Born in Fort Qu’Appelle in the late 1940’s, Clayton Paul Episkenew lived in a mud shack built by his father, who was very proud to have built a home for his family. When Clayton was six years old, an Indian Agent told his father that he must send his children to the residential school. Despite his father’s initial refusal, Clayton was sent to the residential school in Lebret. In the three years that Clayton was forced to stay at the residential school, he learned only how to hate and how to be afraid of people. When he was 15 years old he started drinking and he drank for 27 years. Alcohol caused him to do things which kept him in and out of jail.
By 1986, he had joined an AA program and quit drinking. He began to accept authority and the people he worked with when he learned that he was needed. Knowing this made him comfortable to disclose his experience at residential schools and allowed him to hold his job at the City of Regina for 33 years. Since retiring, he works at the Regina Correctional Centre and makes a difference by talking with inmates, giving them advice, and sharing relatable stories from his own experiences. He uses traditional values like the pipe and smudge – he makes his own tobacco and knows how to pick a few medicines.
