Indigenous author and artist, and Saskatchewan’s current Poet Laureate, Carol Rose GoldenEagle spoke her truth to an audience at the Humboldt and District Gallery on Tuesday night. GoldenEagle is a multiple award winning writer whose latest edition of poems, Stations of the Crossed, calls out the egregious sins of the past in the treatment of her people while offering hope and a path for reconciliation. It’s nominated in four categories at this year’s Saskatchewan Book Awards. 

Carol’s birth family is from Northern Saskatchewan, and she is of Cree and Dene descent. At the gathering, she explained that she never met her birth mother who was a registered nurse in Regina during the era of the “Sixties Scoop.” Maisie Morin was a single mother, thereby deemed unfit by the authorities of the day, and Carol Rose was one of the hundreds of children taken from their families and placed in the social services system.

GoldenEagle talked about the harsh realities of growing up in the system, with instances of racism, violence and sexual abuse. She hailed her adoptive father and grandmother for standing by her, showing her love, and nurturing her creative side - including her love of writing and the natural world.

Where the residential school system had failed to provide quick enough results in “taking the Indian out of the child,” the Scoop was designed to disconnect children from their families and heritage at birth, so “education” would replace “re-education.” GoldenEagle talked candidly and passionately about the impact that both would have on generations of Indigenous families. 

“It was Bishop Grandin in Manitoba who talked about how the aim of what we’re doing is to make these kids ashamed of who they are,” explained GoldenEagle as she outlined some of her writing. “But they didn’t, so the government of the day in the 1950s and 60s rolled around. They said these kids aren’t assimilating as quickly as we want. So we’re going to come up with another plan.”

Hence the Sixties Scoop where children would be removed from their families, having no knowledge of their background or language. Carol Rose explained that her mother died in an accident when Carol Rose was a girl, so she never met her birth mother. She confesses she still feels her presence. 

GoldenEagle was always a writer, even in her youth. While her teachers applauded her artistic leanings, no one encouraged her to take them up as a vocation. She studied communications at SAIT in southern Alberta, and she soon found herself as the first Indigenous woman in Canadian journalism at the age of 19.

“I write because I must write. I love to write poetry, fiction and children’s stories. I spent more than 30 years as a journalist where I had to stick to fact, which is why I love to write fiction - I don’t have to stick to the facts any more, although I use them in my writing.  I think it’s a healthy way, in a discussion about Reconciliation, to move forward - to be able to bring out difficult discussions in a forum that’s a safe place to go. It’s a safe place to start thinking about the bigger picture - how do we move forward. Why are all these problems still apparent in our society, in our culture today.”

It’s only through education, meeting face to face, events like the Gallery gathering, and initiatives like Humboldt’s pilot project, “Relationship Building and Reconciliation through Living Heritage” that progress will come, maintained GoldenEagle. 

“It’s so important that people come to events like discussions on Reconciliation because it’s an expression of faith. It’s a way of saying I love where I live, I love my province, I love the history of Indigenous people being part of my province. So I need to know more about how to include those people, traditions and cultures as part of what I do living day to day with my family.”

Carol Rose GoldenEagle insists that the other critical mission is not to pass on “those terrible old ideas that brought destruction not so long ago.”

Watch for more programming from the City of Humboldt’s Cultural Services Department.