They Called Me Number One by Bev Sellars

Author:Bev Sellars [Sellars, Bev]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction, residential schools, memoir, First Nations, aboriginal, West Coast, British Columbia, family, Canada
ISBN: 978-0-88922-742-2
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 2013-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

Me at thirteen years old, 1968

Chapter 9

Summer of ’67

The summer of 1967, when I was twelve years old, was the summer many things changed in my life. It was a happy summer because Gram and Xp’e7e let me stay in town for the Williams Lake Stampede, I went to Vancouver for the first time, and the law changed, which allowed us to go to school from home. But it was also a sad summer because Xp’e7e died.

Xp’e7e still seemed healthy enough at the beginning of the summer, when he and Gram and I took the Greyhound bus into town for the Williams Lake Stampede. People came from all over for our famous stampede. In 1967, it was still a fairly small rodeo where everyone could visit and enjoy the bronco-riding and calf-tying competitions. The stampede takes place on the Canada Day weekend in early July, so each year, as soon as we got back from the Mission, our grandparents took us to the stampede. Native people from all over the Cariboo-Chilcotin and from the coast at Bella Coola, as well as tribes to the north and south, would make the trip either by horse and wagon or by car. First Nations would camp on the hills surrounding the rodeo grounds; White people would camp on the other side of the rodeo grounds. We camped with Gram and Xp’e7e at the stampede a few times. We would go by horse and wagon and pitch our tent with the rest of the Native people and take in the last two days. In what was to be Xp’e7e’s last summer, we took the Greyhound bus into town because Gram and Xp’e7e had decided not to camp. They went back home on the bus after the first day, and I was allowed to stay with my friends for the full three-day event, hanging around with a group of girls but mostly with my friend Nancy Archie, from Canim Lake. We had a great time on the amusement rides and visited the different Native camps in addition to watching the rodeo and everything else there was to see. When it started to get dark on my first day at the stampede, everyone headed for “Squaw” Hall, an open-air dance hall on the outskirts of town that originally had been built for Native people, who were not welcome at the White dance hall in town. Squaw Hall had walls, a stage for the band, and some bleachers to sit on. Hilary Place and his band, the Saddle-ites, played at Squaw Hall, and some Whites came to Squaw Hall because it was so much fun. Squaw Hall was the place to be during the stampede. Older Native people remember the good times they had when it was just the Native people attending the dances there. By 1967, it was a drunken free-for-all and not a good place to be. A few years later, it was shut down because of all the injuries, fights, and other destructive behaviour that comes with excess alcohol.

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