Differing Visions: Administering Indian Residential Schooling in Prince Albert, 1867-1995

Kerry Abel is a professor of history at Carleton University. She is the author of Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History, co-editor of Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects, and co-editor of Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History.

This study was commissioned by the Prince Albert Grand Council as part
of a review of the operation of the Prince Albert Indian Student
Education Centre. Drawing upon archival research, the author traces the
history of school facilities at Prince Albert from the first
Presbyterian mission in 1886 to the present.

Notwithstanding Dyck’s hints about the uniqueness of the Prince
Albert facility, in many ways the history seems fairly typical.
Missionaries established the first school, and control passed from
church to government and then finally to aboriginal teachers and
administrators. There were ongoing disputes over funding and
regulations. Parsimonious budgets clearly hurt the children. Local
control has brought some successes, but problems of underfunding and
policy conflicts with Ottawa continue. The persistent attempts by
aboriginal parents to gain some control over the institution reflect
stories now being told by other researchers.

Differing Visions does not provide much analysis, other than to
conclude that “the bureaucratic mindset” of federal Indian
administrators is a consistent and longstanding problem. It would have
been interesting to hear what lessons the author believes can be drawn
from the past about dealing with the federal bureaucracy. Given that
Dyck teaches in a department of sociology/anthropology, it is somewhat
surprising that he used so little oral history as source material.
Nevertheless, he has made good use of the archival record in what is a
generally interesting local case study.