At the Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, school, Wesley Keewatin recalled, the staff would tip over a bed with the child still in it if they thought the child had wet the bed during the night. “If they were still sleeping they’d just grab their, their beds and flip them right over. You know they’d go flying.”187
Wesley Keewatin said that at the Qu’Appelle school, students might have to kneel in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary for half an hour to an hour. Keewatin also recalled that … a teacher he had thought had always treated him well slapped him so hard that he “went flying.” He attributed his deafness in one ear to this incident.496 (Survivors Speak, p. 142)
Wesley Keewatin said that when he attended the Qu’Appelle school, he found the routine strange at first, but soon adapted. But then older boys started coming into his bed at night.
And then they’d, they’d make me feel them and then they’d feel me, me up and then, it started, they started, oh how can I put this, is there any way to put it?They started sexually molesting me. They were, screwing my bottom and when, when it started happening, you know like I’d, I’d, I was confused, I was confused there because, you know like I had older brothers there and I said, “Okay, you know, I’m going to get these guys for doing that to me.” But they, they used to tell me … “Yeah, I know your brothers, you know, if you tell them, they’ll get a licking too,” you know. You know it went on like that for a long time.
And I used to tell and I used to tell the nuns that this was going on, this was happening to me. And what they’d tell me was, “Go pray; just go pray.” And, and that, oh that, that really confused me even more you know. It’s like they knew that it was going on but they, like who would, who would they believe? You know, like would they believe me or, or whoever I was pointing my, my finger at? You know because these older boys, they could certainly, most certainly deny it.
Keewatin told his parents of the abuse, but they continued to send him to the school. “It must have happened to them too because they’d always bring me back and, I figured, ‘Okay, you know, this is normal.’”648 (Survivors Speak, pp. 172-173)