Over the years, I found myself becoming attached to certain individuals and families as their ilisaqtaulaurpunga innarnut, their student, relationships that lasted throughout our lives. I realize now that certain experiences gave coherence and a larger meaning to the individual things learned from day to day. The most important of these “learnings” was the attempt to understand what it meant to travel in one’s mind from a world believed to be filled with a multitude of spirits to an existence underlined by the promise of something better after death. So began a line of inquiry that will close at the end of my own earthly journey.
It was my akaunaarutiniapiga, great fortune, that these Inuit elders shared with me their perceptions, along with their words and expressions now seldom used and in some cases no longer understood. I learned that to be moved by the touch, the smell, and the sounds of the land was not unmanly. This sensual communion, this unganatuq, is a “deep and total attachment to the land” often expressed in spiritual terms. I am unable to forget how an old woman spoke quietly to me of nuna the land’s fearsome, deadly, and divine qualities with equal reverence.
From time to time, I wondered why the elders with whom I travelled gave so freely of their thoughts and assistance. They could see me capturing their words and putting them on paper, and with their permission, I made their words available for others to read. On rare occasions, I would be told not to disclose a certain event or fact for personal reasons. As time went on, I found that many elders in Cape Dorset actually looked forward to my visits, when I would record what was said over tea, bannock, and goodies. The range of names I was given reflects the different ways I was known to the Sikusiilaq elders: Apirsuqti, the inquisitive one; Angakuluk, the respected one; Inuksuksiuqti, the one who seeks out inuksuit; Innupak, Big Foot; Ittutiavak, a respected elder; and Uqausitsapuq, the word collector.
My Great Aunt Marie, centre, and our relatives in Bukovina, 1955.
TOUGH GUYS AND GENTLE MEN
I first became conscious of manhood in 1948 at the Annual Prospectors’ Convention in Toronto. I was sixteen years old. As I remember it, the convention was a spirited gathering of men and women who worked in the mining industry in the North. The majority who attended the convention were, of course, prospectors. This was when they came together from all parts of the North to celebrate the coming field season, renew old friendships, scout the territory for new jobs, swap yarns, and enjoy a moment of nirvana before setting out on their lonely trails in search of El Dorado.
My parents came to Toronto in 1917 from Bukovina, a region in central Europe. At the time, kissing the holy icon on Sunday and being on the lookout for the evil eye on all other days was quite normal. I have hardly any recollection of my grandparents beyond the fact that they were quite superstitious. My father’s family were like serfs whose struggle to eke out a living left no time or reason to fashion a family tree. Like countless other immigrants, they came to the promised land not because they believed the streets were paved with gold but to escape the endless brutality that seemed to be their birthright.
Like most immigrant and first-generation kids, my friends and I formed tribes, developed secret signs, held clandestine meetings, and swore to uphold the honour of our group. None of us had any idea that our respective parents were plotting to have us committed to institutions where we would forsake our roots and undergo the process of learning. We would acquire the instruments of success; our success would be their success; and so our parents would acquire status for the first time in their lives. To our parents, the sound of the wind rustling through the beech trees in Bukovina was only a distant dream.
As a youth, I learned important life lessons by working odd jobs. Even at a tender age, I learned that diversity of experience was the pathway to success. At age fourteen, I landed a summer job at a doll factory as a gofer and floor sweeper before progressing to the production line, making Baby Wett’em dolls. I also worked in a graveyard raking leaves and filling in groundhog holes. The giant leap forward was becoming head boy in the fresh produce department of Canada’s largest grocery chain.
To my parents, these early jobs were all fine, but having sent me to private school, they were of the opinion that I would surely become a doctor, a lawyer, or, at worst, an engineer. They were utterly dismayed when I blithely announced that I had decided to study art. The decision seemed perfectly natural to me. I had always had a strong instinct for curiosity and a means of expressing it at a very early age. Art appealed to me because it had a magical quality that defied scientific explanation. But when my father, who clearly thought that studying art was a cop-out from the real world, asked me to explain this direction, I fumbled. He told me then that my future was in my own hands and I best put them to work as soon as possible.
To the family of Alexei, Sending you my photo for your children and mine to remember. Giving you many hugs and kisses forever.
Until we see each other again,
Frozina
2 November 1958
I quickly discovered that in order to earn enough money to pay for school, buy books and supplies, and have a little pocket change, I would need to work up north for the entire period I was not attending school. “Working up north” was a euphemism for having a job in either the mining or forestry industry. Natural resources companies offered the relatively well-paying seasonal jobs that appealed to students like me. I had no romantic notions about the North — I was going there out of necessity. Getting there would not be difficult. The real problem was convincing an employer to hire a sixteen year old kid with no experience in the field. I caught a break when I came across a notice in the Toronto Daily Star announcing that the Annual Prospector’s Convention would take place at the Royal York Hotel. Dressed as neatly as possible, with two dollars and a ten-cent streetcar fare in my pocket, I was off to the most important convention of my life.
The Moldavian side of the family, 1954.
A sixteen year old packing a box of high explosives unaware it’s leaking nitro glycerine.
Amid the raucous gathering of those tough miners, I felt a sense of belonging. I knew I was in good company. I met Eddy the Swede, Johnny B., Louis Four Toes, and the unforgettable Big Biff Breakey, who once said to me gruffly, “I’m gonna hire you kid, but if you ever let me down, you’re out’n your arse.”
That spring, before I headed into the bush, my father gave me a .22 rifle and a piece of advice: “Never work,” he said, “for anyone stupider than yourself.” The next day, I boarded the train to Lake of the Woods on behalf of the Northern Canada Mining Company to locate and re-examine an abandoned gold mine. That evening, under the spell of the clickety clack of the coach’s wheels, I fell into a deep sleep. The next morning, I awoke to a sight that astonished me. Entering the boreal forest, I saw a sea of trees flashing by my window. I had seen forests and woodlands but never such a powerful living thing as this. The forest evoked in me a sense of wonder and imagination I had never known.
I would experience dwelling within this great living thing. Each night, the forest seemed to pulse with a mysterious presence. The sounds coming from deep within were those of owls, loons, foxes, wolves, and the clacking of hooves. Occasionally, my heart skipped a beat