It is a tale of two worlds – the white and the aboriginal – and a young woman who lived in both, but didn’t feel a part of either.
This was the life of Carol Daniels, a Cree woman from Sandy Bay who was adopted into a white home at birth. It is also the theme of her first novel, a work of fiction, called “Bearskin Diary.”
“I was still so ashamed of the colour of my skin, because I had been taught to be ashamed,” she said.
That is Carol’s recollection as a teenager. When she was four or five years old, she remembers sitting in a bathtub with a harsh scrub brush, trying to scrub the brown off her skin because she wanted to be like the other girls, not an Indian. She scrubbed until she bled.
In her book, which is loosely based on things she has experienced or witnessed in her life, she weaves a story about a young aboriginal television reporters who overcomes racism, loss of identity and struggles to find out who she really is. Like Carol, the book’s main character, Sandy, was adopted into a white home at birth, never knowing her real family.
“And so we need to talk about these things and we need to say,’ yeah it shouldn’t have happened and it’s not going to happen again,’” she said. “The other thing is that not everyone comes back, not everyone who was taken out comes back.”
The “60s Scoop” happened to thousands of aboriginal babies. In the book, Sandy eventually reunites with her family as Carol did. The main character in the book has some pretty wild adventures, puts her life at risk and uncovers corruption on a police force. The story is eerily similar to what is being reported in Val d’Or QC where some officers are accused of taking aboriginal women out of town and sexually abusing them.
“It made me sick, it really did, I was so sad, she says. “It is so insidious that something I had written, something so ugly, had actually come up in the news.”
Daniels worked in broadcasting for about 30 years. During that time she became the first aboriginal anchor for a national newscast, hosting the CBC’s Newsworld out of Calgary.
She is now an author, artist, performer and mother of three. Carol, her husband and three children live in Regina Beach, about 50 kilometers north of Regina.
The book is now available online or at Chapters and Coles.