Mike Aporius

ALT Residential and day school survivor Charlie Bittern poses for a photo at the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg at the residential schools display on September 23, 2022. He entered the day school system in Berens River, Manitoba, at 7 years old where he was not allowed to speak his language of Saulteaux. When he was 10, his day school teacher hit him on the right side of his temple with a yardstick because he was late coming back to school from lunch and he took out the wrong textbook during the lesson. Bittern now takes medication daily to help him with his weak eye which was caused during the hit. He spent eight years at day school during his elementary years and four years in residential school during high school. In 1967, Bittern, then 19, was forced to run 80 kilometres through a November snowstorm by the principal of his residential school from Bagot, Manitoba, to Brandon, Manitoba. He still has scars on his right leg from a station wagon driving into him when he dodged snow drifts.