The book True North Rising,
2023, Random House Canada by Whit Frazer
intrigued me. I like just-issued books in
paperback that I can easily hold. Canada’s
far north seemed a safe distance from the
global worries of war in Ukraine. The
book claims to be an account of Fraser’s 50
years living with emerging Dene and
Inuit leadership as they were overturning the
colonial order and reshaping
Canada. One of them was Mary Simon, now
Canada’s first indigenous Governor General.
She is Whit Fraser’s wife. From his first job as a know-nothing
reporter from the south in 1967,
Whit Fraser worked mainly as a CBC reporter.
He immersed himself in his new
environment and worked alongside northern
indigenous. He made friends with many.
He hopes his memoir will help readers to know
the people of the north, their
history and their culture a little better. It
will! The book is a collection of stories
grouped into three parts: 1. Discovery;
2. Turbulence and 3. Builders. The six
chapters on Discovery mostly involve his
earlier days in the north. The part on
Turbulence covers big political issues
including the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline
proposal and the related Berger inquiry.
The ten chapters on Builders are mainly
stories on the leaders as they were emerging
in the north. This is not an autobiography, but is
written as a friend and collaborator
of the persons he is writing about, Whit
Fraser conveys his own growth and his own
stature in the north. A reader will come to
respect Whit Fraser. Let me touch on some detail to
illustrate all this. In the very first chapter Colonial
Justice we visit a court
room
in which a seasoned hunter of the frozen
reaches of the Arctic, Tootalik, is
guarded by a Mountie before a visiting judge
in flowing black robes, two
lawyers and a scribe, along with Whit Fraser
the young reporter, in a room with
umpteen flags. Tootalik has no idea what is
going on. He speaks Inuktitut. The
rest know nothing of his life – venturing on
arctic sea ice with a dog team,
confronting and hunting polar bears, surviving
blizzards in igloos he builds.
He is accused of killing a female polar bear
with young. The story unfolds from
there. There were three hunters and several
bears. All evidence came from the
hunters. The trial ended up focussed on
Tootalik. Young polar bears can stay
with the mother for up to two years. There was
an issue of whether jurisdiction
extended over the arctic sea ice. Several
months later, he was found guilty.
His lawyer appealed. On appeal the judge found
the law surrounding the Game Ordinance
ambiguous and Tootalik innocent. The second story, Left or
Right, jumps to a visit later in
time that
Whit made with his wife Mary Simon to her
brother’s family fishing camp on
Ungava Bay at Black Point, with little shacks
and good arctic char fishing. He
walked in the beautiful early morning
without a rifle, made a lucky turn ending up
10 feet from a polar bear but
fortunately above it. Without panic he turned
and scrambled up the rock face
and ran the 30 metres to the nearest cabin and
cried out. People awoke. The man
in the cabin had a rifle beside his bed,
stepped out and faced the approaching
bear. He shot. The wounded bear ran. They put
it out of its misery. Whit feels
fate’s twists as he wonders how he, someone
who failed high school in Nova Scotia,
ended up in this fishing camp. The chapter
ends. Third comes a story Where
is Frobisher Bay: Always Trust your
Gut. Whit
and Mary Simon both began their lives where
shortwave radio was a way of connecting
with a wider world. For her the connection was
Greenland choral music. For him it
was CBC’s Northern Messenger in Nova
Scotia. As a teenager of 17yrs
about to fail high school math, Whit decided
to save face at home by getting a
job. In New Glasgow NS he asked at the desk of
a publishing company about jobs,
and met the manager who said how about radio?
A brief test of the sound of his
reading aloud and he had a part-time job! But
it never became full time and he
was let go. After bits of jobs, he joined the
RCAF. A year later, at age 20, Whit
married his high school sweet-heart Dianne
Linden and soon they had two
children. Financial pressure from a mistaken
encyclopedia purchase drove him to
call the nearest radio station where he landed
an extra job. When the RCAF
helped relieve the financial pressure he kept
a small radio job. When the time
came for his discharge, it was to the CBC. He
met the CBC representative and
was offered a job in Frobisher Bay. A few
months later he and his family had
been moved there. Story number four is about Jonah
Kelley, identity “E7-262”. Jonah, an
Inuktitut speaking CBC reporter, had become a
significant name when he got his
invitation to the 1981 Ottawa Government
Conference Centre gathering with
Trudeau and Provincial Premiers about the
repatriation of the Constitution.
Reporting such meetings often involved filling
in – with experts providing
comments. Jonah had a well-known voice among
the Innuit of the North. Single
handed, he could fill an hour with commentary
and brought an informative educational
approach to his Innuit listeners. He could
make sure they knew what was at
stake for Inuit. When identification by number
was ended in 1970, Jonah made
sure everyone like him was told and could
enjoy a name. Jonah died in 2012 of a heart condition
complicated by diabetes. When two
months later students at a summer program
asked Whit Fraser to name the best
radio show he ever heard. Whit thought of
Jonah’s coverage of the 1968
assassination of Martin Luther King Jnr. CBC
was giving that full live coverage.
Jonah worked hard despite the inadequacies of
the Frobisher Bay studio at that
time. He understood the parallels between
struggles of Inuit in the Far North and
the injustices against Black Americans at the
heart of the civil rights
movement. The colonial approach was common. He
got background information from
CBC. He locked himself away for hours to
produce two one-hour tape- recorded
programs: one his own immediate news special
and one for CBC Montreal to broadcast.
The tapes contained powerful stuff. He had
translated the famous “I have a dream”
speech into Innuit and captured the emotion
and what it meant for
self-determination in the North. Despite the
time lapse of 40 years since this
news cast, Whit’s students
understood. Story number 5 is about Joe Tobie,
whom Whit met when he moved to CBC
Yellowknife. Joe was fluent in two Dene
Languages plus English and he could
handle some Cree, Slavey and a little French.
He enjoyed a mixed life-style –
working for Health Canada as a translator for
doctors and nurses, Joe also had
a part time job with CBC. Finally, he lived in
a traditional Dene economy of
hunting, fishing and trapping in Dettah a
village across the bay from
Yellowknife. Joe became the friend who taught
Whit to hunt - that is
fascinating and well described. Later he would
become a key colleague on the
CBC coverage of the Berger inquiry on the
proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.
At the end of this chapter Whit tells how Joe
quietly confided that he had been
born at the woodland place where they were
sitting. At age 7 he had been sent
to residential school and had never seen his
parents again. There was nothing
more. There was no bitterness towards the
colonisers. He was a “true gentleman”
says Whit. The sixth story, Northern
Lights and Wine: at Life’s Crossroads,
still
maintains a connection to northern people. In
this case, it begins with June, a
bar maid, but is mainly autobiographical. Whit
was an alcoholic and June helped
him turn the corner. It is a good telling of
the impact of alcohol on his job,
his health, and on his wife Dianne and their
family. He describes how he broke
from it. There are stories about support from
others and tempting situations.
He ends with regrets at not having thanked
June at the Legion bar. A short seventh story, Warm
Memory Frozen in Time, bridges
readers
to part two of the book: Turbulence:
“There Should Be No Pipeline Until the
Land Claim Is Settled”. A beautiful
3-page nostalgic piece recalls delight
in squeaky-crisp snow, northern lights and the
ringing from a single distant
church bell during midsummer 1970 as Whit was
accompanying a so called
“consultation tour” of government officials in
the High Arctic. Part two is the central part of the
book. The stories in this section reveal
how Whit Fraser established himself as a
significant figure among the local
northern broadcasters and a player in the
emergence of indigenous leadership in
the North in the 1970s. The first story in
this section is a scene-setting article
entitled Bulldozers and Big Dishes: What’s
a Land Claim. In the late 60s
and early 70’s it was little known that
Aboriginal rights were protected by
British law, and by constitutional extension,
Canadian law from the Royal
Proclamation of 1763. Governments and settlers
were unwilling to recognize or
even discuss Aboriginal rights. The
discovery of arctic oil in 1968 followed by
the gasoline shortages of the early
70s created a demand to open up the Arctic for
oil. The title of Jean Chrétien, “Minister of
Indian Affairs and Northern
Development” in the Trudeau government, tells
it all. In 1968 Chrétien came to
Yellowknife to announce a jump start in
development of northern riches for “all
Canadians”. Few Inuit or Dene were invited.
Whit’s story for CBC told about the
meeting of young Dene leaders to establish a
Dene Brotherhood of the Northwest
Territories. It became the Dene Nation. The
oil industry needed subsidies and
they needed to be in touch with the rest of
Canada. They big communication
dishes and 80% tax relief on the dollar spent.
Caterpillar tractors and long lines
of mobile work camps became the landscape. As
more developers arrived
indigenous resentment grew and as it grew the
oil industry dug in. Ironically,
those big dishes allowed indigenous to
communicate and organise. In 1971 Turgak Curley announced to Whit
that he was organizing “Eskimos”
to demand a land claim settlement. He had seen
the impact of the Dene
Brotherhood and he felt the Inuit were under
threat. Whit “put the microphone
under his chin” and his message went to people
in all northern communities who
could discuss his ideas. Whit describes Stuart
Hodgson, the then commissioner,
who accurately declared “I am the government”
- fanning the indigenous rights movement.
Whit views Hodgson’s early years as good for
the north. He moved “his
government” from Ottawa to Yellowknife, gave
wide visibility to the north and
invited the Queen to come. But he stayed on
too long into changing times,
allowing the racist settler organization
“White Power North of Sixty” to grow
and challenge indigenous land rights. In 1973, twenty-seven oil companies
formed Canadian Arctic Gas and filed
an application to build a pipeline down the
Mackenzie River Valley. The Dene
Brotherhood opposed it and were joined by the
Inuit, the Métis and a growing
environmental lobby across Canada. This
followed the 1971 plan of Quebec premier
Bourassa to launch phase one of the James Bay
hydro project. That was to dam several
northern Quebec rivers flooding an area the
size of Prince Edward Island to
power eight massive generating stations. There
had been no discussions with
Inuit and Cree who lived there. The 1972
election returned a minority Liberal
government. Nothing could be done in Quebec,
but a referee could be chosen for
the development in the Northwest Territories.
Justice Thomas Berger of the BC
Supreme Court was asked to write his own rules
to inquire and to report on the
social, environmental and economic impact of a
natural gas pipeline down the
Mackenzie River Valley. Story 9, Stars in the
Northern Lights, begins
with Whit’s team
delivering an impressive TV presentation on
CBC’s National. The five 5-minute
reports, 4 in indigenous languages, in which
he reported on the inquiry, were
selling points in getting approval for the CBC
Northern Service package to cover
the inquiry March 1975 to 19 November 1976.
Between those dates Whit’s team
travelled with the commission: up and down the
Mackenzie and western Arctic;
throughout Yukon; and across Canada. Whit
tells how he helped develop the CBC
plan with his boss and ended by selling his
suggestions to the CBC
Vice-President. He proposed following and
reporting on the Inquiry nightly with
1-hour programs using each of the northern
languages for about 12 mins each.
CBC went to the Treasury Board and got the
money. With two months to go, Whit assembled a
team of northern newscasters
capable of handling 7 languages, who had
political wisdom and knowledge of the issues.
Joe Tobie was trilingual in English, Dogrib
and Chipewyan, comfortable in
Slavey and no stranger to French. Abe Okpik
could handle Eastern and Western
Inuktitut. Abe was a legend throughout the
North. He was working for the
Iqaluit government when he was asked to help.
Before long Berger himself
nominated Abe for an Order of Canada which he
received before the inquiry had
finished! A retired Anglican Minister, Jim
Sittichinli, was nominated by the
CBC manager in Inuvik and proved an asset.
Louie Blondin was brilliant from the
start. Sound recorder and technical support
came from Dave Porter, a Yukon
Dene. Dave went on to become a member of the
Yukon legislative assembly and
cabinet minister. Cameraman Pat Scott from
Toronto was working freelance in BC
and became the other white on the team with
Whit. Pat met the love of his life,
a young Dene schoolteacher, at the hearings in
the village Rae-Adzo. He married
her and stayed in the North. There are stories from the recesses of
the hearings when the team had to produce
information presentations to fill the gap in
the Berger inquiry news. During
the hearings the CBC team members were able to
point out errors in the
proposals of the pipeline engineers and
respect for this “local” newscaster
team grew. They also served as translators for
members of the community making
presentations. They served as witnesses when
the inquiry was in their home town
or village. Abe’s testimony noted both the
good and bad of his town of Aklavik but
ended: “I would like to say we own this land
in our hearts and we like it.” In
Old Crow where Jim had served as Minister,
Justice Berger and the whole CBC
crew went one Sunday to the little church
where Jim gave them the sermon! The
night before Jim had spent 3 hours calling a
square dance in Gwich’in and
English. The chapter ends with a telling of
the tragic early deaths of three members
of this team: Joe, Abe and Louie. Chapter 10, All Equal Now,
gives some insight into the Berger
commission, how the minority Liberal
government had to do it to survive, what a
session looked like, and why it was a critical
turning point in the history of
the north. Most of the initial hearings were
in the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife
with rows of lawyers and expert witnesses.
There was a public gallery.
Everything was recorded and transcribed.
Reporters could access those transcribed
records. In the second phase, community
hearings, Justice Berger examined the
impact on those in small communities along the
proposed pipeline route. These were
challenging situations with hearings very
different from the formal ones in
Yellowknife. The Northwest Territories are
vast with contrasting tiny places in
which Dene, Inuit and Métis live side by side
speaking 7 different languages. Many
spoke publicly for the first time in their
lives. There was a remarkable number
of well-educated chiefs in their 20s leading
their people. White education came
at a cost, said one. There is nothing but
promotion of white folk’s ways and
language; our ways, culture and languages are
pushed aside.
A growing sense of confidence and
equality
emerged. There were some very strong emotional
words from a chief to one of the
pipeline builders whose response was calm and
indicated some sympathy and some
understanding. A short
chapter 11 tells how the Berger inquiry
went across the south to 10 Canadian
cities in 3 weeks. The
Bergers hosted a dinner and reception in
their home for oil company people,
environmental people, Berger’s staff, and
broadcasters.
As he headed with his team
for Vancouver hotels afterwards, Whit noted
that his team had not seen the sea
of lights that is Vancouver by night. The
south brought Whit’s team closer together.
Friendship developed between an oil company
lawyer and Whit’s broadcaster friend
Louie. In Toronto, Abe Okpic’s report on the
hearing was put on the front page
of the Globe and Mail at the request of the
Globe’s reporter. The chapter ends
with Abe’s request to visit the Montreal
tavern run by former hockey player Toe
Blake. Whit discovers Toe remembers Abe from
his long-past visits to that
tavern while he worked in Montreal. The
twelfth story, The Shit Hits the
Fan,
tells how Whit felt he had to testify –
knowing it was wrong and inappropriate
for a supposedly unbiased reporter to do so.
It was in the oil company town of
Norman Wells and there were racist comments
against the indigenous. Whit said
he didn’t want the pipeline because the people
who lived there didn’t want it. He
said essentially “If we want to live and work
in this area where they are the majority,
we are going to have to let them take over.”
He believed they had the talent to
do it and named young leaders. Within a few
years they did. His statement wasn’t
a great speech – rambling and impulsive. The
major print media reported he had
compromised his objectivity. His CBC boss
raged at him. He said he wasn’t sorry;
it was something he felt he had to do but that
he wouldn’t do it again without
resigning first. CBC stuck with him. Whit was now
news, but he refused further
comment. He was severely reprimanded. Critics
called for his dismissal. He
played a lay-low strategy, avoiding the offer
of support from colleagues, the
Indian Brotherhood and the Métis. The NWT
Chamber of Commerce and Northern
Territories Association of Municipalities
appealed to Trudeau when CBC wouldn’t
replace Whit. The Berger inquiry hearing at
Fort Simpson was forced into two
hearings under white pressure – and the white
hearings were more racially
hostile than those at Norman Wells. Then Trudeau
responded that CBC had dealt with
the issue. Later it emerged that the senior
attorney for Canadian Arctic Gas
had taken no issue with the reporting, noting
there had been reverse bias if anything.
Moreover, the attorney knew Berger and knew
that the evidence would determine
the outcome. And so it was. Berger recommended
a 10-year moratorium, no pipeline
in Northern Yukon and said a possible
Foothills Maple Leaf route could be
constructed
with environmental safeguards. However, by the
time of the report, the Middle
East Oil Embargo was gone and pressure for
Arctic development was gone too.
Today, land claims are long settled and no
pipeline has been built. Of the young
indigenous leaders who testified, Jim Antoine,
was elected to the Northwest
Territory’s legislative assembly, immediately
became a cabinet minister and was
premier 1998 – 2000. The third
part, Builders: First Canadian,
Canadian First, begins with
chapter 13, Cover Girl,
is the story of
how Whit ended up marrying now Governor
General, Mary Simon in 2022. That Governor
General job had seemed a possibility for them
11 years earlier when they were living
in Kuujjuak and Mary was president of
the national Inuit Tapiriit
Kantami, but Mary didn’t have French and
David Johnston got the job. Whit tells
how he met Mary, an interpreter, at
an Inuit gathering he was covering in 1973. He
had given up drinking not long
before and she showed sympathy. Although there
was some attraction, Whit said
he was married with 3 children between 10 and
2yrs. She had 2 children, was divorced
and about to marry George Simon. Their paths
continued to cross. At the time of
his writing this book, in Ottawa, Mary has
awards galore and photos as Trent
University President, Ambassador to Denmark,
Royal Order of Greenland, Officer
of the Order of Canada. Interestingly a
picture of her at four years old is on
the cover of the April 1952 Moccasin
Telegraph, the magazine for Hudson’s
Bay Company fur traders. Mary’s father was
white and joined HBC in his teens,
adopted Inuit lifestyle, language and life
skills, and eventually married an
Inuk, Nancy Angnatuk, when an Anglican minster
came to the village and at the
same time baptized Mary and her elder brother
Johnny. The children were
declared out of wedlock and Eskimos – Mary was
a number: E9-761. The family moved
to Kuujjuak and Mary went to federal junior
day school at Fort Chino. Then just
before her teenage years, it was declared she
wasn’t Inuit. She and her brother
then had no school! Her friends were all
shipped off to the residential school
in Churchill, Manitoba. She was given home
schooling by her parents. How traumatizing
this was became clear to Whit when she
testified at the Truth and Reconciliation
Hearings in 2014. In 1989 Whit
was transferred to Calgary to anchor
their CBC Newsworld so he didn’t travel as
much, spent more time at home and
had to deal with the situation of his
marriage. His youngest child was now 20 years
old and his interests and Dianne’s had
diverged. They separated and she established
in Ottawa. They now share children and meet up
at family events. As this separation
was underway, he was asked to speak at the
Ottawa CBC retirement party
honouring the man who had first hired him and
whom Mary also knew. Mary had
separated from her husband some months
earlier. Whit suggested she come to
Ottawa for the occasion. She did. Fast forward
to 2022 – he is sitting next to
the Governor General. Story 14,
tells how Whit and Mary went to meet
her parents who were spending winter in
a trailer on a reservation in Arizona. Whit
tells several stories from Mary’s childhood
and how her siblings are now all active
in the community and include some of the best
bush pilots in the Arctic. Interestingly,
she had listened to Radio Greenland with her
grandmother and this linked to her
time as ambassador in Greenland and the
inauguration of a culture and arts centre
there. Vice-Regal
Boot Camp, the
15th chapter,
covers Mary’s time as Canada’s circumpolar
ambassador and later ambassador to
Denmark. Whit tells that in his then capacity
as Chair of Canada’s Polar
Commission, at a meeting in Washington a US
official asked if he knew Mary Simon,
a difficult Inuit woman! The US had tried to
establish an Arctic Council of only
sovereign nations. Mary had successfully
challenged that and won the battle –
gaining a seat for the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference on the new Council. She became
Canada’s ambassador to that Council. Then she
became ambassador to Denmark – which
Whit calls their boot camp for the Governor
General job. They had
hoped for a bit of time for travel,
but they found out that ambassadors have busy
lives and Mary had kept her Inuit
responsibilities. There are expectations to
attend receptions and calendars are
full. Two quite independent people suddenly
had a household staff! After a
couple of years, they admitted the workload
was too much. Mary was
offered her former job – circumpolar
ambassador
– took it, and kept it to 2003. But that job
kept her from the North and the health
and education issues there. In 2007 she became
president of the national Inuit
organization, Inuit Tampiriit Kanatami. They
built a house in Kuujjuaq where
her siblings lived. In 2008 Mary went to the
House of Commons to accept an
apology from Stephen Harper for the abuses at
residential schools on behalf of
Inuit. She gave a rather fine speech that
hadn’t been anticipated and which she
had to hurriedly prepare. The story
Amaujaq, the Inuit
name of
Jose Kusugak, who became an early president of
the Inuit Tipiriit Kanatami
begins with an account of a wilderness trip
with fishing, and Jose’s chasing
and shooting a caribou. Jose got into the
beginnings of the Inuit organization
with good English and Inuit communication
skills. After Mary’s return from
Denmark, Whit needed a job and became an
advisor to Jose and later the CEO of
the organization – Jose said he argued well
with him! This was the beginning of
the new territory of Nunavut and the land
claims were settled. Yet the big
social, health and education issues remained
to be resolved. There were good discussions
with the Martin government leading to the
Kelowna deal. In those times Jose told
Martin indigenous are treated as a block – a
melting pot. Inuit are not Indians
and deserved a particular government contact
point. Jose made his famous
statement that Inuit were first Canadians and
also Canadians first. Sadly, the
arrival of the Harper government put the gains
of Kelowna on hold. Jose ended
his term in 2006 to have some home time. Whit
left when Mary became president. Sadly,
Jose died not long after. Stephen
Kakfwi, Radical but Right from Fort
Good
Hope, Dene singer, songwriter and political
activist of the 70’s and 80’s, minister
and premier on the Northwest Territories in
the 90’s, features in chapter 17. Some
songs cover how he was abused in a Catholic
residential school. Over 20 years
before reconciliation in Canada, Stephen was
chief of the Dene Nation negotiating
to have Pope John Paul II return to the
Territories in 1987. He married a young
journalist Marie Wilson from Whit’s newsroom.
They both left their mark. Stephen
and his chief spoke powerfully at the Berger
inquiry – reinforcing the theme of
no pipeline until the land claims were
settled. At that time Stephen worked
with Project North of the Canadian Churches to
carry the message of the Dene Nation.
Stephen worked to bring the Pope to Fort
Simpson. That happened in 1987. The
Pope spoke well of the need for indigenous
rights in the Constitution, but without
reference to the abuse. It was not until the
90’s that the extent of abuse came
out. Stephen found the other side of the coin
at Grandin College at age of 12
where “Father Jean Pochat was like a father to
me …”. And a day came when that priest
had to choose between his superior and the
truth. It turns out that his superior
wanted Stephen to deny abuses by priests.
Father Pochat chose to support
Stephen and the truth. He led his superior out
of the
meeting. Stephen was active in Canadians
for a New Partnership and in having many
Canadians sign a declaration in 2014.
As the Premier, and with land rights settled,
Stephen fought hard to get
diamond mines for Nunavut. Rio Tinto officials
were reluctant to meet with Stephen’s
indigenous minister. Stephen offered to take
the meeting, then flew to London, met
with the head of Rio Tinto, and returned with
the basis for a deal. There are now
diamonds from Nunavut and there are jobs. Changing
Canada: The other John A, tells the
story of
John Amagoalik the Inuk who bought Nunavut
into Canada – a fascinating story. His
family was forcibly relocated around
development of NORAD in the 70s. He was
selected
for Churchill Vocational School. He liked that
school and he flourished. An
older Inuk, Tagak Curley, from the community,
came to the school to keep an eye
on things. He would become another actor in
the quest for Nunavut. University
was out of the question for John, but he went
to a high school in Frobisher Bay
for a Diploma and met his wife Evie there. He
had a gift for communicating. From
a job in communications with the government of
the Northwest Territories, to a
job with Inuit Tapirisat he jumped to national
stage to fight for indigenous
rights in the Constitution. His land claim was
huge as was his insistence on keeping
“a unique race of people in Canada”. In 1990,
John, with Tagak Curley and minister
Tom Siddon of the Mulroney government reached
agreement on the land claim, but
Nunavut was a sticking point. The Oka issue
had cost Mulroney support so the Inuit said
they could wait for the next government!
That lead to a breakthrough. It led to John’s
work on the Nunavut Implementation
Commission to bring about a Nunavut government
working with the Northwest
Territories and Canadian governments. The
proclamation creating Nunavut was signed
in 1999 by John Chrétien and Romeo Leblanc in
the new capital Iqaluit. Interestingly,
that Oka issue also led to the establishing of
the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples in which Mary Simon served
as part of the legal team. Ultimately,
that Commission led to a Canadian government
apology for the forcible relocation
of John A’s family back in the 1970s. This story
is followed by that of Tagak
Curley, a young radical, then a
member of the legislative assembly of the
Northwest
Territories seeking to create Nunavut. He next
went into business – the Nunavut
Construction Corporation and he was finally
elected member of the Nunavut government
and served in the cabinet. He was a hunter,
historian, craftsman and Inuit
intellectual. He had taken opportunities for
education in BC and Ottawa. He
also took the time to go over the records of
the end of the British Franklin
Expedition – and the early findings which
appeared to indicate cannibalism. None
other than Charles Dickens himself had
declared this had been death by Esquimaux.
Tagak’s familiarity with hunting implements
used by Inuit, Inuit culture, Inuit
oral history and the nature of the cuts to the
bones, showed that cannibalism
and not “savages” was involved. He won an
apology from Dickens’ heirs. Charlie
Watt: The comeback Elder tells the
story of
someone who was a senator at age 30 on a river
shoreline in northern Quebec
dealing with a tragedy of drowned caribou –
reducing the Inuit food supply and
also a health hazard. Charlie played a role in
the first comprehensive Inuit
land claim. Charlie was part of the challenge
to Hydro Quebec and Robert
Bourassa over their plans made – without
consulting the Inuit -- for the
massive James Bay project – unprecedented in
size and money. For Charlie it was
about Inuit survival. The court agreed. Quebec
had to negotiate with the
indigenous. Both sides had to make deals and
compromises. It took two years, to
November 1975, before the land claim agreement
was signed. Mary Simon was then president
of the Makivik land claim corporation – she
had also been a force in the
constitutional conferences in the 80’s.
Charlie became a Liberal Senator and
more politic. He quit the Senate in 2018 still
concerned about extinguished
rights and a desire to reopen the
constitutional debates. An impossible task?
Well, Charlie solved the caribou carcase
problem by getting a pet food
manufacturer to put them on empty return
flights south. In 2018, Charlie, the
man who founded and was first president of the
Makivik land claim corporation
but had lost every try since, was re-elected!
His early days had become known.
And he had campaigned vigorously. Sadly, he
lost again in 2021! May he remember
his victories. Meet my
Elders, chapter
21, tells
of Whit as chair and CEO of the Canadian Polar
Commission, with academics and
corporate leaders. A 1991 creation of the
Mulroney government, it aimed to
bring together those living in the Arctic and
those captured by it. After they
had witnessed companies searching for mines,
and oil and gas resources, and
interfering with their trap lines, northerners
had good reason to be suspicious
of those attracted by the north and northern
research. They thought: what are you
looking for; what are you doing; will you tell
us what you learned and how we can
benefit? The face of Chief Grady at the Lake
Laberge meeting by the Yukon River
showed all of that as he introduced his
elders. Let me introduce my elders said
Whit. At
the time of the visit the government
had already warned that global pesticide use
had rendered poisonous the fish from
the Yukon River that the two groups walked
alongside. The Polar
Commission hosted a major conference
in 1994 towards a northern foreign policy. The
then foreign affairs minister
scooped them by announcing an Arctic
Ambassador – and Mary Simon got that
appointment shortly after her wedding to Whit.
Later in 1994 there was a
productive conference in Yellowknife on TV in
which a dozen or so indigenous
dominated an academic and bureaucratic policy
conference while the north was
watching. First reporting of results to the
local indigenous people was
appreciated but rare, and also indigenous were
eager to participate and help. It
was also noted that the language of
researchers is not the language of the
people in the north. All of this came hand in
hand with the knowledge of
dangers from contaminants. Glaciers,
Grads and Geezers: Climate Change You
Can See and Touch, the final chapter, tells of
summer boat trips to expose students to
experiences in seas above the arctic circle –
Students on Ice. Hundreds of students
came from big Canadian cities and small arctic
settlements. Teenagers came from
the US, Europe and Asia. Distinguished
educators led them on explorations of arctic
and subarctic areas from Labrador into the
Northwest passage to the High Arctic
and Greenland. Their boat steered around huge
floating icebergs as they set off.
There
were lectures with a melting and
receding glacier as a back drop – “a eulogy
for a great glacier and a prophesy
for the climate and the environment.” The
Jakobshavn Glacier loses 60 metres
every day and within a decade will stop its
grinding and sliding and become a
glacial river. With zodiacs groups can explore
while watchful eyes look out for
polar bears. Whales can come and play around
the zodiacs. The book
ends with a short Postscript.
Whit
reminds us of the comparative statistics of
the north: higher suicide rates,
more tuberculosis, poorer housing, and
polluted water. Social and family
breakdown is compounded by alcohol and drug
abuse. There is more violent crime
and a higher rate of incarceration. Despite
this, Whit hope there will be new
young leaders willing to better the life in
the north. “Stay tuned” he ends.