I Called The Wilderness Mother Wild

Norman Gabriel

Norman Gabriel is of Micmac Indian descent. He had a difficult time as a little boy. Now in his late eighties, he pauses and speaks in a hushed, hurt voice when he remembers the racial prejudice he lived with in Stephenville, Newfoundland.

MY FATHER, Alphonsus Gabriel, died young. I was five years old. I think he did a bit of fishing and a bit of farming. I was born in January, 1910, or 1911. My mother's family was from here. My mother was a March. Her grandmother was a Micmac, with the last name of White.

Because we were Indians, I was treated like the plague. When they'd talk about poor Dad, they would spit and say "Indian!" like it was a dirty word. Nobody wanted any part of me. I had no friend that would help me in any way.

I had a teacher up there I'll never forget. I was singled out by the teachers. They had a stick to hold up the windows. That's what they used to crack us on the knuckles.

Some of the boys used to pick on me and I used to fight back at them. I had no choice, I was all alone.

To people in those days, I was always Indian. As I got older, people respected me, and talked to me. The feeling of being alone and ashamed was not as bad.

An old man, Henry White, took me under his wing and taught me the ways of the world. He was fifty years old when he started trapping, in the woods. Trapping and hunting for big game, in the winter. Henry White treated me like a son. God rest that man. I hope he went up to Heaven, because he went for the underdog like I do today. He saved my life.