Stephen Kakfwi says one of his proudest accomplishments has been overcoming the inability to feel any emotions after leaving residential school.
“I felt she was like my prism,” he said. “She brought out all the colours of the world more than anybody I knew. She enjoyed things that I thought were just mundane.” Born in 1950 in a bush camp near Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., Kakfwi was sent to residential school at a young age, where he said he was sexually and physically abused. He went on to become an activist, politician and musician, serving as president of the Dene Nation from 1983 to 1987 before he was elected to the territorial legislature where he served in cabinet for 16 years, including as premier from 2000 to 2003.
“When I finished my political career in December of 2003, you know I walked out of the legislature … I felt nothing,” he added. “It was as if I had walked out of a warehouse.” While that has been painful, Kakfwi said he wanted to respond to Canadians who question why Indigenous people don’t “get over” residential school. He said talking about what happened also helps.
He received an Aboriginal Achievement Award for Public Service in 1997 and a Governor General’s Northern Medal in 2012.
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