Last Saturday In Canyon City the Salvation Army hosted a cleansing feast for the victims of William Gareth

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‘Douglas as a formal apology for the damage caused by the former Salvation Army captain. The feast, a Nisga’a

traditional ceremony, was attended by Nisga’a heredita
the Douglas victims, and more than 200 witnesses.

ry chiefs and elders, four officers of the Salvation Army,

Cleansing feast mum continued from page 4

_and their families.

After the benediction pro-
nounced by Salvation Army Ma-
jor Easton, a meal of stew, ro
and fresh fruit was served. At its
conclusion Canyon City resi-
dents Chester Moore and Roy
Azak explained the purpose of
the feast, and’ the ceremony
began in earnest. It lasted for
eight hours, an indication of the
dimension of the crimes it. was
intended to indemnify.

Nisga’a tradition has it that
their people occupied the Nass
Valley ‘‘before the light began’,
with stories that go back into the
far reaches of history concerning
semi-darkness and darkness.

The Salvation Army arrived in

1927, and their Christian
-preachings were well received by
a people who held beliefs evolv-
ed over centuries of a creator
and sustainer Great Spirit, a
messenger deity, and an adver-
sary. The Salvation Army has
been an. integral part of. com-
munity life in Canyon City since
then.

That all changed, however,
- three years ago when a young
man filed information with the
New Aiyansh RCMP detach-
ment stating that he had been
repeatedly molested as a boy by
Salvation Army Captain Wil-
liam Gareth Douglas .while at-
tending the one-room school
operated by Douglas and his
wife. As the RCMP investiga-
tion progressed and the trial
began, 18 others came forward
to testify that they, too, had
been victimized by Douglas dur-
ing the same period,

Of the 19, all were present at
the feast except one who had
moved away from the village,
and three others — who commit-
ted suicide in the intervening
years.

The atmosphere was solemn
in the hall as the proceeding
_ began with the issue of a formal
apology by the Salvation Army’s
Col. Catvert, the organization’s
director of personnel for all of

Canada who had flown in from
Toronto for the occasion,

Calvert condemned the acts of
the former officer, saying they
violated the reasons for the
Salvation Army’s existence, and
praised the feast system. ‘‘By
this feast, we want those af-

fected to be purified and
restored,”’ he said. “It is a
creative alternative to fruitless
revenge. We host this feast to do
all we can to heal,’’ Then, for
the following six hours, the vic-
tims and their relatives and the
thiefs of their clans.and houses

came forward to say whether .

they would — or would not —
accept the apology.

Many of the young men
poured out a torrent of bitter-
ness at the church represen-
tatives, while others stood at a
loss for words after so many
years of virtual silence, That
silence, some said, was a result
of the nearly unassailable posi-
tion of respect in which the
church was held by the com-
munity. .

Despite the anger, however, it
became apparent that most had
over the years come to a recon-
ciliation with the church by
making a distinction between
Douglas as an individual and the |
uniform he wore; others said

‘they had come to see Douglas as
a man apart from the sickness .

that had possessed him.
All concluded by accepting

the apology, with two excep- |

tions, One of those said he was
unconvinced that the Salvation
Army hadn’t known Douglas
was a sick man before he was
posted to Canyon City; the se-
cond was the mother of a victim
who had committed suicide —
she said she would accept the
apology on her own behalf, but
could not do so on behalf of her
son,

As the men spoke, awfu
ironies emerged. One testified,
that Douglas ‘‘took away my
dignity and my dream’’. His
dream as a boy had been to
become an officer of the Salva-
tion Army, Another pointed out
that he was a descendent of the
people who had originally
established the Salvation Army
in Canyon City.

A third said that as a young
man he came across Douglas in
the bush while hunting. Raising
his arms to point an imaginary
rifle at the wall, he said, “I
could have killed him right there
— but I didn’t.”’

Another described the daily
torment he experienced after
getting a job in the community
that required him to work in the
same building where the crimes
had been committed. He became

- Terrace Review — Wednesday, April27, 1988 19

'| Protest filed over

disclosure policy

The British Columbia Nurses’
Union (BCNU) recently an-
hounced it has protested a
Workers’ Compensation Board
pelicy change allowing
employers full access to
workers’ files,

Formerly employers were pro-
vided with only the information
necessary to dispute a specific
claim or appeal. Since the policy
change in October, the B.C.
Government Employees’ Union
(BCGEU) has publicized one
case in which confidential infor-
mation was passed by an
employer to a worker’s private
insurance carrier.

Judy Kirk, spokesperson for
the WCB, said such abuse of in-
formation was highly inappro-
priate, and that employers are
informed when they receive the

frightened of sudden noises, and
he said that sometimes in the
evening darkness at the end of
the workday he imagined he saw
Douglas’s face in the shadows.
The building is a single-story
frame structure built by the
Department of Indian Affairs as
an administration center. It is
painted white with blue trim and
stands across the street from the
church, In an interview before
the feast, one of the victims said
the only thing that kept him
from insanity was the strength
of the Nisga’a traditional ways
and beliefs: He pointed out the

building and described the op-

pression. of having to look at it
every day while he lived in Can-
yon City. ; ;

‘*That place should be
destroyed,’’ he said mildly. A-
momentary look in his eyes said
he would like to raze the build-.
ing with his bare hands and burn
the ground beneath it. He turned
away toward the river, saying
softly, ‘‘Too many. evil
memories,’’

The chiefs, speaking in both
Nisga’a and English, were’
united in praising the courage of
the men who came forward with
their stories, and each of them
exhorted the victims to rebuild
their links with the church and
renew their lives by leaving the
bitterness behind them. A Can-
yon City village chief, in a voice -
shaking with emotion, said he
had been unable to sleep at night
because he feared the young men
would desert the village. ‘‘Fight
back,”’ he said. ‘Don’t let this
destroy your lives.’”?>

Eagle Clan chief and tribal
council president James Gosnell
said he accepted the Salvation
Army apology because ‘‘you
have taken the Nisga’a way’’.
Addressing the victims, he said,
“I feel strong because I know
you are the people who will
carry on our tradition in this
valley. I honor you.”

Another theme that per-
meated the testimonies was the
need for parents to be attentive
to the messages of their children.

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One chief stated, ‘‘This tells us
as parents to listen, our children
are there. Our children are the
future, they have messages.”’
The concluding speakers also
stressed that at the end of the
feast, the matter would be form-
ally ended and no further griev-
ances could be heard. ‘‘It will be
ended, it will be behind you, you
will begin anew,”’ said one chief.
On the eastern edge of the
village, next to the river and
flanked on one side by an
ancient graveyard, stands the
newly-built Salvation Army
chapel. It appears that Lt. Brad
Bent, the officer for Canyon
City, will have a committed con-
gregation to lead in worship
when the. church is’ formally

opened on the first weekend in

May.

In this manner a long and ter-
rible episode in the history of.
this village came to an end, and-

in fact has become a monument ;

to the strength and unity of the
Nisga’a people and their com-
mitment to the church they have
adopted.

{In court.

In Terrace provincial court on
Monday, April 11 Lester Dennis
was fined $20 for creating a
distrubance by being drunk in a
public place.

file that it is to be used for pur-
poses of the appeal only. |

BCNU fears there is no
effective way employees can
protect their right to privacy
without affecting their right to
receive benefits. Paul Petrie,
BCGEU’s. Compensation Ap-
peals Representative, said this
puts workers into a ‘‘Catch-22
situation. The worker must pro-
vide information as requested by
the Workers’ Compensation
Board.’’ However, he said that
any ‘‘prejudicial or irrelevant”?
information in the file -was not
likely to come from the worker,
but be included from other
sources that the worker has no
control over.

Kirk said the change in policy
was made in the interests of
fairplay: while workers had full
access to the file, employers had
only limited access. But Petrie
said the interests of the injured
worker are far greater than that
of the employer. While for the
worker the effects include a
possible life-long disability and
negative effects on livlihood and
family, the possibility of increas-
ed collective liability for the
employer is more indirect. ‘If
we still had the court system
where an employer would have
to pay out large sums in lawsuits
brought by injured workers, to
the extent that the employer
went out of business and lost his
livelihood, their positions would |
be equal.’’

Kirk said that WCB claims af-
fect the employer both indirect-
ly, through an industrial sub-
class rating and directly,
through an individual firm’s
claims experience. ‘“‘This is
recognized throughout North
America as a good system to
give employers the incentive to
operate safer worksites.’’ Petrie

‘would like to see a. system that

encourages. the prevention of
hazards that cause injury, rather.
than an incentive system that en-
courages safety only after an in-
jury has occurred.

Business and union leaders
will have the opportunity to
discuss these and other issues, as
Labor Minister Lyall Hanson ~
announced April 15 the appoint-
ment of 13 panel members who
will recommend improvements
to the WCB. They begin meeting
later this’ month, and their
report is expected August 31. +

Everything You Wanted to Know about

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May 6 -

7, 1988

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