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Health care in the Keewatin: like a wound left untreated

After the resignation of Keewatin health board chair Elizabeth Palfrey, and the firing of its CEO, Jim Egan, the GNWT is now scrambling to restore many basic health services in the region.

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

RANKIN INLET - Like a wound left untreated, the continuous mismanagement of the Keewatin's health care system has now made it impossible for medical staff to provide many basic services to residents.

But NWT Health Minister Kelvin Ng didn't apologize for that situation during a four-hour meeting with Keewatin leaders in Rankin Inlet last Friday.

He said instead it was his attempt to loosen Yellowknife's traditionally tight reigns that may have contributed to the problem.

"I recognize that with the regional health board, as I've said in the past, we may have gone a bit too far in giving them too much autonomy and not questioned enough some of the decisions that were being undertaken," Ng told about 40 people who had crowded into the Sakku building's board room to hear what the minister had to say.

Last summer, the Keewatin Regional Health Board laid off four dental therapists to make way for a deal it struck with the private company Kiguti Dental Services to provide dental care in the region.

The board also severed its long-standing relationship with the University of Manitoba's northern medical unit. Both decisions brought an outcry from Keewatin residents.

Since July, pleas from mayors and Inuit leaders for change in the system - most notably the removal of KRHB chair Elizabeth Palfrey and a full public inquiry into the board's activities - fell on deaf ears in Yellowknife.

Until last week.

Palfrey finally gave in to her critics and resigned amid the growing outcry about the chronic shortage of nurses in the region. Her departure was one of many.

Deputy chair Percy Kabloona stepped in as interim chair and he, after consulting with board members, fired Jim Egan, the board's chief executive officer, last Thursday. A senior bureaucrat within Ng's office will fill the position until a new CEO is hired.

Only full-time doctor quits in frustration

The region's only full-time physician also called it quits earlier this month.

Dr Ken Hedges, the only full-time physician the health board was able to hire through an arrangement with Med-Emerg International, began work as the Keewatin's medical director last November for a five-year term.

He resigned in frustration after only seven weeks on the job, citing no confidence in the KRHB leadership.

"As a newcomer my professional credibility has been exploited... and I have been rendered powerless to advance any meaningful change within the Keewatin Regional Health Board," Dr Hedges stated in a letter in the Jan 14 issue of Kivalliq News.

"I don't mind if the minister of health and social services doesn't agree with me, but I shall pray that he will exercise the personal sensitivity and political tenacity to place a strong helm at the KRHB and provide a fair allocation of resources to secure a viable health service. He must turn a nightmare into a dream."

"Grave" shortage of nurses

Nurses at the Rankin Inlet health centre, the largest in the region, called the shortage of staff at the centre "extremely grave."

"The health centre has been in crisis management for an extended period of time, only to come to the breaking point around Christmas time by functioning with two nurses and one midwife," staff wrote in a Jan 12 letter to the KRHB.

"The health and well-being of the community can no longer tolerate this continuous lack of direction from the health board; neither can the front-line staff of the health centre who are trying desperately to provide appropriate health care."

This month announcements on Rankin's community radio urged people to seek medical attention at the centre, which services about 2,200 residents, on an emergency only basis.

The community, which should have nine nurses, is currently served by two or three. Two doctors in the community for short-term stays are leaving at the end of the month. One doctor is expected to arrive next month, also for a short-term stay.

Similar staffing shortages exist in other Keewatin communities. In Arviat, for example, the community of 1,700 operated for nearly a week during the Christmas holidays with only one nurse.

Virus outbreak in Baker Lake

Reduced staff at the health centre in Baker Lake are currently dealing with a virus outbreak in that community.

The crisis could have been avoided, Kivalliq Inuit Association President Paul Kaludjak says, if Ng had listened and acted months ago, instead of criticizing the KIA for raising red flags.

"In your November 19 letter you said, 'I believe the service available to NWT residents, including those in the Keewatin, is consistent with the Canada Health Act and can be favorably compared to services in other similar parts of Canada,' " Kaludjak reminded Ng during the Friday meeting.

"You went on to condemn us for, as you put it, 'creating a destructive focus on a very small part of the health and social services system.' "

KIA asks Ng to resign

With the support of Nunavut Tunngavik President Jose Kusugak, who flew in on a Thursday evening charter to attend the emergency meeting, Kaludjak asked the minister to resign.

"We can no longer have any confidence in your ability to live up to this responsibility," Kaludjak said. "I am asking you to do what any honorable, respectful minister in any other jurisdiction in Canada would do in this case. I am asking you to step down."

Breaking the strained silence in the room that followed Kaludjak's request, Ng said he would not voluntarily resign.

"If I wasn't concerned about the well-being of health, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you," Ng said. "I've dealt with issues that have come forth and I've made decisions that you haven't liked. Don't say I haven't made decisions because we have and we have acted when we thought it was appropriate."

Kaludjak first demanded Ng's resignation at an Oct. 20 press conference, shortly after a legal opinion supported KIA's assertion that the KRHB doesn't have the legal authority to provide physician's services in the Keewatin.

"Just tell us you're incompetent"

"Just tell us you're incompetent," Kaludjak challenged Ng. "You had ample time to correct these things and you didn't. You did nothing."

Ng said he may have been slow to react, but "that was to give the benefit of the doubt to the (board) trustees."

The sparring left not only tension in the air, but also surprised expressions on the faces of Rankin Inlet's hamlet councillors, who had invited Ng to the meeting to discuss ways they could work together to find a solution to the problem.

Kivallivik MLA Kevin O'Brien, who was disappointed that NWT Commissioner Helen Maksagak turned down a request for a full public inquiry into the KRHB last fall, said he isn't prepared to ask for Ng's resignation when the legislative assembly reconvenes this week.

"I'm not going to say the minister should resign or not resign - that's really his decision at this point in time," O'Brien said after the meeting. "He has to do what he thinks is right and myself or nobody else, except for the premier, is going to force that on him.

"That's not really my concern right now," he added. "My concern is that they start rebuilding the health system as quickly as possible."

Should the health board be dissolved?

KIA suggested dissolving the existing health board and replacing it with a working committee until stability and confidence is renewed in the system, at which time a new board could be appointed.

Ng said, however, that he and his staff will work with the existing board. Though no firm decisions were made during the meeting, it's expected a management committee will be set up to find short-term solutions to the crisis.

A nursing recruitment strategy, currently being developed by the GNWT and the territorial nursing association, is expected to be presented to the minister in mid-February.

The board may also re-establish it's relationship with the University of Manitoba.

"Right now there's a willingness to take another look at possibly opening up negotiations with the northern medical unit," Ng added, "to see, at least on a short-term basis, what services can be reinstated.">>

Keewatin patients fear the worst

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

RANKIN INLET - Two days before her due date, Naanasee Onalik was told the baby she had planned to give birth to in her home community would have to be born in Yellowknife.

She was given four hours to pack and get to the airport for a late afternoon flight.

"It was a total surprise," said the first-time mom, who described her pregnancy as problem-free. "From day one I expected to have him here."

Conditions jeopardize patients

On Dec 9, the day of Onalik's check-up, the midwife with whom Onalik had built a nine-month relationship closed the community birthing centre because she refused to continue working in conditions she felt jeopardized her patients.

"I was mad at first," Onalik said. "Then she started to explain that if there was an emergency, there was not enough staff."

The community health centre has been operating on an emergency only basis for several weeks.

Two other pregnant women were sent to Yellowknife at the same time.

"It would have meant a lot to have my baby here," said Onalik, who gave birth to her son, Jacob, on Dec 11. "I would have had people around me for moral support."

Instead, Onalik paid to have her boyfriend fly to Yellowknife with her. The other two women went alone.

Emergency or not?

Another Rankin Inlet monther said she was anxious about having to diagnosis - deciding whether the severe headaches her 14-year-old daughter had been suffering were urgent enough to see a nurse.

"I was wondering if it was an emergency and at the same time I didn't want to overburden the nurses," she said. "It's a fine line, but they say early detection is the key."

She finally decided to seek medical attention.

"If I lived in Iqaluit or Yellowknife, I think I'd have no problem getting an appointment. We're in Canada and it just seems like we don't have the same access for our basic health needs."

Hamlet councillor Lavinia Brown, like most Rankin Inlet residents, doesn't blame the nurses.

"It's not their fault," Brown told Health Minster Kelvin Ng during an emergency meeting last Friday. "The system has failed us."

She told the story of one of many worried residents who've been phoning her.

"[A woman] had phoned the health centre, but because they are short of nurses she could not been seen and she was told it was for emergencies only," Brown said. "She said that maybe she'd be all right, but she didn't know how she was going to make it through the night."

Alarm about sick children

Brown, a former chair of the Keewatin Regional Health Board, said the situation is more alarming with children.

"With children you don't always know because they don't tell you. They're not like adults. They can't express (themselves) like we can."

NWT Finance Minister John Todd, who represents Rankin Inlet in the legislative assembly, said he'll work with the health minister to find a solution to the crisis.

"If there's a crisis, we need to sit down and pragmatically work out what the action plan is," he said during the meeting.

"I will take some responsibility of the failure of the system to respond in a manner you expected it to. I hope others will do the same.">>

More time needed to hire new Keewatin nurses

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

RANKIN INLET - Though the plight of nurses in the Keewatin region has now attracted the attention NWT Health Minister Kelvin Ng, Keewatin health board staff can expect the crisis situation to continue for several more weeks.

"Many of them function in a state of chronic fatigue because of critical staffing deficiencies," wrote Dr Ken Hedges in a Jan 14 letter in Kivalliq News.

Hedges resigned as the Keewatin's medical director earlier this month after only seven weeks on the job.

Patients may be hurt

"It makes me angry to have seen several near to tears," Hedges said. "It is evident that some very serious things have gone wrong to the point that sooner rather than later, someone (a patient, I mean) is going to get hurt by the system rather than helped by it."

The state of health care in the region has been on a slippery slope downwards for several months.

Regional mayors and Inuit leaders have been demanding changes for months, but the region's nurses only began to speak out in recent weeks.

Their concerns were brought out through a survey completed by former Rankin Inlet nurse Gerry Pflueger and the NWT nurses' association.

Unsafe conditions

"We have offered the nurses, through the survey, a way to speak up with having a regional voice and not identifying individual nurses, because it appears the nurses here in Rankin and elsewhere are afraid to speak up individually," Pflueger told a group of Keewatin leaders who held an emergency meeting with Ng last Friday to discuss the chronic shortage of nurses.

"The nurses have spoken out strongly about the unsafe and potentially unsafe conditions that exist in some of the Keewatin health centres today," Pflueger said.

"The shortage of staff, the resulting low morale, lack of support, lack of policies and procedures and uncertainty regarding physician and specialist coverage have clearly set the stage for potential and actual conditions for unsafe nursing practice."

Fear of reprisals

Practicing nurses won't speak individually about the situation. They addressed this fear in a Jan 12 letter to the KRHB.

"We, the health-care staff, request a proper investigation of the KRHB by the minister of health with the specific request that the front-line workers be interviewed, if they wish, without fear of reprisal from the office of the executive director of the KRHB," the letter states.

Myrna Michon, who quit her nursing job in Rankin Inlet last September and now manages the community's friendship centre, said staff shortages and low morale were reasons she left.

"They were going to give us more nurses, so we didn't bring in any agency nurses," Michon said, explaining the board's new policy to cut costs and increase the number of staff nurses.

"But we didn't get any more nurses. In fact, after that, as our numbers went down, they were not replaced. I don't know why positions weren't filled."

Michon's old job and that of another experienced nurse who left about the same time remain vacant. This week the Rankin Inlet health centre was operating with only two nurses and a midwife.

Nurses more difficult to recruit

"There were literally no jobs in the South," Michon recalled as one reason she moved to Rankin Inlet four years ago. That situation is changing, though, as demand for nurses begins to grow nationwide, making it even more difficult to recruit qualified nurses in the North.

And because nurses have been difficult to recruit, the health board has had to hire nurses with less experience.

Kivallivik MLA Kevin O'Brien recalls a nursing couple who recently left Arviat after only a short, stressful stay.

O'Brien said the couple had only about seven months experience and none in trauma care.

During their first week in Arviat, an elderly man died after being on a respirator all night. The same couple treated a five-year-old boy who died of internal injuries after falling off his bicycle.

"It's not my intention to blame them," O'Brien said shortly after last Friday's meeting. "They're thrown into a situation and it's not their fault."

When you're asking people to work in a stressful condition, Michon explained, they need support.

No long-term vision

Nunavut Tunngavik President Jose Kusugak suggested during the meeting that the lack of a long-term vision for northern nursing is one reason many nurses leave.

"I really hope we get away from this 30-year-old model of hiring nurses, work them until they're burned out, a two-year limit, then they go home," Kusugak said.

Pflueger is one of only a few nurses who has stayed to make a life in the North.

"I am so moved by the people here. I have learned so much. I've been treated with love and respect by the people in the communities in which I've lived and that's why I'm still here. I hope and pray I will not be alone as a nurse who stays in the community because she loves the community.">>

Housing sector to get help from GNWT

Finance Minister John Todd loosens purse strings, announces incentive program for new home buyers in 1998/99 budget.

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT - The infusion of $40-50 million into a new home-ownership program should alleviate the immediate demand for housing in the North, Finance Minister John Todd said during his budget speech Thursday.

Todd expects the new Accelerated Home Ownership Program, part of the GNWT's budget for 1998/99, will result in the construction of about 1,000 new housing units over the next two years.

"If we don't put new housing into the marketplace, it compiles an already difficult social problem," Todd said. Getting more northerners into their own homes should free up public housing for lower-income families, the minister explained.

Tabling the 1998/99 budget in the Legislative Assembly this week, Todd announced the government's second consecutive balanced budget. That means that for fiscal year 1998/99, the GNWT foresees total spending and revenues at $1.161 billion.

The GNWT also anticipates a small surplus for the fiscal year 1997/98 and a reduction in the NWT's accumulated deficit, though Todd cautioned that the government's net fiscal position could be affected by the results of current negotiations with the Union of Northern Workers regarding pay equity.

The GNWT finished the 1996/97 fiscal year with an accumulated deficit of $41 million.

Capital works projects

The GNWT proposes to spend up to $100 million over the next two years on new capital works projects. The GNWT fell behind in public infrastucture spending when it reduced its investment in schools, hospitals and roads from $200 million to $140 million to balance previous budgets.

The legislative assembly will identify projects in March. These projects are expected to be completed through public-private partnership arrangements.

"This additional investment should be possible without increasing our overall annual spending levels," Todd said.

The finance minister also introduced a new tax credit which should make investing in northern businesses more attractive.

"With the shrinking government dollars and the transfer payments coming from the feds, you need to find a new way to top up the pot," Todd said. "I'm of the belief some of that has to be taken up with the private sector."

The tax credits are an incentive for the private sector to market newly issued shares of NWT businesses for sale to territorial residents. It's also an incentive for investors to purchase shares of new or expanding NWT businesses.

New tax credit

Under the program, investors would be allowed to reduce their territorial income tax by up to 30 per cent of the value of their investment in eligible NWT businesses ¬ to a maximum of $100,000.

The program also allows investments to be made through registered retirement saving plans.

For example, an investment of $10,000 would mean a NWT tax credit of $3,000. The program would allow a maximum of $1 million in credits this year, increasing to $5 million in the year 2000.

The four investment areas under the program are:

• Labor-sponsored mutual funds for unions and employee associations which invest in new and expanding businesses in the NWT;
• Employee-sponsored venture capital funds for employees who purchase shares in the companies they work for;
• Community-endorsed venture capital funds for the private sector to establish small mutual funds that in turn invest in new/expanding businesses;
• Private new common shares sales for direct sale of shares in new/expanding NWT businesses to NWT taxpayers.

Todd announced he expects a small surplus in 1997-98 and a reduction in the accumulated deficit. This prediction, however, may change depending on the outcome of the pay equity negotiations. The GNWT may end up paying as much as $70 million.

New federal language money welcomed

Though Inuktitut is Canada's healthiest aboriginal language, there are many who worry if it will survive, and in what form it will survive.

DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT - Canada's national aboriginal groups can expect renewed support this year from the federal government to preserve and protect native languages.

"New moneys were identified," Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart said last week during her visit to Iqaluit, "and we will build appropriate language preservation and expansion programs that are reflective of the needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people."

A member of the Nunavut Implementation Commission (NIC) welcomes the news, and said recently that at least part of any extra money for aboriginal languages should be funneled into Inuit schools.

Despite progress on many fronts in recent years, "we're going to have to do more work in the classrooms," Peter Ernerk said.

Inuktitut the healthiest

Inuktitut is regarded as the healthiest of all aboriginal languages in Canada today. Results of surveys conducted for the 1996 Census show that almost three-quarters of Canadian Inuit can converse in their mother tongue.

By comparison, only 35 per cent of North American Indians in Canada are able to speak an aboriginal language.

Although great efforts have been made in the Northwest Territories to promote Inuktitut in education and in official communications, there are those who warn that Inuktitut is no longer immune to the effects of displacement and erosion that have claimed aboriginal languages in the South.

True, Inuit can find Inuktitut content in television and radio shows, on CBC North, on TVNC, and on local FM stations, but its impact is certainly lessened by the overwhelming glut of popular English programming.

Although Inuktitut is formally recognized as one of Nunavut's official languages and is expected to become the working language of the Nunavut government, observers note that Inuktitut is undergoing a rapid evolution.

NIC language conference next March

Concerns about the fate of Inuktitut are expected to be publicly aired when the NIC hosts its conference on language next March.

Anthropologist Louis-Jacques Dorais, who is studying the use of Inuktitut in Nunavut, observes that English seems to have been "internalized" by so many Inuit that a "bilingual way of speaking" is emerging.

"Especially in a place like Iqaluit," Dorais says, where "most people" are probably bilingual people.

"It's as if both Inuktitut and English are first languages for many people. It's like having one language that comes from two completely different sources, and you just draw on these language resources when you need, and sometimes you jump from one to the other, without thinking."

In 1984 the NWT's Department of Education, Culture and Employment received federal funding to begin work on an Inuit curriculum. Elders, educators and parents from each of the regions contributed to the research, which took several years to complete.

Inuktitut curriculum document now in use

The result was a document, published by the NWT's education department in 1996, entitled Inuuqatigiit.

Conceived and developed as a guide to help Nunavut teachers integrate Inuit history, traditions and language into daily school instruction, practically speaking, Innuqatigit is just a starting point - a foundation on which Inuit education in Nunavut can eventually be built.

The dearth of Inuktitut text books and other educational materials, however, has placed limits on the scope of Inuktitut-language instruction in the schools.

And it is in the classrooms that Inuktitut faces at once a singular opportunity to flourish and the greatest threat to its survival.

A generation ago, the use of native languages in northern schools was almost unheard of, and Inuit teachers decried the lack of teaching materials in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and Inuvialuktun.

Teachers made own materials

In fact, had it not been for Inuktitut-speaking teachers who adapted standard teaching materials, students might never have been exposed to classroom instruction in their mother tongue.

Today the teaching of Inuktitut in elementary schools is compulsory in Nunavut, with Inuit students receiving instruction in their mother tongue from kindergarten through Grade 3. In a few schools where there are enough qualified teachers, Inuktitut is used to teach higher-level courses, too.

But Nunavut is still a long way from having a comprehensive Inuktitut curriculum for kindergarten through high school, despite the widespread use and knowledge of Inuktitut in the communities.

Baffin developing Inuuqatigiit materials

At the Baffin Divisional Board of Education, a small team of educators at the Board's learning and teaching centre have undertaken an ambitious program to develop materials based on the Inuuqatigiit document.

"What we're attempting to do here is address this need as best as we can," says Gwen Coffin, the centre's co-ordinator.

"This means that teachers won't have to do it all themselves."

Drawing on the skills of experienced Inuit teachers in four Baffin communities, the goal of the learning and teaching centre is to design and distribute Inuktitut materials that can be used in the classroom to enrich conventional course material.

Of course, the shortage of teaching resources is not the only obstacle to the expansion of Inuktitut instruction: there just aren't enough qualified, Inuktitut-speaking teachers who can use the material effectively.

New science and math vocabulary?

And other challenges still lie ahead. How do you teach higher-level maths and sciences, for instance, without establishing a vocabulary of mathematical and scientific terms?

"Inuktitut will most probably be preserved 50 years from now," Dorais predicts, "but maybe with a little more bilingualism than now."

Dorais says he is optimistic about the future survival of Inuktitut, even if no comprehensive primary and high-school curriculum, such as exists in Greenland, is forthcoming in the near future.

"Technically it's feasible, but the difference between Greenland and Nunavut is that Greenland began teaching in Inuktitut over 200 years ago - they've had 200 years to develop education in Inuktitut, whereas in Canada teaching began some 50 years ago, and up until 25 years ago it was entirely in English."

The first step toward expanding an Inuktitut curriculum in Nunavut's schools may be to accept Inuktitut's limitations, Dorais suggests. Afterall, the evolution of languages throughout history has always entailed some cross-cultural migration of vocabulary.

Borrowing may be necessary

"If you want to teach high-school

science in Inuktitut, then you will have to borrow a lot of English or common international words, which come from Latin or Greek," Dorais says.

That process of borrowing is already underway.

Inuit elders are concerned at what they consider to be the erosion of their language, but this intermingling of vocabulary needn't have negative connotations, Dorais says.

Basque people who live in the Pyrenees mountains of northern Spain and southern France speak an ancient language that bears no relation at all in syntax or grammar to either French or Spanish.

Yet, 90 per cent of the modern Basque vocabulary, Dorais says, is borrowed from French and Spanish languages.

"It's completely different and not understandable by non-Basque speakers. Inuktitut could become like that, in a way."

Greenlandic speakers, too, have borrowed heavily from Danish, over the years, and many words whose roots can be traced directly to Europe are today considered to be part of the Greenlandic vocabulary.

"As long as people are conscious that their language is different, as long as they use these words in a way that is not the English way of speaking, then even if 90 per cent of the words are English, it will still be Inuktitut," Dorais says.

Quebec's rare lake seals at risk, scientist warns

A quirk of natural history cut these animals off from the sea thousands of years ago; now human development threatens their fragile habitat.

JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT - They've been called the seals that came out of the sea.

As glaciers retreated across what is now northern Quebec 8,000 years ago, scientists suspect the harbor seals were gradually cut off from the ocean and trapped in newly-formed lakes.

Today, between 100 and 600 animals still inhabit Lacs des Loups Marins, a chain of lakes 160 kilometres east of Umiujaq. They're believed to be the only harbor seals in the world that live year-round in freshwater.

Skittish and few in numbers, the habitat of this unique herd is also very vulnerable.

"These seals are completely unprotected," says researcher Richard Smith who recently completed a four-year study of the seals.

While doing field work at Lacs des Loups Marins he says he often saw mining prospectors set off explosives near the water.

Because the seals overwinter and give birth in protected air pockets beneath the lakes' frozen surface, Smith says any hydroelectric development in the region that introduces pollution or disrupts ice patterns will also threaten the animals' habitat.

The Canadian Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife has placed the seals on Canada's list of vulnerable animals. But Smith would like to see Canada and Quebec do more to protect the few remaining inland seals by declaring the Lacs des Loups Marins an ecological reserve, off-limits to intrusive human behavior.

This could give the seals some protection against any future hydroelectric development or mining exploration.

"This population is an appalling example of how backwards Canada is in protecting endangered species," Smith says.

Landlocked seal populations elsewhere - in Lake Ontario, Greenland and Japan, for example - have either vanished or are endangered.

The Lower Seal Lakes lie above the 55th parallel in Inuit territory, although Crees have traditionally set traps near the lakes. Both Cree and Inuit occasionally hunted the seals in the past.

The 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement lists these seals as a protected species, but this protection has no force of law.

Deciding whether Quebec or Ottawa has jurisdiction over the seals is also problematic, since they are marine mammals living in freshwater.

Marine mammals normally fall under federal jurisdiction. The Lacs des Loups Marins, however, live inland.

Trout-eating lake seals unique

The earliest historic record of the seals goes back to 1754 and a map describing the Lacs des Loups Marins region.

A 1936 expedition to study the seals nearly ended in disaster for team of American researchers; they had to resort to eating both specimens they had captured for study.

Scientists continued to wonder whether these seals were a distinct population. They speculated that the seals were somehow able to return to Hudson Bay, despite the rapids and waterfalls separating Lacs des Loups Marins from the bay.

That's why Smith decided to attach satellite collars to 11 lake seals. The results of the tracking were clear.

"They stay inside the lake," Smith says. "And each one stays in his specific nook and cranny."

Examination of hair, blubber and blood also showed that the seals survive solely on a diet of freshwater fish such as lake and brook trout.

Crees, who sometimes harvest the seals, say that their flesh is sweeter tasting than their marine cousins.

Paulusi Cookie, and other hunters now living in Umiujaq, say Inuit are aware of the lake seals' existence, but they haven't hunted any for a long time.With files from Anne Cheng in Umiujaq.

The statement of reconciliation: thoughts and impressions

ZEBEDEE NUNGAK
Nunatsiaq News

One feature of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that impressed a young Eskimo boy in school amongst Qallunaat children in the 1960's in "White Man's Land" suburbia was the large signature at the bottom signed George R.

He must have written the document himself; he must have been a kind man, a good king, were the prevailing thoughts then. Ordering his subjects in British North America not to "molest Indians in their Lands". Being a king, he must have been obeyed by those he ruled.

Innocence, until it is lost, is precious and mystifying.

Fast forward to January 7, 1998, first day of the Great Ice Storm. The Eskimo boy is now a middle-aged Inuit leader, observing ceremonies in the government of Canada's statement of reconciliation to aboriginal people. This in Ottawa, the place of his first discovery of that Proclamation by King George.

Impressions flood into the mind. The document is displayed on an easel. The urge is to take a look to see if the signature on the bottom is Elizabeth R. Or next best, the Governor-General. Or next best, the Prime Minister. Slight disappointment to see that it is two Ministers of the Crown who signed.

Prevailing thoughts: Must be truer if signed by two federal Ministers instead of a single Elizabeth R. Must be a first marker on the road, a statement of good intentions on shuffling motions in the right direction.

The minister makes specific reference to a string of wrongs committed by the country's governing authorities toward Canada's original inhabitants. It turns out George R's subjects and their descendants had disobeyed most of the instruction issued by him in 1763.

Indians and others were molested in more ways than one. A question pops in out of the solemn air: Did these "civilized" people not possess a sense of right and wrong, or did guilt overcome them 235 years late?

To hear the words "we are deeply sorry" from the mouth of a federal Minister was at once soothing, jarring, gratifying, slightly surreal and somewhat disorienting. Mystically weird stuff. If the statement were a pudding, it would be simultaneously bitter and sweet. The cherry on top would be the thought, "Do they really mean this?" Right beside this would be a pickled olive, "Believe it when you see it!"

In Inuit food terms, it is a mixture of igunaq (aged, fermented) and nutaaviniq, tuqutaurataaq (new, freshly killed).

Working on the issue for over a decade, we never succeeded in getting similar words uttered toward our people relocated to the High Arctic in the 1950's. We were fought tooth and nail every step of the way by former officials of the government and the RCMP who were at the height of their careers during this ill-conceived and ineptly carried out experiment.

More than money or any material thing, the elders of this group dearly wanted to hear a Prime Minister sincerely say to them, "I am sorry."

Most of these elders are no longer with us, but their children and grandchildren are as determined as ever to have these words of balm for the heart and soul fall upon their ears.

One would hope such a thing would not take 113 years, as in the case of the resurrection of the reputation of Louis Riel. This is part of the contradictory emotions ceremony. A man hung as a traitor renovated as a Father of Confederation! What sense of right and wrong! Or is it belated guilt?

Key buzz-words keep plunging out of the swirl. "New partnership." "New beginning." "A fresh start." "A new relationship." It's good stuff, gushed out in a positive hopefulness never before circulated on so great a scale by such people.

As a representative of Nunavik - underdeveloped and non represented in the corridors of power anywhere - I take a step-and-a-half back. Issues closer to home jump out at me. Items I would dearly love to have resolved before we take part in hitting stride toward this brave new world. Stuff that stems from government commitments which to us were written in black and white, and yet unfulfilled. Important matters which we find very difficult to keep the government's attention span upon in their shuffling and muffling.

I try to reassure myself, with difficulty, that this will change. Government will be more forthcoming, more forthright. I pledge in my own small way to be less automatic in my skepticism. Vivid tracks, though, take time to fade.

The event acutely sharpens awareness of certain things. One is that the government has a great challenge ahead to force the attitude change initiated by this milestone to become genuine and irreversible.

Only by demonstrating this tangibly will it earn the trust of Inuit to be serious partners in the enterprise of a new era. Its Indian Affairs Department (note the name here!) also has a major structural adaptation job to do on itself to make us Inuit a lot more comfortable by seeing a truer reflection of ourselves in its make-up.

One of our own buzz-words is "Inuit-specific." Our own uniqueness as a distinct collective, occupying a homeland encompassing the top third of the land mass of Canada, has to be acknowledged, appreciated, and accommodated. Genuinely, not superficially.

Those of us Inuit who have the misfortune to be trapped in provinces will also have to be reassured that we will no longer always get the shortest end of the stick, or no stick at all.

Do we have high expectations? You bet your sweet bippy! Can these be satisfied? They had darn well eventually better be! The thaw following the Great Ice Storm is an opportunity to stride forth in a new political climate between government and Inuit.

Obituary

Canada's first lady of Inuit art helped start co-op movement

Alma Houston, a pioneer in the world of art promotion, will be fondly remembered by her friends in the North.

JEANNE L. PATTISON
Special to Nunatsiaq News

TORONTO - The Inuit of Cape Dorset called her Arnakotak, or "tall woman" and in the decades Alma Houston devoted to Canada's northern artists, her stature always fit her reputation.

Though she made the acquaintance of prime ministers, diplomats and the world's rich and famous over the years, Alma's outspoken and down-to-earth character never changed.

Ever the Maritimer at heart, her death in Halifax on December 17 has left a great void in Canada's artistic community and saddened countless friends.

"People said that they'd still be waiting for her to come home," Joanasie Salamonie, president of the Cape Dorset cooperative, said during a moving tribute to Alma in Halifax just before Christmas.

"She has been with them for so many years. One never gets to hear, but they always love her. They too, they will join her in heaven."

Alma Georgina Houston was headed for a teaching career in Venezuela in 1950 when she met her future husband, James, at an Inuit art exhibit in Montreal. Jim persuaded her that the Arctic would be a more appropriate destination for a young Canadian girl, and indeed, she soon fell in love with the North.

Travelled by dog team

Arriving at Frobisher Bay - now, Iqaluit - by airplane, Alma remarked on the beauty of the Sylvia Grinnell Mountains.

"You are appreciative of the beauty of the mountains and you are complaining bitterly about this primus stove," Jim told her. "I'm willing to bet that in two weeks' time, you are going to love this primus and hate the mountains'"

By dog team the couple travelled from Frobisher Bay to Lake Harbour and on to Cape Dorset. Coming down some steep inclines, the sleds had to be lowered by rope to avoid colliding with the dogs.

Alma and Jim learned Inuktitut through their day-to-day experiences, Alma learning quickly what helped her and what she understood.

But she recalled, one day, turning to Pootoogook, the great leader and artist, and sighing, "I speak like a dog." To which Pootoogook replied, "No, you speak like a child."

Founding the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative in Cape Dorset launched Alma's career as a promoter of Inuit art and would endear her to her adopted community for the rest of her days. She was a firm believer in the cooperative ideal: that people could live decent, dignified lives helping each other.

From that hesitant beginning, the Cape Dorset cooperative diversified and grew into the major organization it is today.

Art featured in London

As a result of Jim and Alma's work, Inuit art was featured at Charles Gimpel's London Gallery during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

When Alma returned to Ottawa in 1963, she began marketing the now famous Cape Dorset prints out of an office at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

In 1965 she became director of fine arts with Canadian Arctic Producers, and, following the advice of such prominent gallery owners as Av Isaacs in Toronto and Charles Gimpel in England, boldly set out to market Inuit art to international collectors.

"I felt the art and artists of the Arctic should be treated like other art and artists such as Picasso," she said once, "not as something different. We brought that to the marketing."

It didn't take long for Alma and Jim to succeed. Inuit art quickly caught the attention of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which bought the first set of Cape Dorset prints.

Beginning in 1966, with assistance from the federal government, Alma travelled regularly overseas as an unofficial ambassador for Inuit artists. In 1975 she was awarded the Order of Canada for her role developing and attracting international interest in modern Inuit art.

"Alma's persistence and stubbornness bode well for, among others, the Inuit," said Terry Ryan, a long-time Cape Dorset resident who is director of Dorset Fine Arts and a family friend.

"However feisty - at times, downright rude - she won both respect and admiration. It cost her on occasion but she accepted that reputation as the price of securing the recognition she was determined to win for her friends."

Children raised in Cape Dorset

Though blessed with a wonderful sense of humor, Alma was very modest about her accomplishments and had to be persuaded to speak of her Arctic adventures.

"When we travelled by dog team," she once recalled, "the Inuit did everything in their power to make it easier for me. When we went on boats up the west coast with Pootoogook, he would have me tied down on deck so I wouldn't get washed overboard."

Alma and both her sons, John and Sam, were adopted by the Pootoogook family during their upbringing in Cape Dorset.

In fact, Inuktitut was the first language that the Houston children learned to speak. John remains closely connected to the Arctic through his filmmaking.

In 1980, following her retirement and her divorce, Alma returned to live in her native Nova Scotia, where she started the Houston North Gallery in picturesque Lunenburg. The gallery continues to feature the finest examples of Inuit art and Maritime folk art.

Her last trip to Baffin Island was in 1994 to speak at the ninth Inuit Studies Conference.

The people of the Arctic always remained very dear to Alma, and she had hoped to return to the North this year. Her ashes will be spread over the hills above Cape Dorset.

Alma Houston is survived by her son, John of Halifax and granddaughter, Rebecca of Iqaluit; her son Samuel and grandsons Hart and Sam of Aspen, Colorado; and her mother, Euphemia Viola Bardon and her brothers and sister.

Jeanne L. Pattison, friend and colleague of Alma Houston, is an art consultant and writer who travelled and worked in the Arctic for more than 25 years.

My Little Corner of Canada

Say it with feeling

The partial apology and statement of reconciliation from Jane Stewart, Minister of Indian Affairs is the sort of statement I have been expecting for the past 30 years. I have been wondering why it has taken so long for something as simple as this.

For many Aboriginal people, the partial apology and statement only comes part of the way. The history of broken promises and acts of discrimination has created a deep pool of cynicism and mistrust.

Many cannot be blamed for their suspicions of a department which, in the past, has acted against their interests and failed to respect their human rights. Some feel that the government is still just playing with words which their lawyers have crafted for them.

The apology and statement is a tentative step in the right direction. The apology is narrow and deals mainly with residential school abuse. There is only a vague reference to relocations. Acts of hostility and genocide inflicted on aboriginal peoples are generally ignored.

The silence of the Prime Minister is deafening. Is this a statement from the government of Canada or just from Jane Stewart? Does this statement reflect the attitude of the whole government? Jean Chretien needs to speak to us.

Jane Stewart should be congratulated for having the courage to take this step which other ministers have studiously avoided for too long. It is a tentative step, but it is a step which we must build on.

She also needs to put aside the documents which her speechwriters and lawyers have written for her on this matter. She needs to speak from her heart in order to bring out the human emotions that surround this issue.

The government has to express this apology with feeling and sincerity. They may be surprised at how good they will feel.

When nature twitches

The ice storms which devastated parts of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick is another reminder of just how vulnerable we are when the forces of nature strike.

Growing up as a child, I often thought how absurd it was to talk of "taming" or "conquering" the wilderness. I had always been told that nature was not something to be fought or challenged. Nature was such an immediate part of our lives that attempting to change it or fight it was an absurd idea. It was never seen as the enemy.

When Mother Nature twitches, the best laid plans of mice and men can crumble under a sheet of ice.

Editorial

For the sake of honour

When you screw up, you pay the price.

That's a stern rule, to be sure. But it's supposed to be. Willingness to accept the personal consequences of our actions is how we demonstrate willingness to accept personal responsibility for them.

That's how the oft-used and oft-abused catchphrase "accountability" is supposed to work.

Nowhere is that rule supposed to work with greater severity than in public life. No one among us would disagree that public officials, elected and non-elected, must be held accountable for their actions. That's a long-established principle without which no democratic society will remain democratic for long.

For public officials, accepting that principle is a matter of honour and obligation. Those whose obvious obligation to the public is to resign dishonour themselves when they refuse to do so.

Elizabeth Palfrey, the outgoing chair of the Keewatin Regional Health Board, retained a measure of honour when she resigned her position last week.

But Kelvin Ng, the health minister who gave Palfrey and her senior staff permission to cut the heart out of the Kivalliq region's health care system, there is no honour - not yet, at least.

Ng told the legislative assembly last fall that the Keewatin health board's arbitrary cancellation of its longstanding agreement with the University of Manitoba's northern medical unit posed "no risk" to the public.

Ng told the legislative assembly last spring that the Keewatin health board's dubious deal with Kiguti dental services was a "sound" decision.

Ng has ignored legal opinions produced by the Keewatin Inuit Association that suggest he and the Keewatin Regional Health Board's senior management have acted without legal authority.

Ng has presided over the near collapse of the region's health care system. In some communities, nurses are working under inhuman conditions - on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Rankin Inlet's nursing station has not had a nurse in charge for two years. Rankin Inlet's birthing centre has closed. The region has no health promotion officer.

Numerous other employees have been fired or driven out, while others have fled in either fear, disgust, or both.

Despite all this, Ng has refused, time after time after time, to call a public inquiry into the recent doings of the Keewatin Regional Health Board.

It's time for Kelvin Ng to pay the price of screwing up. It's time for him to resign as the NWT's minister of health and social services, a post for which he has never displayed much aptitude or interest anyway. It's his chance to preserve his honour

If Ng needs help in understanding the concept of "honour," he can study the example provided recently by Dr. Ken Hedges, a southerner.

Hired in November to work as the director of medical services for the Keewatin health board, Hedges quit just seven weeks later.

Like most new employees, Hedges was forced to agree to a typical GNWT-style gag order preventing him from speaking his mind in public. But, unwilling to grovel before the Keewatin board's incompetent administration, Hedges did the honorable thing. He quit his job to be free to speak his mind in public.

Appearing on CBC Northbeat last week, Hedges said he's told the GNWT that if it continues, there's no doubt that the Keewatin's current health care crisis will put people at risk. He also said that in his opinion, the Keewatin health board's chair and CEO should be dismissed.

Last, he said that the climate of secrecy and intimidation within the health board must cease, saying few professionals will come to work in the Keewatin if that continues.

In 10 short minutes, Ng and the Keewatin health board's third rate managers were exposed for what they are, and their many critics were finally vindicated.

It's indeed fortunate for us that Hedges never lived in the North long enough to learn that within the GNWT and its many agencies, honour is an alien concept.

But Kelvin Ng can show there's a better way. He can resign.JB

These materials are Copyright (C) 1998 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.