WOMEN SHARE THEIR STORIES

“I've not only seen it up North, it is all over the place. Long ago it was pretty much a family matter and dealt through the family,” said Noella Cockney, constable of the Inuvik RCMP. “The problem is a lack of public knowledge. Most of the elders probably still think that way and tell younger family members the same. There is also family pressure, if you speak up other family members might get angry with you, even if you are the victim, ” she said.

She added, “When I did the family violence program in Yellowknife for a week, there were sessions on domestic and family violence. It really opened my eyes and showed me if I stayed in some relationships when I was younger, it could have been me suffering. I was strong enough to get out, so now I just want to help other people know they don't have to suffer either. I've seen some strong kids who have spoken up and who've convinced their family that they will not let themselves be abused. It is a vicious cycle and there will be fighting and struggling, but there are women’s shelters in Yellowknife and in Inuvik to help you, and you can reach local social health services or the RCMP to get an Emergency Protection Order at any time.”

Many local women who work against family violence have had personal experiences like Noella, and they believe the person affected has to first want to find a solution. “Some people don’t even know that name calling, or intimidation is abuse. As caregivers, we don’t stop at 5pm. We want people to know they can live without fear,” Lucy Dillon said. She works in health and social services for Tuktoyaktuk. Lucy remembers how her job led her to “re-do” her parenting skills. “There was a parenting workshop in 1982, and our spouses had to attend with us.”

“I wanted to speak up at the meeting, but I remember how we were told to be quiet and to respect elders as we were growing up. On the third day I spoke up.” She realized they did practice favoritism with the children at home, and resolved to change. Some elders judged her outspokenness, but Lucy learnt that being honest allowed her to mend her issues with her mother too. “There was a lot of yelling and crying at first,” she said, but it led to more understanding.

Annie Goose, visiting counselor at Inuvik Family Counseling services, said she began her journey of healing after losing her spouse. She has been sober for 11 years, and has now worked over a decade in the field of addictions counseling and community support. She describes her journey to healing. “The uphill road to healing is not without pain, but when I started dealing with the people who’ve hurt me, and allowed the tears and the downtimes to happen, I could feel myself changing. I started to share at AA meetings and with individuals and family, and soon family members were coming on board with me. How you feel on the inside shows on the outside. You become more productive and enjoy life in a peaceful way, you can sense the beauty around you, whether it be wildlife, nature or just the breeze in the air, you are connected to it. You stop ‘self-medicating’ with drugs and alcohol. Self-medication is just a bandage to the core problems, and bandages don’t last.”

“In a caregiver’s opinion, there is always hope, and asking for help is the first step. Nowadays, I know if I need help and don’t ask for it, I am making it twice as hard for myself,” she laughs.

Nellie Cournoyea, Chair of the IRC, commends the “agencies and individuals who take up the responsibility to provide support to those affected, either voluntarily or vocationally, for their dedication.” She said, “ The fight against family violence is one focused on by many individuals and agencies. We all aspire to have a society with zero tolerance towards violence. To achieve this goal we have to deal with the major problem of denial, amongst other issues. Violence in the home has grown and been left unchecked - as a result, violent behavior has become a “normal and everyday occurrence”, a way of life.” The chain of denial has to be broken. Each person can take action and get help."

K e n d y c e C o c k n e y ,

T h e G i r l T h a t M a d e I t

Mangilaluk Graduates share their experience

The Girl

Kendyce Cockney’s mother is her biggest fan, and has collected all of Kendyce’s graduation memorabilia –her hat, her four page speech and her governor general’s award for getting the best academic results in her school. Her mother is also dedicating half of her residential school compensation to Kendyce’s college fund. Kendyce is the first person in her family to become a graduate, and her valedictorian speech is an outpouring of appreciation, for all the love and support she received from her family, boyfriend and school.

“My mother Mary Cockney is the most beautiful person in the world,” said Kendyce. “She is my best friend and guardian angel. Even though I didn’t really have a dad growing up, I thank her for making me the person I am now.”

“People sometimes graduate and they don’t do anything with it,” said Kendyce, “I don’t want to sit in an office all day and answer the phone. I want a guy’s job. I want to be active. Nowadays, you need to be educated beyond

!

high school to go further.” Her oldest sister, who was one of the first female roughnecks to work on an oilrig, inspires her. Right now, Kendyce is looking at applying to NAIT College so she can get closer to her dream of becoming an engineer.

“I always pray to God, I ask him to help me find my path. But I know I need to figure it out for myself too,” she said. When asked whether she would miss her support system too much when she goes down south, Kendyce said, “I am so glad the telephone was invented. When I run into a problem, I’ve just got to remember that the ones who love me are only a phone call away, and that I am have my opportunities because of them.”

Kendyce did at one point find it hard to wake up and go to school. “My nanuk and daduk always made me get up, and my boyfriend made me go to school even after he dropped out. I didn’t fail a single grade.”

The most beautiful reward she got for graduating was a lucid dream, where she saw her daduk alive again. “He hugged me and said congratulations. We were both crying. I woke up feeling so touched.” Her daduk had passed away from cancer, but it was always his dream to see his grandchild graduate. Kendyce certainly doesn’t waste a second of her life. She has never gotten into drinking or drugs, and she is concerned that “it’s really affecting the attendance of the young ones in school.” She said, “Young people can ALL do it, they have the strength to say no to drugs and alcohol. In a small community there is not much to do, but you can do anything you want after you graduate.”

“I know some kids who don’t go to school, because they or their parents are drinking…and I think, if these kids had a hot lunch to come home to, and people to love them, it would be so much better. We also need a bigger recreational center.”

Kendyce is not afraid to speak her mind. She said, “If you are sincere, you will get though eventually. I just don’t want people I love to suffer.” For an eighteen-yearold girl, these are powerful words. May our support be with her as she goes further.

Kendyce: I would like to thank all the teachers and staff at Mangaliluk School for all their help and support. Without them I wouldn't have accomplished this great success. Also, thank you to my family for their love and support through the years. I would have not made it out this far without them. I love them so much, thank you all for everything!!

The Three Boyz

George Voudrach, 21 and Josh Teddy, 18 are giddy with relief at graduating from Mangilaluk School. Josh, who according to his friends, is a “cool guy” said, “I feel pretty good now, it’s good to finally sleep in for awhile, have free time and enjoy life.” George and Josh are avid basketball players, and they recently attended the Cages Basketball Tournament, and contributed to the tie for the third position. They kept school fun by being involved in sports.

“It feels really good to finish. I found the academic subjects quite challenging, and waking up in the morning is hard,” said George. However, despite the challenge that school can sometimes be, he plans to further his studies in a year.

George said, “You can do anything if you put you head to it. I’d tell others to finish school. Keep trying.” Josh too sees the value of school. He said, “I tell people it’s worth it to come to school; especially nowadays, you can’t get a job unless you have at least grade 12.”

“I am thinking of going to college or to U of C and taking recreational sports.” Josh dreams of becoming a coach. Although drugs and alcohol are factors preventing youth from graduating, Josh found that he was able to stay away from temptation. “I play a lot of sports and I think it’s not good to do sports and do drugs or drink at the same time,” he said. “It’s pretty good to grow up in Tuk. We can go hunt, fish, and ride around on snow mobiles.”

Darren Pokiak was not available for the interview. We heard this graduate is “always out and about.” Congratulations Darren!!

“833…711! Good morning everybody! Good to be waking up in the bush, over!” Emma radios her cousin Rita as soon as she awakes, sitting by the window of her cabin at Amagavik. Waking up in the bush is especially great if you happen to be at Emma’s camp, because she makes the fluffiest sourdough pancakes with bacon and eggs! By the time we finished coffee, Emma’s already in the loop with all the going-ons near her camp, from whether there are whitecaps in the water, to where the Ipana family is building their new cabin.

Emma’s laugh sounds somewhere between a chortle and a cackle, and she laughs a lot during conversation. Her ability to remain joyful and energetic is amazing at her age. As we traveled in her son Noel’s boat, she gleefully told stories of how the creeks and channels we passed came to be named, (Chickenbone Creek was especially amusing to her), and her eyes shone as she looked out for caribou tracks and signs of wildlife. She swept her arm along some shorelines, remembering how youth played there when they came to her camp with Rosie Albert in summers past.

“Rosie Albert was the instructor, we came here with Noel. They went out with the children everyday; I stayed and made lunch. I was like a camp manager! The kids

Edible Leaves

would go swimming, find wood and water, and we even drum danced with them!” Emma made doughnuts and bread, and cooked fish and caribou at the camp. “I loved helping Rosie Albert, it was a beautiful time, and a lot of fun. We also taught the kids Inuvialuktun.”

Emma has a spring camp at Campbell Creek. In the summer, she goes to Gary Island whale camp. Recently, Emma goes out on the land for shorter periods. This weekend is the only time she will be on the land before freeze up. Although she is relatively healthy, it requires effort to coordinate schedules so her family can go with her to bush camp. The path from the boat landing to the cabin has also been destroyed by the ice buildup during spring, and it was hard for Emma to walk up.

However, Emma always makes the best of any situation. She came determined to feed us well and to have a great time. “I brought fish eggs and muktuk!” she announced, “We’ll make fried fish and fish eggs for dinner, it’ll be very good!” In between cooking and cleaning, she took us for walks to learn about the land. “We might see bear tracks,” said Emma. There were paw prints on her carpet from the last winter, when bears broke into the cabin, looking for leftover sugar. Noel has now surrounded the cabin with fluorescent orange tape.

We walked to the nearest trees to look for spruce gum . Emma’s cousin, Renie, had a bad cold the gum can cure. “You boil this and make tea with it,” she said, plucking the yellow and sticky sap off the tree bark. “This is something Gwich'in people taught Inuvialuit! You can put this on cuts. Sometimes we cleaned it and chewed it as gum.”

“We also peeled willows in the spring and chewed them for their sweet juice. We ate anything! We collected flower buds in the springtime, and put rhubarb in blubber.” Emma showed us some leaves from the ground. “In the old days, we would keep these in uksuk (whale oil) for winter. We had no vegetables, so it was our cabbage.” The tiny round leaves suddenly seemed a whole lot more precious.

Emma showed us where to dig up soft ground to find mashoo, edible roots. “I cook mashoo with berries, and store it up for dessert.” She peeled the bark off and offered us some. It tasted like raw potato. “The best time to find these is in the fall, when they break easily,” she said. Emma cut up the mashoo and preserved chunks of it in uksuk. “We don’t want to waste anything!” Emma said. “Our first people never did. Nowadays people don’t even eat leftovers, they throw it into the garbage, why?”

Bush camp of course includes visiting, and we went to Abel Tingmiak’s camp, where there were many visitors! The Joe family was there, and the young hunters Dougie Joe and Dennis Chicksi have just caught twenty-eight geese. There was a boiling trunk of water and a plucking station set up outside, and almost everybody worked on preparing the geese. Emma immediately rolled up her sleeves and set about plucking as many as she can. “It’s easier to pluck if you boil them first. Long ago, if you watched your elders, you’ll learn how to do things when you grow up. You can roast and stuff these, or you can make goose soup.” The goose soup Marcy and Rhoda made was rich and delicious.

With our bellies full, we listened to Emma as she told stories of what life was like when she was younger.

She told us about muskrat and whaling camp. She spoke of residential school, and how “We would just sneak around, and talk to each other in Inuvialuktun!” We laughed with her as she told first hand-cranked washing machine caused. “We got it in 1950. You put oil in the engine, crank it up, and it starts really good!” Many neighbors would come by with their laundry, and Emma would share her machine. We especially loved her story of how a young girl who often went to her place would always say she felt very tired.

“Why are you tired?” Emma asked, “I was never tired when I was your age.” The youth replied, “You know why Emma, because we were brought up with showers and flush toilets!”

At bush camp, there is still no showers or flush toilets, but there is certainly a lot of fun to be had, with Emma the elder, who was “brought up tough”, and can tell you stories that may even make you cackle a little.

Top: Emma and Tusaayaksat editor, Zoe, take a break after a long walk.

Bottom: Noel lights the gas lamp for the evening.

The children at school definitely seemed to have fun with the Inuvialuktun language system. When I sat in on Clara Day’s grade 4 class, I was inspired by how much fun the children were having! Clara said, “It is a good thing to have a writing system. It is standardized for all the other dialects, so we can understand each other all over the ISR and in Nunavut. I explain to the students, as soon as they are in grade 4 – 6, that we have our own writing system, and like in French, certain alphabets will sound different from the ones in English. We have games and contests, where we break up syllables, and races towards recognizing words. They see it a lot on the board and in their worksheets so they are usually very good at it."