Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

In 1954, the federal government began building a day school at Sugar Cane

In order to construct the school where they wanted, they had to first fill in a small lake right adjacent to the site.  I don’t know if there was any other name for this lake ( more the size of a pond ), but locally it was called Shit Lake.  To this day, I have never found out why it was called so. 

So, the lake was filled in and the school was built.  Officially, the name of the school was Sugar Cane Day School.  But to local young men who liked to harass us younger kids who attended there, it was called, Shit Lake School.

Our one and only teacher at this school was Miss Tanguay.  She was French and had a very French accent.  She was one of those people who when she spoke it seemed like she had over-active saliva glands.  It seemed like, whenever she spoke, there was danger of saliva over-flowing from her mouth.  Anyway, no one on the reserve ever seemed to be fond of Miss Tanguay.  This was evidenced by the fact that most people, adults and children, called her Miss Donkey.

The children were especially fearful of Miss Tanguay.  On most school nites, around 8:30/9:00pm she would unexpectedly appear down in the village square to chase all the kids who were still out, home to bed.  On Sundays, all kids were expected to attend Mass without fail. No exceptions.  If for whatever reason, you missed Mass, you would have to answer in front of the whole classroom at school the following Monday.

Miss Tanguay tried to get the kids into playing softball on Sunday afternoons.  Unfortunately, there used to also be rodeos happening every Sunday at Sugar Cane and that’s where the kids wanted to be.  That’s where all the excitement was.  Because of the dismal turnout at the softball game, Miss Tanguay was compelled to make an announcement at school first thing Monday morning.  “Stampedee or no stampedee*, we will play ball after Mass on Sundays” she fumed.  Well, I guess the kids liked their rodeos much more than any softball games.  So much, I guess, that they were almost all willing to suffer the wrath of the Donkey, and went to the rodeo instead of playing ball.  She finally accepted her dismal failure.

In September of 1957, Jake and I had had enough of the day school and Miss Tanguay.  So much so, that when old Father Brown stopped by the house just to say hello to Granny, we both jumped in and told him that we were going to the Mission school.  We were accepted and enrolled.  We heard later that when Miss Tanguay heard of our escape, she was fit to be tied.

*This was how she pronounced "stampede"

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