My Name Is Seepeetza: 30th Anniversary Edition

By Shirley Sterling and Tomson Highway

An honest look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it — 30th anniversary edition.

Seepeetza loves living on Joyaska Ranch with her family. But when she is six years old, she is driven to the town of Kalamak, in the interior of British Columbia. Seepeetza will spend the next several years of her life at an Indian residential school. The nuns call her Martha and cut her hair. Worst of all, she is forbidden to “talk Indian,” even with her sisters and cousins.

Still, Seepeetza looks for bright spots — the cookie she receives at Halloween, the dance practices. Most of all, there are her memories of holidays back at the ranch — camping trips, horseback riding, picking berries and cleaning fish with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Always, thoughts of home make school life bearable.

Based on her own experiences at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, this powerful novel by Nlaka’pamux author Shirley Sterling is a moving account of one of the most blatant expressions of racism in the history of Canada. 

Includes a new afterword by acclaimed Cree author Tomson Highway of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba.

Key Text Features

afterword

dialogue

journal entries

maps

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6
Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781773068848

Shirley Sterling

SHIRLEY STERLING (1948–2005) was Nlaka’pamux. She twice received the Native Indian Teacher Education Alumni Award and held a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia. My Name Is Seepeetza is based on her childhood experiences at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Acclaimed in Canada and the United States, the book won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Shirley also won the Laura Steinman Award for Children’s Literature.

Book preview

My Name Is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling. This image features beadwork by Speplól Tanya Zilinski. A black-and-white photograph is in the middle of the image. The photograph looks worn and tattered. In the photograph is a girl with light skin tone and brown hair pulled back off her face. She wears a white shirt with a black vest on top that laces across her chest. We see her from the waist up. She smiles at the camera. Behind this photograph is a background of small colored beads that form a tapestry. The two sections on either side of the photograph are bright yellow with green beads going up the center like a stem, with curved lines like leaves at the bottom. Dark and light purple diamond shapes come from the stem like flowers. Small purple beads at the top of the stem resemble seeds. The section behind the photograph is light pink and creamy white in an alternating geometric pattern.Title Page: My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling, Afterword by Tomson Highway. Published by Groundwood Books.

Groundwood Books is grateful for the opportunity to share stories and make books on the Traditional Territory of many Nations, including the Anishinabeg, the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee. It is also the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. In partnership with Indigenous writers, illustrators, editors and translators, we commit to publishing stories that reflect the experiences of Indigenous Peoples. For more about our work and values, visit us at groundwoodbooks.com.

Copyright © 1992 by Shirley Sterling

Afterword copyright © 2022 by Tomson Highway

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent

of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll

free to 1-800-893-5777.

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Thirtieth anniversary edition published in 2022

by Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

groundwoodbooks.com

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We gratefully acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

Logos: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council & Canadian Government

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: My name is Seepeetza / Shirley Sterling ; afterword by Tomson Highway.

Names: Sterling, Shirley, author. | Highway, Tomson, writer of afterword.

Description: 30th anniversary edition.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210369221 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220178755 |

ISBN 9781773068565 (softcover) | ISBN 9781773068848 (EPUB)

Subjects: CSH: First Nations—Canada—Residential schools—Juvenile fiction. |

LCGFT: Bildungsromans. | LCGFT: Diary fiction.

Classification: LCC PS8587.T471 M9 2022 | DDC jC813/.54—dc23

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Cover beadwork by Speplól Tanya Zilinski

Photos: front and back cover (bottom), courtesy of the author; back cover (top),

main administrative building of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, British Columbia, 1970 © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada (2022). Library and Archives Canada/Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds/a185532.

Design by Lucia Kim

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Groundwood Books is a Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA by Benetech) publisher.

An ebook version of this book that meets stringent accessibility standards is available to students and readers with print disabilities.

Acknowledgments

To Sue Ann who wanted to read all the journal entries, and so they were written;

to Seraphine Stewart and Charlotte Ned who helped me to remember;

to my wonderful family the (Albert) Sterlings of Godey, especially Mum;

to Cookie, Rowdy and Pearl, my little bears of spring who walked me out of the valley of shadows (sorry I switched a gender);

to Precious, whose novel My Life Story written at age nine gave me the style and inspiration for Seepeetza;

to my Spirit Friend, Sisu Kri, who said a long time ago, You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Dedication

To all those who went to the residential schools, and those who tried to help, may you weep and be made free. May you laugh and find your child again. May you recover the treasure that has been lost, the name that gives your life meaning, the mythology by which you can pick up and rebuild the shattered pieces of the past, your own ancient language speaking of ice ages and hairy mammoths, perhaps a little cabin on a grassy hill at the edge of a forest where a grandmother sang a lullaby and made you gloves, or a proud father carved you a whistle out of willow sticks. In celebration of survival I dedicate to you this book, and this poem.

Coyote Laughs

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Sometimes at dusk

When Shadowtime steals souls,

I listen as the nighthawk

Screams and falls.

I search the clouds for moonlight …

Then somewhere in the pines

Coyote laughs —

Transforming night,

And welcoming the little star

That follows Moon.

This image is in black and white. This image is of a hand-drawn map labeled “Joyaska Ranch by Seepeetza.” A wooden fence runs along the top, and a road labeled “highway to Firefly” runs along the right side. A thin creek runs along the property to the left of the highway. Between the creek and the highway, toward the bottom of the image, is a group of trees labeled “trees where the cows have their calves.” Below this is an unlabeled road that runs horizontally across the image. Below the road, still between the creek and the highway are “dead calf tree,” “old Indian camp” and “Mrs. Quill’s house,” which sits right next to the highway. Across the highway is “Cookie’s log house.” The unlabeled road has a gate where it meets the highway, and it is bordered by an old fence. The ranch property is above this road, to the left of the creek. Closest to the road are “tall cottonweeds,” “Jimmy’s secret strawberry patch,” a barn with a large corral that is fenced in, and a small corral. Across the road, under the small corral, is “Missy’s picnic spot.” Above the large corral and barn are hayfields. Above the small corral are a blacksmith and a granary. Above the granary is the house, which is by an apple tree and “Dad’s truck.” The truck sits on a small road that runs down to the unlabeled road by going between the large and small corrals. Beside the house, running up the image, is a trail to the river. Along the trail are a woodshed, an outhouse and, farthest away, animal graves.This image is in black and white. This image is of a hand-drawn map labeled “School Map by Martha Stone.” At the top of the image is an arrow pointing up and out of the frame labeled “mountains.” Below this is a road to the highway that runs horizontally across the image. From this road three smaller unlabeled roads extend down vertically. The largest of these vertical roads is to the far left of the image. It runs down to the middle left of the image and then turns right to run horizontally across to the middle. At the end of the road is a school building labeled “K.I.R.S.” This building has labels for a boys’ side and a girls’ side, as well as a dining room and kitchen. In front are “Brother Julian’s pansies” and a lawn, and across the street are maple trees. To the left, closer to where the road curves, are new and old classrooms that are not attached to the main building. Above the school are a gym and a building labeled “TEK.” Above the extra classrooms is a soccer field that sits beside the vertical section of the road. Above the soccer field is another unlabeled road, connected to the first, that runs across the image, then down past the school to the bottom of the image. Beside the road, below where it passes the school building, are a grotto and an orchard. At the start of this road, across from the soccer field, are teachers’ houses and one is labeled “Mr. Oiko’s house.” Next to these are a barn and a potato field, separated from a vegetable field by a small road. Below these, across the road from the gym and the school are farm buildings, a rink, clothes lines, a pump house, a merry-go-round, swings and teeter-totters. To the right of the image runs the Tomas River. It comes in near the vegetable field and runs vertically down past the playground to the street by the orchard. Here, at the bottom of the image, the river and the street by the orchard turn and run horizontally across the image to the left. Under them are buildings labeled “Kalamak City.”

Thursday, September 11, 1958

Kalamak Indian Residential School

Today my teacher Mr. Oiko taught us how to write journals. You have to put the date and place at the top of the page. Then you write about what happens during the day. I like journals because I love writing whatever I want. Mr. Oiko says a good way to start is to talk about yourself, where you live, your age, grade, what kind of family you have.

My name is Martha Stone. I am twelve years old in grade six at the Kalamak Indian Residential School. It’s next to the Tomas River across from the city of Kalamak, British Columbia.

The school is four stories high. It’s a big red brick building with a church steeple right in the middle above the chapel. The kitchen and dining room are under the chapel. The boys live on the left and the girls live on the right. Next to the river is the school farm where there are dairy cows and vegetable fields.

There are four hundred of us Indian students here and we come from all over B.C. The principal is Father Sloane, a priest. Six other priests here are missionaries. They go to different Indian reserves to say Mass on Sunday. Ten nuns are teachers and girls’ supervisors. Sister Theodosia is the intermediate supervisor. We call her Sister Theo.

We are divided into juniors grades one to four, intermediates grades five to eight, and seniors grades nine to twelve. Each group stays in different dormitories called dorms, and recreation rooms called recs. We’re not allowed to leave our own rec or dorm except for meals.

The nuns and priests have their own dining rooms, but we eat in the main dining room. There’s a wall between the boys’ side and girls’ side. One of the Sisters watches us eat, but not when we walk back to our recs. That’s when my sisters Dorothy and Missy and I sometimes hold hands as we walk down the hall. It’s the happiest part of my day.

My best friend is my cousin Cookie. Her mother is Mamie, my mum’s sister. Cookie is only my friend sometimes because she’s in grade five and mostly she plays with her grade five friends. I told Cookie I want to write secret journals for one year. She won’t tell on me. I’ll write a short one every day for Mr. Oiko. Then in Thursday library time and on weekends when Sister Theo is busy I’ll write this one in a writing tablet titled arithmetic.

I’ll get in trouble if I get caught. Sister Theo checks our letters home. We’re not allowed to say anything about the school. I might get the strap, or worse. Last year some boys ran away from school because one of the priests was doing something bad to them. The boys were caught and whipped. They had their heads shaved and they had to wear dresses and kneel in the dining room and watch everybody eat. They only had bread and water to eat for a week. Everybody was supposed to laugh at them and make fun of them but nobody did.

I don’t like school. We have to come here every September and stay until June. My dad doesn’t like it either, but he says it’s the law. All status Indian kids have to go to residential schools.

My dad is Frank Stone. He’s a rancher. My mum is Marie Stone. I have an older brother called Jimmy. He’s eighteen. My sister Dorothy is sixteen. My brother Frank died when he was a baby. He would have been fourteen. My little sister Ann Marie is nine. We call her Missy. My little brother Benjamin is five. We call him Benny. He’ll have to come to school here next year when he’s six. I have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins at home, and one grandmother. We call her Yay-yah.

We live on Joyaska Ranch near a little town called Firefly. It’s about a hundred miles from Kalamak. We get to go home in the summer, at Christmas and sometimes at Easter.

When we’re at home we can ride horses, go swimming at the river, run in the hills, climb trees and laugh out loud and holler yahoo anytime we like and we won’t get in trouble. At school we get punished for talking, looking at boys in church, even stepping out of line.

I wish I could live at home instead of here.

Thursday, September 18, 1958

K.I.R.S.

Today we shucked corn after school. Sister Theo told us to line up on each side of two long tables outside the kitchen. Then Sister Cook sent out some big boxes of corn and we had to pull off the outer skins and corn silk. That’s what shucking is, peeling corn. We put the corn and the skins in different boxes. When Sister wasn’t looking one of the girls took a bite from the raw corn. Then she passed the corn down the line so we all got a bite. It tasted sweet and juicy. Somebody hid the cobs in