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JASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT--For the past 10 days, Elizabeth Irkok has followed the same routine.
Each day, four times a day, she calls the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg to check on her daughter Georgina's condition.
Georgina is one of more than 30 small children from the Keewatin who have been medevaced to Winnipeg suffering from a respiratory virus that clogs their air passages and makes it hard for them to breathe.
Most of the children are from Arviat. One child, a baby boy, has died. As of Nunatsiaq News' press-time Wednesday, a baby girl was listed in critical condition.
Some parents followed children
Irkok is one of a handful of parents from Arviat who made the trip to Winnipeg with their sick children. But because Irkok has a bad cold, the doctors aren't allowing her to see her daughter.
So, instead she phones the hospital from the Ublivik Inuit Centre, where she and the other parents are staying.
"Morning, afternoon, evening and night time¬that's four times a day," she said Wednesday.
Despite the frequent updates, Irkok said not being able to see Georgina has been hard on her.
"I'm always worried about her, I keep trying not to worry about her, but she's my daughter and I really love her," she said.
But doctors have told Irkok that her daughter's condition is improving. When Georgina arrived in Winnipeg from the hospital in Churchill, Man. last week, she had to be placed in an oxygen tent. She's now out of the oxygen tent and is breathing with the help of an oxygen tube in her nose.
"I feel like she's going to get better and normal and I hope I'll be able to go home soon with her," Irkok said.
Going home
Going home may be one step closer for Jackie Otuk and her five-month-old son Bernard, who was discharged from the hospital Feb. 23.
"We're just making sure that he's completely clear and that his lungs are clear enough to go home," Otuk said Wednesday.
Otuk said she was able to visit her son in the hospital, and she'd hold him in her arms until he was settled for the night.
"I would go to the hospital in the morning and come back around 12 in the evening--midnight," she said. Although she described being able to see her son as "a relief," Otuk said it was difficult to see him hooked up to a breathing tube and an intravenous feeding tube.
Mothers help each other
During their time in Winnipeg, the five or six mothers staying at the Ublivik Centre have come to rely on each other, Otuk said.
"When we see a mother that's down, we go to each other and cheer each other up," she said.
Otuk said the mothers are grateful to people back in Arviat who have looked after their children and helped feed their families while they've been away.
"On behalf of the mothers here, I'd like to thank the people of Arviat for helping the families," Otuk said.
Virus run its course?
Meanwhile, things are slowly returning to normal in Arviat as the outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) appears to have run its course.
"Things seem to be settled in Arviat to some extent, we haven't had any new admissions for several days," Dr. Brian Postl of the Health Sciences Centre said Monday.
On Monday afternoon, Arviat's hamlet council lifted the state of emergency it had declared four days earlier.
During the state of emergency, the hamlet's schools, recreation complex and municipal offices were closed to prevent the virus from spreading. Although stores stayed open, bylaw officers prevented any children under the age of five from entering.
Although hamlet officials are still encouraging parents to keep young children at home, people have returned to work and the schools are open again, said the hamlet's senior administrative officer, Dennis Flynn.
"There's certainly a marked difference in the amount of people who are out in the community," Flynn said Monday.
Questions about Keewatin health care, housing
Aside from concern over the health of the infected children, the outbreak has raised questions about the quality of housing and health care in the Keewatin region--and across the north.
Although RSV is a common infection, it was able to spread quickly because of crowded living conditions in Arviat, conditions that are common in northern communities, Postl said.
"The virus would still be there with or without crowding," he said. "The fact is, the crowding really assists in its ease of spread--I don't think there's any question about that."
Anawak will lobby for housing
Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak said he will press the federal government to address the lack of housing in the North.
"I will certainly make a point of saying something in the House," Anawak said this week from Igloolik.
Anawak said he's told federal ministers that the NWT needs at least 3,700 new housing units
"I would hope that the government will see the need for haste to act in this particular case--but for all of the north."
Kevin O'Brien, who represents the territorial constituency of Kivallivik, agreed that housing is a problem across the north, and not just in Arviat.
"We're just part of the overall picture and I don't think that it's the major point in the whole situation here," he said from Arviat Monday.
Doctor for Arviat and Baker?
O'Brien said the crisis in Arviat demonstrates the need for a permanent, full-time doctor for the communities in his riding, and that he's going to bring the matter up with NWT Health Minister Kelvin Ng.
"We are going to be pursuing the option of a doctor for Arviat and Baker Lake. We think it's long overdue and this is only one situation that we're dealing with where it would have been nice to have a doctor here," he said.
Both O'Brien and the Arviat mothers in Winnipeg praised the work of Arviat's nursing station staff during the crisis.
With files from Todd Phillips in Igloolik
"RSV" stands for "respiratory syncitial virus." In its mild form, RSV looks appears much like a common cold, with a runny nose, sore throat and cough. In more extreme cases, the cough is more persistent, leading to wheezing and asthma-like symptoms.
In adults, RSV rarely progresses beyond this mild, cold-like form. But because infants and young children have smaller airways and less-developed lungs, the virus affects them more: the severe coughing, combined with congestion in the chest, makes breathing difficult and prevents the lungs from working properly.
If your child appears to have nothing more than a cold, treat them as such. If, however, the congestion moves into the chest, the child should be seen by a physician.
Because it's an airborne virus, RSV is spread mostly because of crowded living conditions.
However, the virus can also be spread by touch, so doctors encourage people to wash their hands frequently¬especially if they live in a household where some family members are infected and others are not.
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TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IGLOOLIK--Bishop Reynald Rouleau apologized this Tuesday to Inuit who were physically and sexually abused at the Jospeph Bernier School in Chesterfield Inlet between 1952 and 1969.
The bishop of the Churchill-Hudson's Bay diocese told about 70 former students gathered in Igloolik this week that he is "ashamed and outraged" at the conduct of people then working for the church.
"Tragically, others among you were sexually abused as children. By taking advantage of the trust that you and your families had given to the personnel of the school, the abusers perpetrated a profound violation against you, physically, emotionally and spiritually, but sexually as well," Rouleau said.
"I apologize with all my heart."
"As bishop of this diocese I am ashamed and outraged that this happened to you. I apologize with all my heart for the role that members of the church took in all that."
The apology was welcomed by many former students, some of whom had travelled from across the Arctic and from southern Canada to hear the bishop apologize.
Former students have been fighting since 1991 to raise awareness about the abuses they were subjected to at the Joseph Bernier Federal Day School.
Student applauds
"We applaud the church for taking this what we think is an important step in correcting the horrific crimes committed against the Inuit children," said Peter Ernerk, a former student who helped the bishop draft the apology.
"It takes courage to admit that what the church stands for, and what they actually did were two different things."
Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak, a former student who was sexually abused at the school, says the bishop's apology has helped to restore his faith in human nature.
"For us the apology is another step forward. Today we've move forward on taking back the ownership of our lives," Anawak said.
Anawak says as children, the Inuit students were subjected to "the worst thing that could possibly happen," and that they now have to move on with their lives.
Church may help pay for healing
Rouleau didn't offer students any financial compensation, but paid $30,000 to a group of students who helped organize the event. The bishop also brought 20 copies of a book on healing he gave out to students.
In an interview, Rouleau wouldn't say exactly how much the church was willing to spend to help compensate students, or help them pay for counselling services.
He did say, however, that the church may be able to offer $500,000 if the payments were spread out over eight to 10 years.
"I would not be able to give $500,000 right now, let's suppose. But if we spread it along a few years, I could go a little more," Rouleau said.
It was the second time Rouleau has apologized to Inuit students who were taken from their camps and settlements by RCMP and missionaries and forced to attend residential school.
Rouleau's first apology was in July 1993, after a week-long reunion of former students in Chesterfield Inlet. That apology was denounced by former students as inadequate and insincere.
Bishop praised
This time, however, students praised the bishop for his courage and sincerity.
At the close of the gathering, the bishop held hands with former students and sang an Inuktitut hymn with them. Later that night, the bishop also went to a community feast to watch young Inuit take part in drum dancing.
An 18-month RCMP investigation that ended in June 1995 found there was widespread physical and sexual abuse at the school.
But the RCMP didn't press charges because the worst offenders--two priests who would have faced 45 charges--were already dead.
Pierre Rousseau, the chief prosecutor for the Northwest Territories was also in Igloolik to clarify what he meant when he described some of the students' allegations of abuse as "minor in nature" at a Yellowknife news conference in June 1995.
Rousseau explained that he was referring only to four cases that were referred to his office by RCMP for a legal opinion.
"There is no doubt in our mind that what was disclosed by the former students of the Chesterfield Inlet school during the police investigation was a serious case of child abuse," Rousseau said.
One student described Rousseau's comments as the most important of the day.
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TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IGLOOLIK--When Bishop Reynald Rouleau landed in Igloolik this week to apologize for his church's abuses against Inuit students of the Joseph Bernier school in Chesterfield Inlet, he created a tidal wave of emotions for many victims.
Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak said his nerves were on edge for days as the date for the bishop's apology drew near.
Others say they dreaded this day, because they knew they would be facing their dark past of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of people entrusted with their care.
But after the bishop made his apology, many students expressed relief and said they must now continue to heal their past wounds.
As Nunatsiaq News went to press this week, about 30 former students talked about their past abuses in two days of healing workshops sponsored by the GNWT.
Forgetting not easy
But students also spoke out sharply against those who expected them to heal overnight, "instead of understanding, they always come back with the same old rhetoric--forget the past and go on with their lives," said Nick Arnatsiaq. "They don't understand how much we want to forget the past and go on with our lives like normal people."
Another former student says he wants to forget his days of being sexually abused, but says sometimes the memories of his abuse are triggered by certain smells.
He says sometimes when he is in an igloo, "I can actually smell the brother that abused me. It's not that easy to forgive and forget."
Children used by adults
About 70 former students came from Hall Beach, Arviat, Kuujjuaq, Rankin Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet, Iqaluit and Ottawa to hear the bishop's apology, and some also came with messages of their own to deliver.
After the bishop's apology Simeonie Kunnuk, a university student in Ottawa, stood at the microphone behind a table of former students sitting with the bishop and pointed at his former schoolmates one by one.
"Look at them... their bodies were small... they were taught about adult pleasure," Kunnuk said with both fists clenched by his side.
"Some of us know what is for a young child, for a small child to have the body stimulated sexually. We were taught those things. The people don't want to hear that that's even better because it should not have happened."
Kunnuk had to pause several times to compose himself before finally breaking into tears. He wasn't alone, as others in the audience wept and fought to hold back tears most of the afternoon during the six-hour gathering.
Hypocrisy of church-goers
Marius Tungilik also delivered an emotion-filled speech after the bishop's apology.
It was Tungilik who renewed interest in the residential school when he told a public hearing in Rankin Inlet held by Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1991 that he had been sexually abused while a student at Chesterfield Inlet.
"Today's a historic day in Nunavut," Tungilik said. "Today, the bishop acknowledged the pain we went through and that is very special to me, very, very special."
Tungilik praised the bishop for having the courage to apologize and for being human enough to admit his institution had "deviated from the right path."
But Tungilik took aim at today's church-goers who have labelled the Bernier students as trouble-makers.
"I felt betrayed very badly by the church for so long. I felt betrayed so badly by my fellow Inuit, the church-goers who tried so hard to make us feel bad for what we did."
Student denied abuse--until now
Andre Tautu said that at the first reunion in Chesterfield Inlet in 1993, he denied he had been sexually abused because he didn't want to hurt the reputation of the community where he now lives.
But Tautu came forward and apologized to his family, friends and community for his shortcomings before returning to his seat to weep.
"I wish that my mother would hear me now what I have to say. She asked me not once, but many times why I didn't go to school, go to church anymore. That was 40-odd years ago. I couldn't have told her at the time because she would never have believed me¬because she was a very devoted Catholic," he said.
Wolf cubs and penguins
Richard Immaroitok compared himself to a wolf cub taken from his pack and forced to live with penguins--the nuns and priests.
"We had to act and dress like the black and white penguins," Immaroitok said, adding that he was afraid to disobey them because other wolf cubs were put in pens when they were bad.
He said after he left the penguins' place he was lost until the day he met a beautiful peacock who recognized him and accepted him as a beautiful wolf. "From then on, I went up a hill and started looking at other wolf cubs that were wounded and tried to help them heal their wounds."
Immaroitok now works at a drug and alcohol treatment centre in Kuujjuaq.
Welcome, not accept
George Cleary, the DIAND's regional director in the NWT, gave a brief speech acknowledging the federal government's role in having a negative impact on the lives of aboriginal people who attended residential schools.
One former student passed a note to reporters saying they "welcomed the apology, but didn't necessarily 'accept' it." This distinction helps illustrate that the Igloolik apology doesn't end the story for many former Bernier students.
"Will it end my pain?" said one student. "I don't think so."
"It doesn't end there," said another. Students are now trying to form a survivors' group to help coordinate their activities in the future.
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JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT--Just as the federal Cabinet is poised to make crucial decisions about the creation of Nunavut later this month, the GNWT and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. want a meeting soon with Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin.
Around the middle of March, Irwin will go to his Cabinet colleagues with a document on Nunavut that asks for money to pay the cost of building Nunavut's infrastructure, money to pay for training and education, and possibly money to pay for an Interim Commissioner and a Statute Review Commissioner.
"There was agreement among all the parties that the government of Canada needs to consult more closely with the Cabinet document," said John Amagoalik, the chair of the Nunavut Implementation Commission.
Amagoalik, other Nunavut commissioners, NTI President Jose Kusugak, and Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak met with the NWT cabinet last week to talk about Irwin's upcoming Cabinet submission.
"They did agree that a letter should go to the minister from the Government Leader and from the President of NTI asking for a meeting before the Cabinet document goes forward," Amagoalik said.
That document will contain the information that will tell federal Cabinet ministers what they need to know to make critical decisions about funding Nunavut.
As for what's in it, and what the federal government will ultimately decide, no one really knows for sure right now.
But Amagoalik says he believes that it's likely based on the NIC's "Footprints in New Snow" report and the Iqaluit capital model.
"It's very much a guessing game right now," Amagoalik said. "We've heard the cabinet document is going to be based on our report and based on our recomendations and based on the model that the NIC put forward."
Amagoalik said that after the federal cabinet considers the Nunavut submission, Irwin may make an announcement confirming Iqaluit as Nunavut's capital and perhaps other federal government decisions.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsIQALUIT--A group of High Arctic exiles will gather in Iqaluit next week to look at a draft compensation package negotiated with federal government officials.
An official with Nunavik's Makivik Corporation confirmed that about 100 people will meet in Iqaluit next week, but couldn't comment on the purpose of the meeting.
It's expected, however, that exiles' families will be presented with the contents of a compensation deal worked over the past two years between ITC and Makivik Corporation officials acting on their behalf and federal government negotiators.
Iqaluit hotel owners say the Makivik Corporation as booked at least 100 hotel rooms in Iqaluit next week.
But Makivik Corporation President Zebedee Nungak declined to comment on nex week's meeting.
"It's too early for Zebedee to offer any comment right now," a Makivik Corporation official said.
The group of High Arctic exiles, some arriving from Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay, are expected to be in Iqaluit from March 3-9.
In 1994, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended that Ottawa make a formal apology and pay compensation to Inuit from Inukjuaq and Pond Inlet who were relocated to Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord in the 1950s.
Soon after that Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin announced that he was willing to sit down with representatives of the High Arctic exiles to work out a deal.
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JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT--The government of the Northwest Territories has no plans right now to buy the federal government's share of Canarctic Shipping, Transportation Minister Jim Antoine said in the Legislative Assembly last week.
"I said a couple of days ago to another member's question that at the present time there are no negotiations of any kind in terms of dollars or anything with this Canarctic Shipping Company," Antoine said in response to a question from Yellowknife Centre MLA Jake Ootes.
Transport officials in Yellowknife and Ottawa have been talking about transferring the federal government's share in Canarctic to the GNWT since at least 1992.
Right now, the federal government owns 51 per cent of the shipping company's shares. A private, Montreal-based shipping company called FedNav owns the other 49 per cent.
Earlier that day, Ootes had made a member's statement warning that the GNWT could be taking on a big liability if it accepts ownership of Canarctic's shares.
"Canarctic Shipping is saddled with a number of liabilities which the federal government will pass on to the GNWT if we accept ownership," Ootes said.
And Ootes said that if the GNWT decides to buy Canarctic, it may not be possible for the GNWT to find a private company to take it over later.
He said that's because of a shareholder's agreement that gives FedNav a right of first refusal on any transfer of Ottawa's shares. "[T]here is no guarantee that after all the agreements are signed the eventual transfer to a northern company can actually take place," Ootes said.
Ootes added that Canarctic has accumulated over $79 million in losses, "and future operations can be considered only economically marginal at best."
Antoine explained later that Yellowknife and Ottawa have been talking about Canarctic as early as January of 1992, when Titus Allooloo, then the NWT minister of transportation, wrote to the federal government to advise them of GNWT's interest in the company.
"With no aboriginal groups at that time interested in taking over the Canarctic interest, the GNWT had discussions to see if Canarctic could be turned over to northern management, through the GNWT first and then turn it over to the private sector at a later time," Antoine said.
But Antoine said talks on Canarctic have now stopped, and the GNWT isn't pursuing Canarctic anymore.
"However, this whole exercise stopped as of last fall and there is no more development between the government and Canarctic at this point," Antoine said, according to the unedited version of Hansard.
Late last year, officials with the Inuit-owned Northern Transportation Company Limited had complained to Ottawa and Yellowknife about the GNWT's proposed takeover of Canarctic.
Canarctic, through a partnership with Tapiriit of Rankin Inlet and KNI of Greenland, had competed with NTCL for a three-year $85 million contract to supply and ship fuel oil to communities throughout the eastern Arctic.
The GNWT awarded that contract to NTCL last month, but not before a loud, long controversy was resolved after NTCL complained that Andrew Gamble, the NWT's deputy minister of transportation, was a member of Canarctic's board.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsTODD PHILLIPS Nunatsiaq News
IGLOOLIK--Prime Minister Jean Chrétien cleaned house last week and swept Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak farther away from a federal cabinet seat.
The prime minister dumped all but one of his parliamentary-secretaries and brought in 24 new faces to fill the ranks of his junior cabinet.
Anawak, who remains an ordinary MP, loses his job as parliamentary-secretary for Ron Irwin, the federal minister of Indian and Northern Affairs. That's the highest position an Inuk MP has reached with the federal government.
Anawak's replacement is Dr. Bernard Patry, the Liberal MP for Pierrefonds-Dollard in Quebec.
Patry is chair of the Quebec caucus, chair of a sub-committee on HIV-AIDs, and is chair of the Canada-Greece friendship group. He also took part in a committee that studied the northern food mail program last year.
In a news release issued last week, Anawak thanked Chrétien for giving him the opportunity to fill the post, and he passed on his good wishes to his successor.
"I was pleased to serve the traditional two-year term," Anawak said in the release.
Still will have a say
Without the added duties of representing Irwin in southern Canada, Anawak says he'll now shift his focus to Nunavut issues.
"Being a parliamentary secretary was exciting--but it was a bonus. When I ran, I ran to be a member of parliament," Anawak said in Igloolik this week. "To me the thing to do now is to concentrate on the next 37 months of planning for Nunavut."
Anawak says he'll work to make sure Ottawa lives up to its pledge to pay for the incremental costs of creating two new territories. He says he'll also lobby for a northern accord to help the GNWT gain a greater share of royalties from mineral and natural resource development.
Most importantly, Anawak says that when the federal government is deciding on issues in his area, he will still have a say.
"I wanted the reassurance, and got the reassurance that on anything northern I want to be consulted."
Anawak says he's also still chummy with Ron Irwin.
"The relationship we've had has been very close. In talking to him afterwards he expects it to remain that way. We work well together," Anawak said.
The Globe and Mail reported last month that Chrétien would likely dump most of his parliamentary secretaries because many hadn't performed very well.
But Anawak's performance can't be singled out, because the prime minister dumped the other parliamentary secretaries too.
"It's a good excuse for me," laughed Anawak.
Back to TopDid you know...
* that Lucien Bouchard's favourite city is called Split? It's in Croatia, right next door to Bosnia.
* that, in 1670, King George of England "gave" Nunavik to his cousin Rupert for his birthday and started calling it Rupert's Land?
* that Martin Frobisher was reportedly speared in the buttocks by an Inuk when he was kidnapping some Inuit to take back to England?
* that an entire camp of Inuit and their dogs was reported to have just disappeared in the 1940s? All their belongings were left and only the people and dogs were gone, never to be seen again.
* that some walrus become meat eaters and get aggressive and dangerous?
* that there are a number of Inuit who claim to have actually lived with "the little people"?
* that the direct descendants of Sanikiluaq report that he could run fast enough to catch a caribou?
* that the blood vessels on the hands of an Inuk are much closer to the skin's surface than that of a non-Inuk? This allows Inuit to work barehanded in the cold much longer than non-Inuit without their hands going numb.
* that the large intestine of an Inuk is several yards longer than that of a non-Inuk? This allows for better digestion of things like frozen meat.
* that, no matter where they go, huskies always know where home is?
* that Lucien Bouchard is behaving like King George and Martin Frobisher at the same time?
Back to TopLittle victories. I have had a good share of them along the path of my personal battles. These are the kind that keep one's preoccupation with the seriousness of life a bit more tolerable.
And these victories were never really planned. More the result of calculated efforts that turned into accidental victories in later life.
I speak of friendships that have lasted longer than expected. Works of art begun with a little wisp of hope and resulting in personal "masterpieces." Cartoons that succeeded in making others feel a little lighter about the seriousness of life on earth. Stories and poetry seemingly writing themselves to their logical endings. Potential personal crises that were somehow defused. And certain dreams that surprisingly became true.
This little imagination of mine goes a little wacky at times. How else to explain some of the images that come out on the drawing board when I least expect them? Some of my friends ask me whether or not I am under the influence of hallucinogens when I am working on certain drawings. With a moment's pause, I reply, "Yes, of course. I am usually mired on a natural high."
These wacky days are some of the most incredible I have spent in my life. I seem to be driven by unknown forces which have parked themselves on both my shoulders. Some images suddenly show up, it seems, on their own volition, on my drawing board. What can I do but to help them get out of their once-eternal solitude and bring them out into the visual world?
If is for this reason I can only sit back and allow the images to interpret themselves. "What weak-kneed artist, this Eskimo is," you say? What else can I do but allow the imagination the free reign it needs to properly execute the coming together of "sperm and egg"? It seems best to keep "a hands-off" approach to the individual incubation process of each piece of art.
So, what possesses a man such as I, to create an Arctic world which has never been seen with naked eyes? Boredom--mainly.
We can sometimes live such a staid, and ultra-dry, existence. That is why I feel the need to create an Arctic world of the imagination in order to keep sane in this solitary life I lead. "Go, boy, go" I say to myself as each day dawns and a certain light trickles into my little studio of insanity. "Just go get lost in your private universe that dwells in your incredible imagination."
Off I go, shutting out the natural world which I long ago unceremoniously slithered out into. If one is to describe happenstance, they can be seen in the images that are now the ghosts stuck on the drawing boards I have completed in past years. What an accidental life we lead, and mine is usually more so than others.
How to soften the cruelty that each day unleashes on a poor soul like mine, a displaced savage who longs for the simple days when the horizon would beckon him each day, knowing that there was salvation in finding an elusive wild animal. I dream of those days when a small head would pop out of the surface of the salty sea, with great expectation of the spilling of warm blood, harpoon at ready. What a rush to finally bludgeon the still-semi-conscious skull of a beautiful ringed seal!
And so, back to reality--to this modern time. What an incredible speed we travel from the moment of our birth to the doorstep of our finality as physical beings. A savage Eskimo of long ago would not have believed what future his descendants would finally face. Better to go back inside my mother's womb if I had envisioned a lifestyle I lead today. I am, in some ways, a little remorseful of the way this particular life has lead me. But the dreamer gets in the way of my suicidal tendencies and saves me from eternal damnation for another day.
It is the predicaments our people face today, (i.e. family violence, young people committing suicides, substance abuse, poverty, etc.) that gets me up from my bed each morning. I try my best to make a small difference in what is happening in the Great White Arctic. My tools of operation is the power of the written word and the spilling of India ink on drawing board.
Living in two worlds. What a roller coaster of a ride it is for me. No wonder I still get mixed up about which cultural mentality I should be using when dealing with people on daily basis. It can be a little embarrassing for me some days, especially when I am facing a potential future spouse in front of my ugly face.
An ugly face that is split equally into two halves--one Inuk, the other Qallunaaq. What a scary thought. That is, until I come upon a sleeping dream that saves me from certain death of my Inuk faith. Pray for me, my friends, I may yet lead a life of peace and harmonious insanity not unlike that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yes, human life can become quite cruel at any moment as it precariously unravels during the passage of our time.
And, as luck would have it, it is the little victories that saves the day once more.
Back to TopI read Bryan Pearson's opinion piece in Nunatsiaq News on Feb. 9 and tried to ignore it, as I usually do with letters to you from Brian Pearson (Salluq).
But many of your readers asked me to do the honors of responding to it. He is like a blind man with a shotgun: the first problem is trying to find out what his target is, then you wonder why he's trying to hit it.
Take for example the attack on syllabics in his article of Feb. 9. He says, "the current push to promote syllabics as a writing system has done more to harm to the advancement of literacy than any other single effort."
To begin with, he's got it backwards. In the mid-1950s, most Inuit were literate in their own language. It was the arrival of the southern school system that nearly killed literacy. The problems Mr. Pearson sees today are part of the recovery that began only a few years ago.
No one denies that there are problems here. There are problems in education systems right across North America. Even the Japanese who have a writing system that makes English look embarrassingly simple have problems.
But to pick on one innocent aspect of modern northern education and blast at it thoughtlessly is the work of a blind shot-gunner. Perhaps well-intended, good-hearted, but wrongly aimed (if aimed at all).
Apparently though, he is not against teaching of Inuktitut, since he refers approvingly of the situation in Greenland. It's just the teaching of the syllabic form of writing the language that is his target.
Assuming he's not just "greener-pasturing," let's start with our common ground. We both feel that it is important to teach Inuktitut in the schools.
Presumably Mr. Pearson shares with us the belief that language is a part of culture. He would surely also agree that Inuit culture is under stress in today's world, and that any culture under stress shows an alarming increase in social problems.
The more we can do to maintain continuity with the past, the healthier our culture and our society will be, a good reason why Inuit negotiated their land claim agreement and stressed self-sufficiency.
Although syllabics is a writing system brought in from outside the North, it has become part of the Inuit tradition. Our grandparents were literate in syllabics long before the first school was built in the eastern Arctic.
So much of the present education system inadvertently breaks links with the past: we would like some continuity. That is why we encourage Inuit to become teachers, and elders to be accepted as teachers.
Back in the late 1970s, when the ITC's language commissioners spread out across the North, that was the one clear message that came from the communities: keep the system that we feel is our own.
Mr. Pearson is not the qablunaaq "expert" to tell the Inuit that they must drop the system they are familiar with... after all that is one way qablunaat tried to conquer Inuit in the past, that is take everything familiar to Inuit away.
It might have worked years ago, but today, if Inuit want to change they will and if they don't, the blind man will never know the difference.
The fact is, syllabics is a very efficient system for writing the sounds of Inuktitut: we have found only one problem with one sound in one dialect.
We now have a dual orthography in Inuktitut--syllabic and Roman. The same logic is behind both the syllabic and the Roman orthography, and that logic is a lot more precise than English.
Both systems have their advantages. In addition to its cultural connections, syllabics is more compact than Roman, and psychologically more natural; children learn language by syllables, not by individual sound.
Incidentally, one of the beauties of syllabics is that a simplified form of it, without finals, is adequate for informal communication with elders, while the full system can deal with most of the inter-dialectal differences.
This question of orthography is a complicated one. It would take a series of articles to lay out all the points to be considered.
Hopefully this letter will give cause for thoughtfulness instead of poorly-aimed explosions.
I know Mr. Editor that you insisted on short letters, but sometimes English does not allow it with all its weird spellings and silent letters, unnecessarily doubling consonants and so on...
Jose A. Kusugak
President of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
(Former chair of ITC's language commission)
The fancy word used by bureaucrats and academics is "human resource management," or something like that.
There's an entire sub-dialect worth of jargon words in English that goes along with that concept, but we won't bore you with them.
Essentially, it means how employers treat the people who work for them. It means how they pay them, how they communicate with them, and how they earn their respect.
Within the GNWT, it used to be the Department of Personnel's job to do that sort of thing.
Judging by the bitter, cynical remarks you hear from most GNWT employees these days when they talk about their jobs, the Department of Personnel--along with the rest of the GNWT--hasn't done a particularly good job of handling their human resource management tasks. Although some departments are worse than others, many GNWT employees appear to hate their bosses, and many display nothing but contempt for the government they work for.
That's not entirely the GNWT's fault. Many government employees have been spoiled for too long by overly-generous salaries and benefits. Those days are now gone, and many are having trouble adjusting to the new reality.
But personnel matters have never been the GNWT's forte. Just look at the dithering and incompetence the government displayed during the 1994 sexual harassment scandal at the Keewatin Regional Health Board.
Now the GNWT appears all set to weaken itself even more--and perhaps fatally--in the area of personnel management.
First of all, Premier Don Morin announced last month that the GNWT plans to combine the Financial Management Board with the Department of Finance.
Effectively, this means that Finance Minister John Todd will become the NWT's de facto personnel minister.
There's nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. But under the guidance of Lew Voytilla, the little-known Financial Management Board has ballooned into one of the most powerful sections of the government, with more than 200 employees. The FMB also does a lot of stuff that the Department of Personnel used to look after--negotiations with the GNWT's unions, human rights complaints, and so on.
At least Voytilla's empire is now under the thumb of an elected official--the minister of finance, who, in theory at least, is accountable to the legislative assembly and the public.
Secondly, the government is awash with rumors that the Department of Personnel is about to be gutted as part of the GNWT's deficit-cutting plans.
Most of the layoff notices in the Department of Personnel are to take place, apparently, in the regions and in Nunavut. Department of Personnel staff based in Yellowknife will mostly keep their jobs.
In addition to that, the same rumors have it that all regional directors and superintendents will be dumped from their jobs within several months, a move that hurts Nunavut a lot more than it will hurt Yellowknife. That move will also hamper the GNWT's ability to deal with its employees, as well as its ability to handle the transfer of jobs to municipal governments via the Community Transfer Initiative.
Without competent people in the regions to coordinate government hiring and training, the people of Nunavut will find it extremely difficult to hire and train people for our new territorial government.
On the surface, it all looks like a boneheaded attempt to protect Yellowknife jobs at all costs, and to screw Nunavut. At the same time, it promises to drive the GNWT's staff morale to even lower depths than it has already sunk.
And with more community transfers just around the corner, it also promises to create general chaos in the way that the GNWT operates in the regions, and in Nunavut.
Nunavut's MLAs and cabinet ministers must be more aggressive in dealing with the Yellowknife-based GNWT bureaucracy. The cuts must start in Yellowknife first, not in Nunavut. JB
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These materials are Copyright (C) 1996 Nortext Publishing Corporation (Iqaluit), and may be freely distributed throughout the Internet, or other electronic computer networks or bulletin boards, as long as this notice remains intact and the articles are reproduced in their entirety. These materials may not be reprinted for commercial publication in print or other media without the permission of the publisher.
Last updated March 1, 1996
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