Charlie Bittern poses for a photo at the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg September 23, 2023.
I am thrilled to announce my News Photographers Association of Canada National Pictures of the Year wins for Photo of the Year and Portrait of the Year.
My greatest thanks to Charlie for his generosity in sharing his story with me and for helping Canadians have a better understanding of just how devastating it was to attend residential and day school. Without you, this portrait could not have happened.
I am also grateful to my editor at the Winnipeg Free Press, Mike Aporius, for the photo assignment and for encouraging me to call Charlie so that I could add detail to the cutline and fully share the horrors of being a residential and day school survivor to hold the Canadian government to account. I am proud to be in a newsroom that prioritizes Indigenous stories and pushes for justice.
Finally I would like to thank my good friends and fellow photojournalists at the paper Mike Deal and Mikaela Mackenzie. Working in Winnipeg has not always been easy. I value our friendships and the support you have given me over the past two years.
Congrats to all of the other winners and nominees!
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Residential and day school survivor Charlie Bittern poses for a photo at the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg at the residential schools display on September 23, 2022. He entered the day school system in Berens River, Manitoba, at 7 years old where he was not allowed to speak his language of Saulteaux. When he was 10, his day school teacher hit him on the right side of his temple with a yardstick because he was late coming back to school from lunch and he took out the wrong textbook during the lesson. Bittern now takes medication daily to help him with his weak eye which was caused during the hit. He spent eight years at day school during his elementary years and four years in residential school during high school. In 1967, Bittern, then 19, was forced to run 80 kilometres through a November snowstorm by the principal of his residential school from Bagot, Manitoba, to Brandon, Manitoba. He still has scars on his right leg from a station wagon driving into him when he dodged snow drifts during that run. “No matter what the government has done to us through the residential school system, we will never die out,” he says.