FNUC is the only accredited Canadian Aboriginal University that administers undergraduate and graduate degrees – to predominately Native American Indians.

I am feeling this sense of loss because I am an alumnus. I graduated from the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in 1988, FNUC’s predecessor. SIFC was still a very young college when I arrived there in the winter of 1984. It was established in 1976 through a federated partnership with the University of Regina.

A part of me was aware of the baby steps that we students were making attending SIFC. We didn’t have the million dollar facility that currently houses FNUC. In our day, we had to make do. We held our classes in small rooms, in old basements, any space left over by the University of Regina and parts of its older campus.

I believe all the students at SIFC did it with pride and class…because we had no choice.

I won’t get into the blame game currently going on about what caused FNUC’s demise, about who did what or who didn’t do this or that. I’m sure this dialogue will continue ad infinitum over the next few years. I’ll leave that to the pundits.

However, I will speak about my memories when I attended SIFC that are a huge part of my make up, my being. My time there is a huge part of who I am today. It’s the friends I made there. It was the environment we created. It was the professors who taught me to see the bigger picture. And it was in those small class rooms that I was taught about who I was, where I came from. I remember how it used to send chills down my back….All that history, music, art, the stories.

We were being taught entire peoples’ histories, of cultures not only our own, but others across Canada, the United States, Central America, and around the world. We were being told truths, from our own people. Most of the professors were Native American.

I knew the uniqueness of it, the newness of everything. I remember in high school we did a few measly classes on Native American history, usually around Thanksgiving. I almost felt like I should be ashamed. But at SIFC, it was like learning about something almost foreign and I was inspired.

I took SIFC Cree language classes – as an elective. I knew our grandmothers and grandfathers were punished for speaking their native languages when they were forced into boarding schools. I knew the SIFC instructor of our Cree linguistics classes. He was a family friend. And I also knew he attended the residential school near my hometown.

The peace chief wasn’t protesting treaties; he just wanted the best treaty. It was about equal rights for his people, against discrimination and about human rights.

It was in those treaties that education was included as a provision for all Native Americans that were negotiated by our chiefs and leaders. They were making the ultimate sacrifice under extreme conditions. They were facing genocide, yet they still negotiated this for their children and their children’s children.

Then there were our gatherings…every Thursday night, sometimes Fridays, we would gather. We met at the student union building, the heart of the campus. We felt like we belonged to something bigger. And we were eager to make it fun.

I was a kid off the reservation when I arrived. This was my first experience in an urban environment. Many of us were in the same canoe. A lot of us came from remote isolated reservations from across Canada. This was all new to us. But that’s what made it great. We were all in this together.

It was one for all and all for one. We carried this college spirit to the extreme. One night a few of us from SIFC took on a city street gang. I remember as we were leaving an off campus space after a student mixer,  finding myself with a hockey stick in my hands, in a dark, back alley, armed and standing my ground. We were empowered by our college experience; we looked out for one another.

My fondest college drinking memory involved a dirt baseball field on a hot Sunday afternoon, a lot of gopher holes, and a softball. Everyone on the field was pretty much inebriated. There was our friend, playing way in left field, who was willing himself not to spill his drink while running for a long fly ball. I remember how he looked so serene lying there on the ground, the ball in his glove and a huge silly grin on his face.

I passed the same friend the following week in the hallways as we made our way to class. He had a big welt on his forehead. We had fun but I felt most of us were serious about why we were there. It was all about learning.

When I moved off campus I remember the daily transit bus rides along Wescana Parkway as it wound its way to campus. I remember the geese who always took their time crossing the road while we waited. I remember the times I spent waiting for that darned bus… it was always late. It was either too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. I remember how in the winter, standing at a bus stop, the Saskatchewan prairie wind would freeze my face off.

And I’ll forever remember the Greyhound bus rides during my breaks, back and forth between my northern hometown and Regina. Blistering thunderstorms, white-out blizzard conditions, were the common. I never thought about it at the time. It was just something I did.

But I remember how I looked forward to our mother’s home cooking. I would picture the bannock, smothered in butter or jam, the moose meat, duck soup; and at holidays, the huge turkey, with all the fixings and especially, the deserts.

The day I wore my baby blue graduation commencement gown and cap I saw my University of Regina biology professor with her family, she was receiving her Master’s degree. She saw me and I saw her. We were people from two different nations. She used to encourage me and my studies and made small comments on my papers for me. We saw one another; we nodded our heads at one another, waved and smiled.

Now I feel pain. 

I will forever be indebted to my professors, for teaching me everything they knew. To the students that were there, I still remember your faces. I probably won’t remember all your names but I will remember the times we had together. I will remember the talks I had with the elders on campus who served as our surrogate mothers and fathers. They understood that we were so far from our homes. Thank you to each and every one of you. I know many are now in the spirit world and I continue to thank you.

Today, I said a prayer, burned my medicines and thanked the Creator for my education. I have come so far. I prayed for the Seventh Generation. May each and every one of you find your own truths. And may our grandmothers and grandfathers forgive us this day.