Posted on February 17, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

Inuit artifacts at the NV

“It takes a village to raise a child.”

This African proverb reflects the emphasis African cultures place on family and community.

But what exactly is a village and how does it operate for the collective good of its citizens?

I decided to get a few answers to this question by taking my students on a fact-finding mission to the town hall in Kangiqsujuaq. Up here, the building is referred to as the NV, short for Northern Village. Having served 9 years as an elected official back home, I have some sense of how communities work but I was eager to learn how northern communities function and was particularly interested in having my students get a firsthand look at the inner workings of the place they call home.

Back in my high school days, we took a class called civics. Civics derives from the Latin word civicus, meaning relating to a citizen. We also took Latin and French. At the time, like thousands of students before us, we wondered why we had to take such boring subjects.
I can see you old-timers nodding your heads. We were so fortunate back in pre-historic times to take such interesting classes as woodworking, drafting, art, music, home economics, and lots of gym classes.

On a bitterly cold morning last week, we walked up to the NV to meet with Paula (not her real name), the secretary-treasurer. When we arrived, she was tied up, so the receptionist chatted with the students. The receptionist in any office is crucial to the smooth running of any business. Eventually, Paula showed up and escorted our entourage to Council Chambers. It is a beautiful room filled with windows, sunlight, Inuit art and optimism.

Initially, my class was much more interested in the adjustable swivel chairs where the councilors sit for meetings, but gradually, Paula had them completely engaged.

The village employs seventy people. Besides the administrative officials and support staff, the village employs drivers for the water trucks, sewage trucks, oil trucks, and garbage trucks. It also hires people to drive the two community transit buses, and the people who run the municipally owned gym, swimming pool and arena.

I was very curious about electricity generation. Being a remote community, I thought that keeping the power on, especially in the dead of winter, was pretty important. We learned that Hydro Quebec operates the power generating station. Electricity is produced by diesel powered generators. There are massive storage silos on the edge of town that hold all of the oil and gas needed to run the community for the winter months. In the spring, tankers will come into Wakem Bay to re-supply.

On more than one occasion, I wondered what would happen if the power went out for an extended period. Paula told me that their EMO (Emergency Measures Operation) plan would be to bring all the residents to the gymnasium. Nine hundred bodies in one room would bring the temperature up several degrees! When I thought about it afterwards, I grinned to myself. The Inuit lived on the land for centuries without electricity. If there was one place I should feel safe, it is here among the Inuit, the ultimate survivors.

I felt compelled to ask Paula about the village’s most pressing problem. I wasn’t surprised with her response. Alcohol, particularly bootlegging, is a serious issue in northern communities. To be fair, it is also a problem in southern communities.

I was very pleased that, without prompting, Paula told my students that learning to speak and write the English language was crucial if they were ever to consider working at the NV. It is the official working language of the village.

On Valentines Day, I asked the students to write a short thank you note to Paula and the staff for giving us their time. I hand delivered them to the NV on my way home at the end of the day.

It takes children to raise a village.

Someday my students could very well be part of a team that looks after its citizens.

Have a great week.

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Posted on February 13, 2020 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Mr. Valentin

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Thomas Merton

I was walking past the art room the other day at school and saw this very interesting “tin man.” Of course, I immediately thought about the Wizard of Oz and the lyrics to the old America tune, Tin Man: “But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t, didn’t already have.” Of course, now I have a serious earworm as I hum this song all day.

I marvel at people who are artistic like our ultra- talented art teacher, Zina. The “tin man” is her creation. I’m hoping to tell her story one of these days. I can’t wait to hear about her life path which took her from Russia to Kangiqsujuaq.

One would think that a person who has a bit of musical ability and a smidgeon of writing ability would have a small grain of artistic ability. You would be wrong. I remember playing Pictionary when we were younger. It was played in teams. You were handed a clue and asked to draw a picture. Your partner was then asked to tell what the image was. Anytime I played, my partner and our opponents would end up in gales of laughter as my rendering of an elephant might resemble a cloud or a big blob of cookie dough.

Back in elementary school, I loved Sister Mary Roderick’s art class. I still have my old report cards. She was a wonderful, kind, patient, and charitable woman. She knew I didn’t possess an ounce of ability but always gave me high marks for effort and enthusiasm.

I put away my paint brushes, scissors and glue for many years, but they surfaced again when my own children arrived on the scene. They were (are) quite talented and it was apparent to all that this skill set came from their mother’s side of the family.

Another generation passed without the indignity of me having to draw anything but conclusions.

Then my grandchildren came along and since then, I have spent countless hours watching them in awe as their creativity spills forth. “Bup (my nickname), why don’t we draw a dinosaur?” I run down to the bathroom and grab a mirror so that I can get the image as precise as possible. Thank god for Google. I ask Google how to draw a dinosaur and just like that, I become a burgeoning Picasso.

“And why, this rather lengthy and boring dissertation of my life as a non-artist?” you might ask.

As part of my duties as grade 5/6 teacher, I am supposed to teach art. When I was being interviewed for the job, I wasn’t concerned about the isolation of the north, the bitter cold winter winds, or the threat of a polar bear attack. No. What struck fear in my heart was the knowledge that I would once again have to humiliate myself by laying bare my ineptness in teaching art.

Thankfully, the charity of Sister Mary Roderick endures because a few of my fellow teachers have come to my aide and routinely give me ideas for art classes.

You can only imagine the plethora of Valentine’s Day flotsam and jetsam floating around my classroom this week.

Love is in the air. It is also on the walls and the floor and in the garbage can.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Posted on February 11, 2020 under Faces in the Crowd with no comments yet

Bernice MacDonald photo

THIS STORY WAS FIRST POSTED IN 2016. IT WAS ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE INTERVIEWS. WILLEMINA PASSED AWAY LAST WEEK. HER STORY IS WORTH SHARING AGAIN. A GREAT LADY AND A TRUE HERO… AND ONE OF THE WITTIEST PEOPLE I’VE EVER MET!

On aging. “I spend my days the same way I used to. Everything just takes me twice as long.”

Meet Willemina Hendriske MacDonald.

She was born in Zutphen, Holland but spent most of her childhood in S’Gravenzande. Her home birth, with the assistance of a midwife, was filled with drama. At a crucial point in a tricky delivery, her father fainted. With no one else in the house, the midwife was busy attending to the mother and father of the newborn! A doctor was beckoned. He didn’t think the baby would survive. “I surprised the doctors back then and I have been surprising them ever since.”

Her brothers remember her as “a quiet girl playing with dolls, knitting embroidering and roller skating”. Their father died when Willemina was only 13. Growing up without a father was difficult on the family. As a teenager she filled her hours learning how to play the piano and was also an avid tennis player. Other sports included swimming, dancing and field hockey.

Most teenagers find it distracting when it comes to study time. When she was 14, the war broke out and it was very difficult to study at night with bomber aircrafts flying overhead. The Germans occupied their town and they were forced to move farther north.
She decided to learn Esperanto and quickly picked up French, German and English. Asked about her fluency in French, Willemina said, “It wasn’t the best but I wouldn’t starve in France.”

After completing grade 12, she took a secretarial course in The Hague and gained employment in Hagen. The Germans entered the Municipal offices where she worked, one day, in search of the registration lists of all the male citizens that they planned to utilize for the war industry in Germany. Risking life, she and fellow workers carted off all the records to a safe home. After the war, this deed was recognized as an act of heroism.

She was forced to flee once again. She remembers this as a time of constant fear. “The last year was hellish. I was frightened all the time until the liberation.” When the Canadians showed up in their town, any available room had to be used to house the soldiers. Jim MacDonald from Nova Scotia stayed in their house. He endeared himself immediately to her family, bringing fresh raisin bread which was all but extinct during the war years.

They decided that they were meant for each other, but she was a Protestant and he was a Catholic. By the time she finished studying how to become a Catholic, she knew more about Catholicism than she had discovered about her future husband.

She travelled to North America with their first-born, who was six months old at the time. The ride across the Atlantic was nausea inducing. She landed in New York and then went by train to St. John, New Brunswick where she rejoined Jim. They settled on the Dunmore Road in Antigonish County. For the first time in years, Willemina had found tranquility.

When she was only 45, and with seven children at home, Jim passed away. In short order she got her driver’s license and a job with the Municipality of the County of Antigonish where she worked until retirement. She was a tireless volunteer for many, many organizations including 4H and Club 60, to mention but a few.

Willemina is a professed political junkie. When asked about the possibility of Donald Trump becoming President of the U.S., she glared and said, “ He needs a good swift kick in the ass.”

She has a keen sense of humour. She suggested that one of the keys to a long life is surviving two heart attacks!

Reflecting on a long life well, lived, she opined, “I loved my family and I loved my community. I tried to do my very best. I also felt it was important to give something back after Canada liberated Holland.

It would appear that the debt has been paid in full.

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