Wendy Proverbs - Aggie and Mudgy: The Journey of Two Kaska Dena Children

Praise for Aggie & Mudgy

In Aggie & Mudgy, Wendy Proverbs skillfully weaves a story that invites young readers to engage in a learning experience articulated within a structure reflective of traditional storytelling. Proverbss story not only provides insight into the reality of the removal of children to residential schools, but also gives insights and examples of Kaska Dena culture and traditions. These characters will stay with young readers and inspire them to embark on further learning.

MICHELLE GOOD award-winning author of Five Little Indians

This is a beautiful book. This story captures the warmth of a family, then the heartbreak of a family, and finally comes full circle to the love in a family. The new sights and experiences on their journey keep one interested. The ending made me cry in a good way. I highly recommend this book.

BEV SELLARS author of They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School

An important recounting of the Kaska Dena experience where children were removed from their families and taken impossibly great distances to residential schools. Aggie & Mudgy highlights how imperative it was for even the very young, such as these two Kaska Dena girls, to become their own heroes. An example of the enduring legacy of intergenerational memory and of honouring and keeping the stories of these children alive.

CHRISTY JORDAN-FENTON co-author of Fatty Legs: A True Story

Copyright 2021 Wendy Proverbs

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher or a licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.

Wandering Fox Books

An imprint of Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd. heritagehouse.ca

Cataloguing information available from

Library and Archives Canada

978-1-77203-375-5 (paperback)

978-1-77203-376-2 (ebook)

Cover and interior illustrations by Alyssa Koski

Map by Eric Leinberger

Cover and interior book design by Setareh Ashrafologhalai

The interior of this book was produced on 100% post-consumer paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based inks.

Heritage House gratefully acknowledges that the land on which we live and work is within the traditional territories of the Lkwungen (Esquimalt and Songhees), Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scianew, TSou-ke, and WSNE (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum) Peoples.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

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Printed in Canada

To all the children finding their way home.

Authors Note

THIS IS a story of two young Kaska Dena girls journey from their homeland on the BCYukon border, to the steps of Lejac Residential School, in central BC, in the 1920s. It is based on my aunts memoir depicting the journey she took with my birth mother. The story unfolds in contemporary times told by a fictionalized grandmother, Nan, to her eight-year-old granddaughter, Maddy.

In keeping with the oral tradition of her ancestors, Nan teaches her granddaughter about her past by way of story. It slowly unfolds over several days as Nan and Maddy go about their daily routines. This is my way of telling my personal history to a fictional granddaughter living in todays world. As Maddy listens to Nan tell her about the girls journey, she learns how it changed their lives forever, and her young mind asks questions that any child might ask. For example, Maddy wonders why they had to change their Kaska names to anglicized names, providing Nan an opportunity to teach her granddaughter about this dark aspect of her ancestors past. The story offers a glimpse into the impacts of colonization at a level Maddy can begin to understand. It also provides a lovely example of how the sisters fashioned their anglicized names into ones that they could own and like. Renamed by the church as Agnes and Martha, the girls decided to call themselves Aggie and Mudgy.

The story Nan tells Maddy is not, however, about what Aggie and Mudgy experience at residential school. It focuses instead on the expedition that takes them from their home in Daylu (Lower Post), near the BCYukon border, to Lejac Residential School on the shores of Fraser Lake in central BC. The girls, aged eight and six, travel approximately 1,600 kilometres by riverboat, truck, paddlewheeler, steamship, and trainan exceptionally long journey even by todays standards, let alone for two young girls who had never been outside their remote village.

A priest wearing a long black robe accompanies them, an unkind man who physically abuses them when they dont do as theyre told. At one point, they try to escape but are unsuccessful. The story of the journey ends just as the huge residential school doors bang shut behind the girls.

To my knowledge, the literature published about Indigenous childrens travels from their home communities to the schools is not extensive. My mother and aunts residential school experiences were like those of their peerscomprised of well-documented injustices, now widely acknowledged as a national shame.

Exposed to daily Christian indoctrination, they were punished and deprived of their culture, language, and families. This has been recognized as a form of cultural genocide by former Supreme Court justice Beverley McLachlin. Thankfully, these heartbreaking stories are coming to light more and more often, educating people about the tragic consequences and intergenerational trauma that continues today.

My story offers a slightly different way into learning about this past by detailing the exceptional journey of my aunt and birth mother during a time when travel was an arduous undertaking. It also offers a glimpse into the transitional period of post-European contact, when small towns emerged and grew as a result of booming resource development.

MY AUNTS memoir planted the seeds of this story long ago. Writing Aggie and Mudgys story has drawn me closer to my ancestral roots. Like thousands of other Indigenous children in Canada, Im part of this story. I was an infant during the sweeping scoop of Indigenous children taken from their home communities and placed with non-Indigenous families.

I was a young adult when I began to search for my birth family. My search led me to some siblings, but I was too late to meet Mudgy, my birth mother. She had passed away several years earlier. Had my mother and aunt lived out their lives in the small northern community where they were born, who knows where life might have led them and me?