Rene Meshake isn’t much for glitz and glamour in his performances.
That is why when the residential school survivor was asked to share songs and stories at the Guelph Museum on Orange Shirt Day, he had just one request.
Don’t provide a stage. Provide a living room type of feel to bring everyone together.
“I told her to give me a big sofa to sit down, a little table beside me and I’m asking the girls to bring their drums,” the Anishinaabe elder said ahead of his appearance Monday, Sept. 30.
“There will be some (performance aspect). While I’m playing the flute, I will ask the visitors to join me, come here, drum softly.”
It has a tinge of improvisation to it, says the Guelph resident, and helps the story come alive.
That story begins in the remote northwestern Ontario community of Nakina, about an hour drive north of Geraldton, where he was born in 1948.
Meshake’s parents were sent to the Indian Hospital Tuberculosis Sanitarium when he was three, and he lived with his grandmother, or his nookamis.
When he was 10, his grandmother passed away and he was taken to the McIntosh Indian Residential School in the Kenora area.
“They took all my clothes away, and I picked up this shirt that smelled like moth balls,” he said.
“The nuns used to have this rummage sale, and everything smelled like moth balls. And it was the same smell as I got from this shirt, then I saw the number 23. They took my name away, and I became number 23.”
Meshake spent seven years there, and through everything he dealt with, he never forgot the joy his grandmother displayed while sharing stories as a child.
“I had about four grandmothers at one time, and when they gathered, I was never listening but I knew they were telling stories, there was laughter, there (were) imitations,” Meshake said.
“My grandmother always sang a capella too, while she was making a blanket or knitting and weaving rabbit pelts to make a blanket.”
He also recalls his father’s influence, wanting him to get an education because he couldn’t read or write.
Meshake followed in his footsteps as a young adult, and spent time fighting forest fires in northern Ontario.
But he also got that education, getting degrees at Sheridan College and the Humber School for Writers. Meshake became a visual and performing artist, a storyteller and a flute player.
He is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work.
Meshake said Canada “missed an opportunity” when establishing residential schools all those years ago, messing things up by committing all the atrocities that happened.
“Right now, I think I’d be at McIntosh or at Fort Frances, same school, to teach the arts, music, storytelling, even on to work with AI and making videos, short videos, performances,” he said.
“We could’ve had an annual festival of our students graduating piano, rock bands, all kinds of things, like we have here.
The event, in honour of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, begins at 7 p.m. and will last about an hour. It is free to attend.
