Alvin Dixon on Residential School and Nutritional Experiments

Summary: Alvin Dixon remembered being so hungry as a child that he had to steal food. Mr. Dixon was a survivor of the residential school system, and a victim of a government-run malnutrition experiment. He died on July 20 at the age of 77. In his first year at a B.C. residential school, Alvin Dixon said he remembered finding it strange that he had to fill out a spreadsheet detailing his daily meals. Last year, food historian Ian Mosby published research revealing that Mr Dixon's experience as a child was part of a government-run nutrition experiment in residential schools. The experiments involved at least 1,300 Aboriginal people, most of them children. That it took so long for the experiments to come to light symbolized the wider Canadian public's attitude, Mr. Dixon said.