Clayton Thomas-Muller - Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing

ALLEN LANE

an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited

Canada USA UK Ireland Australia New Zealand India South Africa China

First published 2021

Copyright 2021 by Clayton Thomas-Mller

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA
CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: Life in the city of dirty water : a memoir of healing /
Clayton Thomas-Muller.

Names: Thomas-Mller, Clayton, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020023675X |
Canadiana (ebook) 20200236903 | ISBN 9780735240063
(hardcover) | ISBN 9780735240070 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Thomas-Mller, Clayton. |
LCSH: EnvironmentalistsCanadaBiography.
| LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC GE56.T56 A3 2020 | DDC 333.72092dc23

Book design by Kelly Hill

Cover design by Kelly Hill

Cover art: Our Lives are in the Land by Christi Belcourt
Interior artwork Christi Belcourt except the image of
Inner Child on created by Isaac Murdoch

a_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0

To Charlton Edward Budd,

You taught me how to hustle.

You taught me how to survive.

See you in the good hunting grounds.

CONTENTS

IN JANUARY 1977 , I made one of the most difficult decisions of my life, which was to move to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the pursuit of a better life for me and my unborn child. I left my family, friends, and everything that I was accustomed to. I was sixteen. Those first six months were difficult, to say the least. I found myself living in the confinement of an institution and all its rules. This was not foreign for me, as I had spent seven years in residential school, from the age of six to thirteen. What I found very difficult was the loneliness I once again felt deep within my soul, missing my family.

I wish I could tell you that life for me and my son Clayton magically changed once I moved to the city, but as for so many of our Indigenous brothers, sisters, and families who moved to the city in search of a better life, we faced many obstacles and tragedies.

This is not my story. Life in the City of Dirty Water is my sons story of growing up Indigenous in Winnipeg. Each one of us has a story to tell, and it is important that it be told through their own lens. I have fully supported my son throughout this transmedia project, felt his pain, laughed and cried as he wrote and produced this project. He has my full support and permission to share his story; as his mother, that is the gift I can give him at this junction in his life.

My son is an incredible speaker, but more importantly, a wonderful father, son, brother, uncle, and friend. He is resilient, intelligent, kind, courageous, and multi-talented. I couldnt imagine walking this journey of life without him. Thank you, Creator, for the gift you blessed me with forty-two years ago. Thank you, my son, for having the foresight and fortitude to share your journey with the intent of bringing awareness and healing.

Gail Pelletier

Winnipeg, Manitoba

tapaswin

flight

The first time my father saw an airplane, he thought it must be an angel. He was five years old, standing outside his familys cabin deep in the bush, on Pukatawagan First Nation in northern Manitoba. It was before he attended residential school, but Catholicism was already very present in the community and he had heard about angels from the priest who lived on the rez. That day, he heard a strange noise and looked up. He saw a white cross flying through the sky, and he thought: This must be an angel, because what else could it be?

He told me that story many years later. We were at the St. Regis Hotel in Winnipeg, and he was drunk out of his tree. It was one of the half-dozen times I ever spent with him. Even though I was only seven at the time, hearing the story triggered something inside me. I now know that the unsettled feeling I had was the sudden understanding that Im only one generation away from living in the bush and being of the land. In only one lifetime, everything had changed.