barnyards. The roofs leaked in the rain, the yards were mires of mud, cow dung and filthy water. The one-roomed granaries and shacks housed whole families, sometimes two. When the rain stopped, the heat brought out huge flies in droves.