E3: Sink or Swim

05/30/22 • 35 min

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Survivor Belvie Brebber tells us about her five years at Kuper Island Residential School, a time filled with fear, cruelty and sexual violence. Belvie makes it out alive, but her younger brother Richard Thomas does not. She describes a terrible phone call that shattered her family forever, and why she never believed the school's story that her beloved brother died by suicide. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551

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E2: Nights on the Boys’ Side

What was it like to be a student at one of the most notorious residential schools in Canada? Survivors James and Tony Charlie share their own account of recurring sexual abuse at the hands of their teachers, starting with a fateful trip to Montreal's Expo '67. Their stories speak to how abuse rotted all facets of school life — and how at Kuper Island, no child was spared. To find transcriptions for episodes of Kuper Island, please click here: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551

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E4: What happened to Richard?

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Richard Thomas was smart, kind and well-loved. He was having no problems in school and he wanted to go further in education. Then inexplicably, days before his graduation, he’s found dead in the Kuper Island school gym. His death was ruled a suicide — with no further questions as to why. We piece together a portrait of the teenager through his own writings, and find an old coroner’s report that raises more questions than answers about how Thomas died. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/kuper-island-transcripts-listen-1.6622551