At TRC hearings, students recall the hard years

Filmmaker Jobie Weetaluktuk, a former residential school student, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Inukjuak about his memories of the time he spent boarding at a hostel so he could attend the Port Harrison federal day school. (PHOTO COURTESY OF J. WEETALUKTUK)

Jobie Weetaluktuk can’t remember how long he spoke at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Inukjuak on March 14.

He only remembers that once he started talking, a flood of memories and emotions came out.

Weetaluktuk is one of the fortunate former residential school students who say they experienced more good than bad at the Port Harrison federal day school in Inukjuak.

Commissioners heard from Weetaluktuk and about 40 others March 14 in Inukjuak at the start of the commission’s first tour of northern communities.

Over the next two months, commissioners will gather statements from northern and Inuit residential school students to be archived in a national research centre.

“For me, [residential school] was more positive, but I didn’t suffer the abuses that some of my peers did,” Weetaluktuk told Nunatsiaq News. “I noticed many of them didn’t show up [to the hearing], and I know some who, in their hearts, want to tell their story but it’s just too difficult.”

Still, Weetaluktuk didn’t have it easy. As a five-year-old boy playing on the beach at Kangirsukallak — his childhood home 30 kilometres south of Inukjuak — he cried as he heard his mother and aunt talking about the children going to school.

He cried all the way to Inukjuak, then called Port Harrison, in the Peterhead boat as he travelled to his new home in a hostel next to the federal day school.

There, Weetaluktuk was thrown into the company of complete strangers, who spoke a language he had never heard before — English.

“When you’re displaced from your family… as a child, there are lots of little things working against you,” he said.

The worse thing that Weetaluktuk recalls was when the hostel “mother” made him eat his own vomit after he heaved up her cooking.

“But compared to some of the stuff my peers went through, that feels minor,” he said.

Jennifer Hunt-Poitras, one of the commission’s Inuit sub-commissioners, accompanied the hearings when the commission visited Inukjuak and Kuujjuaq March 14 to March 16.

Hunt-Poitras called the first week of the northern tour “pretty incredible” because of the depth of the statements given.

In Kuujjuaq, one former residential school student told commissioners how his 11 years away from home completely severed his relationship with his parents and family. Since leaving school and home in Nunavut, the man said he copes with his grief by repressing his emotions.

Nunavik’s former students tell a slightly different story than aboriginal students elsewhere in Canada, Hunt-Poitras said.

Nunavimmiut didn’t attend residential schools quite as long as students in other regions, she said, but because many came from directly from the land, they faced a more difficult transition at school.

“Many of these Inuit students came out of a very traditional lifestyle,” she said. “They didn’t have the ability to go home very often so they struggled with loneliness and discrimination.”

Another unique part of the Nunavik hearings was their language. Nearly every presenter spoke in Inuktitut.

“Because most presented in their own language, the ability to convey how they were impacted was that much stronger,” Hunt-Poitras said.

That contrasts to the residential school experience, where the ability to speak English meant opportunity for many, including Weetaluktuk.

“In some ways, I really appreciated school,” he said. “We knew it was important to learn English…. because the guys who spoke English were always the bosses.”

And Weetaluktuk went on to become his own boss. A filmmaker, now living in Victoria, B.C., he has used his skill to explore the residential school experience, as seen in his short film “Kakalakkuvik.”

Weetaluktuk called the commission hearings an important part of the healing process for Inukjuamiut, although he says former schoolmates are in different stages of recovery.

“This isn’t over yet,” Weetaluktuk said. “Those who had been molested and raped have been devastated. They’re the ones who hurt too much to even tell their stories.

“For some people, this will never go away, the pain will always be there.”

The commissoners visit Igloolik on March 23 and March 24 and Iqaluit on March 25, before moving onto the Kitikmeot region mid-April. To check the schedule or to arrange to make a statement, visit www.trc.ca.