This is Clayton Paul Episkenew, he was born in Fort Qu’Appelle 70 years ago. As far back as he can remember he lived in a mud shack built by his father, who was very proud to have built a home for his family. Some of his earliest memories are of his father coming home with a deer and skinning it in the house.

Eventually, Clayton’s parents had the prospect of sending him to school, but it did not turn out the way his parents – or he – thought it would. When he was six years old, an “Indian Agent” told his father that his children could not live in the mud shack he built because it was not a suitable place for children to live, and that he must send his children to residential school. Despite his father’s initial refusal, Clayton was sent to the residential school in Lebret.

At only six years old, a young Clayton was very lonesome for his parents when he was dropped off at residential school. He remembers the first thing that one of the teachers did to him as his parents were leaving was grab him by the hair and ear to pull him in the direction she was walking.

In the three years that Clayton was forced to stay at residential school he never learned anything, except for how to hate and how to be afraid of people, especially white people. After three years, he started going to day school until the eighth grade. However, it was much of the same authority that he did not like – the way the teachers told him what to do. They would give him the strap.

At ten years old, he tried wine for the first time, and at age 15 he really started drinking. For 27 years he drank until he was at a standstill. Alcohol caused him to do crazy things, he was in and out of jail, he could not think or express himself, and it destroyed his family.

In 1986, Clayton had met a woman that started to teach him a different way of living. In 1990, he changed for his family (three children in his first marriage) and went into the AA program and quit drinking. Since then he has held a job for 33 years with the City of Regina. The change in his mind was that he was needed at this job and they made it comfortable for him once he had disclosed his past at residential school.

He is dealing currently with the loss of his second wife, the biggest loss he has experienced in his life. His sobriety has caused him to experience sadness, but also many more emotions that he did not feel when he was drinking alcohol.

Since retiring from the City of Regina, he works at Regina Correctional Centre and talks with the inmates. He has surprised himself with his ability to talk to them and give them advice and relatable stories from this own experiences. He uses some traditional values such as the pipe and the smudge. He makes his own tobacco and knows how to pick a few medicines.

He believes that drinking for all those years did not change the part inside of him that is loving, caring, and understanding that he learned from his father as a child. This is demonstrated by the difference he makes to the inmates at the correctional centre.