Residential school survivor displays hundreds of toy trucks to heal lost childhood
As he walks forward along the river, Gib thinks back on his childhood dream.
“I wish I was a truck driver,” he says before moving his hand like he’s holding a pencil. “I used to sketch trucks. Free hand. By myself.”
Gib started drawing them when he was about six, when he began attending the Kuper Island residential school. His wife Loretta says they weren’t allowed toy trucks there.
“He was putting [his truck drawings] on his wall,” Loretta says. “Because he couldn’t play with them, him and the other students.”
The truck pictures were Gib’s gifts to the other kids in lieu of the real thing until he found, during his decade at the residential school, that he’d lost the ability to draw altogether.
“I tried so hard to bring it back,” Gib says. “But the abuse, they really pushed it away.”
Gib says he hasn’t drawn since.
Instead, he’s focused on creating a family with Loretta. They’ve been married 46 years and Gib ensured that their six children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren had countless toy trucks to play with.
“[The trucks] just start overflowing in the house,” Loretta laughs. “And I said [to Gib], ‘You’re going to have to do something!’”
“Hey! I got an idea!” Gib recalls thinking. “So I start building this fence.”
A small fence that, over the past 14 years, has expanded to hold a big collection. The three-level structure, where Allenby Road crosses the Cowichan River, features hundreds of toy vehicles of various sizes.
“It’s my hobby,” Gib says. “It’s my lost childhood.”
It’s also an opportunity to turn toys that he and Loretta buy at thrift stores and garage sales into gifts for those who ask. To give what Gib never got.
“It just makes him feel better to do this,” Loretta says, starting to cry. “I just love him so much and I know what he’s been through.”
She also knows that more than a place to store his toy trucks, Gib’s display has become a space to honour too many others’ unfulfilled dreams.
Gib says he thinks of the individual kids he went to school with a displays a specific vehicle for every one. There’s a tractor for the boy who wanted to be a farmer, a fire truck for the one who hoped to be a firefighter.
“Everything I put there was… to help them,” Gib says. “[Each truck], that’s a child.”
And the boy who once drew trucks to inspire hope is now the man who displays them to provide healing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
'It was joy': Trapped B.C. orca calf eats seal meat, putting rescue on hold
A rescue operation for an orca calf trapped in a remote tidal lagoon off Vancouver Island has been put on hold after it started eating seal meat thrown in the water for what is believed to be the first time.
Man sets self on fire outside New York court where Trump trial underway
A man set himself on fire on Friday outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump's historic hush-money trial was taking place as jury selection wrapped up, but officials said he did not appear to have been targeting Trump.
Sask. father found guilty of withholding daughter to prevent her from getting COVID-19 vaccine
Michael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.
Mandisa, Grammy award-winning 'American Idol' alum, dead at 47
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
She set out to find a husband in a year. Then she matched with a guy on a dating app on the other side of the world
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
B.C. judge orders shared dog custody for exes who both 'clearly love Stella'
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a B.C. judge has awarded a former couple joint custody of their dog.
Saskatoon police to search landfill for remains of woman missing since 2020
Saskatoon police say they will begin searching the city’s landfill for the remains of Mackenzie Lee Trottier, who has been missing for more than three years.
Shivering for health: The myths and truths of ice baths explained
In a climate of social media-endorsed wellness rituals, plunging into cold water has promised to aid muscle recovery, enhance mental health and support immune system function. But the evidence of such benefits sits on thin ice, according to researchers.