David Blaikie Photos

Residential schools - In the name of the father

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:34:02 +0000

From the 1870s to the 1970s, more than 150,000 children were taken from Aboriginal families and placed in residential schools – run by the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United churches and funded by the government of Canada. The purpose was to force the assimilation of native culture into white society by “killing the Indian in the child.” The children were deprived of their culture, educated in English and French and “converted” to Christianity. Many lived in substandard conditions and endured horrific mental, physical and sexual abuse by clergy, teachers and staff. Almost half died, some of disease, some of malnutrition, some medicated to death for resisting their captors. Others were murdered to dispose of unwanted infants and to prevent complaints by young women who were raped by their guardians. Thousands were buried in unmarked graves. The last residential school did not close until 1996. The Canadian government formally apologized in 2008. “The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. “The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.” Phil Fontaine, leader of the Assembly of First Nations and a survivor of the residential school system, accepted the apology on behalf of all victims. “Memories of residential schools cut like merciless knives at our souls,” Fontaine said. — Poetry - In the name of the father.

Tobie - 1996-2010

admin — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:26:51 +0000

‘Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.’ - Garrison Keillor.

The Supreme Court of Canada

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:34:00 +0000

“Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.” - Leonard Cohen.

This storm shall surely pass

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:38:17 +0000

When I read the papers
And I see the headlines
And all the pictures of pain
I find it hard to believe
but something inside me
looks on in silence
and tells me be still
this storm shall surely pass.

— Fraser and DeBolt, folk singers, 1970s, from ‘This Storm Shall Surely Pass’

A week before

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:37:25 +0000

“something careful is about to break
and it quivers like a thread … ” - Poetry: A Week Before

‘When I came to die’

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:15:04 +0000

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau (gravesite, Concord, Massachusetts).

Prince Edward County dawn

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:15:39 +0000

The morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness.
- Shakespeare

Cape Cod whale

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:46:56 +0000

“In the water, whales have become the dominant species,
Without killing their own kind.” - Heathcote Williams, Whale Nation.

A sunset purifies all it touches

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:33:16 +0000

“A sunset purifies all it touches.” - Words blog.

The golden road

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:22:22 +0000

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”
— Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums). — ‘Jack Kerouac Grave - Only a jolly story teller’