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| Muskox circling their young |
When I was five my uncle started taking me out on the land and water.
I started hunting and learning the traditional ways of survival. My mother and her brothers and sisters lived on the land
their first years before the missionaries and the federal government changed living and schooling arrangements. It was then
that the nomadic way of our people were really affected and our traditional ways of living were moved into small houses and
were put into a formal school system. It was fortunate for me that I still had the opportunity to learn first hand the traditional
methods of living and survival. My uncle, Alec, being the oldest child was traditionally raised by his grandparents (as it
was traditional for the first child to be raised by the grandparents) and my mother being the next oldest was given the traditional
role and responsibilities of being the oldest child being raised by her parents, my grandparents. As I am the oldest male
child of the next generation I was taught early in the ways of Inuit living and support so that I could be a provider and
leader of the family and of the community. It is\was the responsibility of the oldest male child of the next generation to
carry out certain duties and to have certain knowledge, although I believe I may be one of the last generations to have this
knowledge and upbringing.
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| Polar bear swimming at Long Island |
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| Same polar bear swimming at Long Island |
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| Same polar bear swimming at Long Island |
When I began teaching in Kuujjuaq I started giving back to my people as
they have always supported me in my journeys. I gave back by teaching physical education but more importantly I gave back
by teaching the next generation of Inuit. Some did not have the opportunity to go out on the land and learn our traditions
as I was taught, such as the ways of the land and survival, and sculpting. I was then able to provide for my family again
also through hunting and fishing and pass this knowledge of how important it is to take care of your family and community.
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| My cousin, Betty, and her family going camping for the summer |
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| Successful beluga hunt |
As I was teaching full time I would sculpt in the evenings in my shack
and after work and on the weekends when I wasn’t on the land. When I was on the land I began seeing the animals as I
once did when I was young with my grandfather and my uncle. I began seeing not only the animals but our people, our traditions,
our culture, our land and how beautiful and strong it all is and how important it is to pass on, maintain, and preserve our
inevitably ever changing culture. I began to realize how fast our traditions and language were being lost and forgotten, as
I had lost a lot of my language while in New Brunswick. The more I began to see, the more I needed to sculpt. I needed
to express what we need to keep and remember, what we need to preserve and practice, what is important to our culture and
what people need to see of it. Not only do our own people need to appreciate and acknowledge the changes we have and are going
through and remember also what traditions we have lived but people outside of our culture need to see it too in order to understand
how we lived and how we survived and continue to survive.
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| Annual Community Picnic |
Although I enjoyed teaching in school, my passion is with my expression
through carving. Since my discovery, I have stopped teaching physical education and began my passion of expression of Inuit
art to preserve, maintain, and educate people of our culture. As we have survived for thousands of years through the cold
and challenging conditions, we now have a new challenge that we must accept in order for our language and culture to survive
for thousands of more years. Every single one of us are important in how we survive, protect, and preserve our culture. I
have accepted this challenge and sculpting is how I am doing it.
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