The day I opened Silvacan Elementary School was certainly unlike opening day of any other school in BC. First off, because the Silvacan Elementary was in the enormous Stikine School District, which encompassed the entirety of the whole northern half of BC, and the school district wasn’t sure they would be opening a school at the mill site, because they hadn’t been able to find a teacher (until I took the job) there were absolutely no school supplies at the mill.
There were no books, no desks, no chalkboard, and no necessary school supplies, like paper or pencils. There was nothing, just the mill’s recreation hall, complete with its pool table, Coke machine, and stale cigarette-smelling air.
Another unique aspect of Silvacan Elementary’s opening, was that it took place late, two weeks after all of BC’s other schools had opened, because of delays in my wife and I being issued our Canadian Immigration papers. That problem was resolved when a custom official who knew of our urgency because the BC schools had already started, just secretly told me to just say I was on vacation when I crossed the border.
That first day of school was certainly not one where a lot of academics were taught. Frank had driven down to the Jack family that morning and returned with 5 of the Jack kids, (with ages ranging from about seven to 12) which he dropped off at the “school”. I had moved one of the Rec Hall tables, and some chairs into a corner.
I had a lot of experience working with kids, both in my education training, and working at the Evansville Boys Club, for several years running recreation programs. I thought I was ready for anything that rambunctious children could throw my way, but I wasn’t ready for these extremely shy aboriginal kids.
I had no experience being around First Nation children. They meekly entered the room which was in the logging camp’s Recreation Hall and I welcomed them and motioned them over to sit around the table which I had set up. Once I had them seated, I began to talk to them in an attempt to find out their names and ages, so that I could get a sense of where they were academically.
To my dismay, despite my gentle questioning, all I got in reply were bowed heads and silence. I couldn’t get them to even look at me, let alone speak. It was a horrible feeling of inadequacy that overtook me. (I learned later that First Nations people consider it rude to look people straight in the eye, so they probably had negative opinions of me from that first introduction.)
Luckily, after a time, I gained the confidence of Ralph (photo) who I determined was at about at the third grade level. Ralph began to open up a bit. Soon, the others began to timidly join the conversation.
I got another surprise, when I urged Ralph to recite the alphabet for me.
He confidently began:
“A,B,C,D,E,F,G…”
“That’s great, Ralph, go on.”
“H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,
I was beaming. “Keep going Ralph”
“Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,”
“Great, finish up,” I encouraged, and nodding my head to indicate that he was doing great.
“X, Y, ZED.”
“ZED?”, My head jerked back in surprise, I had never heard of “ZED”, “What’s ‘ZED?, I asked, Do you mean “ZEE”.
“No,” Ralph replied confidently, and all his siblings confirmed and chimed in, “ZED!!!”
This first lesson in the school was a lesson for me. I had just discovered that Canadian English and American English were not the same. Canadians didn’t have a “ZEE” at the end of their alphabet, they, like Ralph said, had “ZED”.
The rest of that first school day was spent having the kids drawing some pictures, after I scrambled around and found some paper, some pencils, and crayons, which my wife and I had fortunately brought with us when we crossed the border.
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