Plot

Lyna and Glen, indigenous Canadian children, experience years of mistreatment at a residential school, depicting a harsh reality faced by many in the past.

For over 130 years till 1996, more than 100,000 of Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend government-funded schools run by various Christian faiths. There were 80 of these 'residential schools' across the country. Most children were sent to faraway schools that separated them from their families and traditional land. These children endured brutality, physical hardship, mental degradation, and the complete erasure of their culture. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the native population into 'Canadian society.' These schools were established with the express purpose 'To kill the Indian in the child.' Told through their own voices, 'We Were Children' is the shocking true story of two such children: Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart.—EV Staff

This documentary film takes a look at residential schools, a series of controversial institutions established in Canada and operating until 1996, which took Native American children away from their families to be stripped of their cultural identity and the effect it had across the generations.—Tom Daly

Within Canada's history up until the end of the twentieth century, it was government policy for indigenous children to attend boarding aka residential schools run by various denominations of the Christian faith. The policy was designed to assimilate indigenous children into western culture purportedly to give them the opportunity for a better future, the inherent assumption being that western society was superior and what may have been said behind closed door of those in authority that the indigenous peoples were dirty (in all contexts of that word) savages, their culture which should be wiped off the face of the earth. Some indigenous parents welcomed the move in believing the inherent assumption, especially that the children would be getting an education, but in cases where parents did not want to send their children, the children were forcibly taken. Many if not most of the children ended up facing abuse at the hands of the people in authority at the schools, both emotional and physical, the latter including sexual. Many children ended up dying while in "custody" sometimes due to the poor conditions at the schools (i.e. in the spread of such diseases as tuberculosis), they being buried in unmarked graves on site with their parents and/or other family never knowing what happened to them. Because of that abuse, many of the children grew into adults with substance abuses as means to cope, while others committed suicide. Two of the residential school "survivors", Lyna Hart and Glen Anaquod, who attended schools in Manitoba and Saskatchewan respectively in the late 1950s and early 1960s - the height of the policy in what is often coined the residential school "sweep" - recount their residential school experiences as those experiences are concurrently dramatized.—Huggo

Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart narrate this story of the indoctrination of Indian children in Canada in order to force them to acclimate into an American society.

The story begins in the 50"s with Lyna's mother preparing her for the long trip to a Christian boarding school far away, Some parents sent their children willingly, others were forced. A man arrives at Lyna's home and takes her to the boarding school. The mother and Grandfather grieve at this. Lyna appears to be only 3 years old or so. When she arrives, the Sisters make her undress and take a shower then apply bug powder to her hair which must stay wrapped with a bandanna and left on for 24 hours. The children are assigned a number and no names are used. All of the girls have similar haircut.

There are 120 beds at the school with children of various ages. The children are forced to go to church every Sunday and say prayers several times a day. Some speak English, but Lyna and some others do not. If you don't learn to speak English, you are punished in various ways. In an early scene, a young boy purposely defies one of the nuns and speaks in his native language. After several attempts, the nun slaps the boys hands with a ruler several times. Eventually he says they comply.

Glen is led to believe he is going home to visit his family for a week. While the priest is letting the truck warm up, he takes Glen into the priest House where the Priest stay. The priest asks Glen if he likes secrets. The priest opens a trap door in the floor and encourages Glen to go down with the priest to see what is down there. At first Glen says no but then he goes. After they walk through some tunnels, the priest opens doors to another room and invites Glen to look in. At that moment, the priest shoves Glen into the small room, closes and locks the door. Glen ponds on the door and walls, begging to be let out but no one hears him except the priest. The priest goes outside to turn off the engine of the truck and takes the boy's suitcase back into the house. Glen cries in the dark and loneliness, wondering what he did wrong to deserve this.

One of the older children shows Lyna a picture of purgatory and heaven. The girl says the people in purgatory are our ancestors and dirty. Lyna wants to go there to be with her people.

Lyna was chubby when she went to the boarding school but began quickly losing weight., The children were fed porridge and dry milk. Lyna's body did not tolerate this type of food as she was accustomed to eating all natural food. Lyna passes out in class and she is taken to the infirmary where they attempted to force feed her but she was unable to eat their food. One night when the nurse was not there, Lyna hears crying down the hall. She gets up to see why, and discovers a priest having anal sex with one of the young boys.

Meanwhile, two priests goes to the crawlspace where Glen is locked up and checks on him. He then re-locks the door and opens another door with a girl crouched down who appears to be around 12 or 13 years old. Both priests go in and the girl begins crying.

In the next scene, the nurse is again attempting to get Lyna to eat. The child refuses but attempts to tell the nurse what she saw the previous night. Since she is not speaking in English, the nurse cannot understand that she is telling her a boy was molested by a priest. Lyna then speaks in English what she saw which upsets the nurse who throws the porridge at Lyna. That night, a priest comes in, covers Lyna's mouth and molests her. Throughout her ordeal, she uses fond memories of home and horses that she calls her special place, to mask the pain she had to endure. Most of the children experienced the same sexual abuse. The priest later dies.

A nurse finds Glen after a week and a 1/2 and frees him but the 2 priests catch her before they can flee. The sister screams at them and then tries to free the girl who was also being held captive. But when she opens the door, the girl is gone. The sister then gives Glen a bath and consoles him. At Christmas the sister was sent away because she was attempting to help the children. The priest who locked up Gen is sent away, but to another school.

Five years later, two of the boys escape from the schoolyard while chasing a ball. The nearest town is 30 miles away. A priest teaching class inquires where the two boys are but no one will tell him. The boys are shown running through a cornfield. They stay off the main roads so they could not be captured. They make it to an Aunt's house who calls the school and sends a priest to take the boys back. At the school, a priest forces those two and two more to get spanked. But the boys gang up on the priest, and knock him down. The priest leaves the room and locks the boys in. Later, three priests return and beat the boys so badly, they have to be in the infirmary for a week.

In 1965, some years later, a new child arrives at the school. She cries at night and Lyna comforts her. Everyone had chores. Lyna was responsible for bringing the food to the table of the priests and nuns which consisted of fresh fruit and pastries, much better than what the children were given. Lyna works in the kitchen and begins sneaking food from the kitchen for the other children. The nun assigned to watching them at night catches them all eating apples and then makes them get out of bed to go downstairs. But to their surprise, the nun gets bread, peanut butter and cocoa out for them.

The children are allowed to go home when they have finished school, at around the age of 18. Lyna is driven home and dropped off. Alot of the children ended up committing suicide. Glen was an orphan so he has no family. Glen began drinking heavily and went up to the mountains with a rifle to kill himself. But he changed his mind so he could be there for his kids.

In the late 1850's, Canada began legally forcing over 150,000 Aboriginal children to attend Indian residential schools in Canada. In 2008, then Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, publicly apologized for the treatment of these children at these schools. He went on to say the purpose was to "kill the Indian in the child" due to the perception that their culture and ancestry was inferior. In 1950, there were over 80 of these schools. Today, there are over 80,000 residential school survivors.