Indigenous Grads of RRU: Corinne Lewis-Coutre

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Alison Tedford

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Alumni Indigenous

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Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management Humanitarian Studies

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RRU grad Corrine Lewis-Coutre in a softly glowing bedroom with her mom, who is sitting on a bed with photos beside her. Text reads: "My Indigenous cultural path has been like a beacon to me during my educational journey."
Corinne Lewis-Coutre as a young child. Her pink hoody matches a soft pink background. She is smiling and has cute short hair.

Indigenous Grads of RRU is a new series introducing you to recent Indigenous grads through their own storytelling.

The first storyteller is Corinne Lewis-Coutre from Beaver Lake Cree Nation who holds a Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management and will soon begin teaching in the Justice Program at Edmonton’s NorQuest College

The cabin where Corrine Lewis-Couture grew up. It's rustic and in among the trees.

“My mom was a residential school survivor. She was taken from her family when she was five years old. Years earlier, her older sister came home from residential school very sick from TB [tuberculosis]. She was basically sent home to die.

“My mom experienced a lot of trauma being taken from her family at such a young age, having her braids chopped off. Her first two weeks, she was getting beaten all the time for speaking her (Cree) language.

The residential school Corinne Lewis-Couture's mother attended. You can just see the building to the right. In front, the structure of a teepee is a shadow against a soft sunset.

“She remembers a four-year-old girl that came to school with her who was an orphan. Everybody doted on this little girl and took care of her. One day that girl went missing. They never heard anything about what happened. She said, ‘I always wonder if she died at the school.’ This memory resurfaced with all the recent news.

“As for my mother, she spent the next three years in that school and when she was eight, she became deathly ill with TB. She almost died herself. My grandfather learned his daughter was very ill and almost dying when he came to visit.

Corrine Lewis-Coutre's family. Her grandfather is in the centre wearing a cowboy hat. The rest of the family is in a circle around him.

“He took her and told them, ‘You can jail me or do whatever you need to do. But I'm taking my daughter, I don't want to lose her to the school. I lost a daughter already. I'm not going to lose another one.’

“My mom had so, so much trauma from residential school that was passed on to her children. She struggled with addictions even through her marriage, so my dad was the only really stable kind of parent in our family.

Corrine Lewis-Couture as an adult leans against a tree. She is wearing a beautiful black dress with ribbons of colour around the bottom.

“He told us, ‘You need to get an education and that's one thing people cannot ever take away from you: your education.’ That’s how I'm the third in my family to get a master’s degree and my little sister's going back next fall to get hers too.

“My Indigenous cultural path has been like a beacon to me during my educational journey, and the Elders' teachings I’ve been blessed to receive have helped me so much along the way.”