Gela Pitsiulak: The strength of a dream

MIRIAM HILL

Sometimes by trying to help others you end up helping yourself.

Gela Pitsiulak and her husband, Sam, had a vision. They dreamed of building a healing centre near Kimmirut where anyone needing support could go and get away from it all. The facility was to be built in the area where Sam’s family lived before moving to Kimmirut.

But Sam died in a plane crash in the summer of 2000 before construction began on the building. Now the dream is coming to fruition.

The octagonal building stands about 11 kilometres south of Kimmirut, at Ittinaapik. It is completed on the outside, but needs some finishing touches on the inside.

Completing the project has allowed Gela to work through her own issues. Left with five children, Sam’s sudden death was hard on Gela, and her grief was compounded because she had supported him though an illness years earlier.

“For three or four years, the doctors told him that he wouldn’t get better. He had involuntary muscle spasms,” she said, remembering the dark days.

“He couldn’t function anymore. He couldn’t do anything and the doctors told us they weren’t able to help, and that he probably would spend the rest of his life like that. But we refused to accept that and said, ‘No.’”

After that first bout, Sam did get better, and he was able to get back to normal life after about three years.

“After that, we said we really want to get this camp built for people who need support or who have no hope or who just need rest or to get away from life,” she said. “We knew that was very important because that is what kept us going.”

After Sam’s death, Gela had to decide whether she could go on with the dream. She said she felt overwhelmed by his death and the fact she didn’t have any experience in construction. In her struggle to make up her mind about what to do, she met people willing to offer assistance.

“I just tell them about the dream and people say, ‘Oh, we’ll help, we’ll help.’”

A couple from New Zealand and another from Belleville, Ont., who Gela met at a Christian conference in the South, came to the community and helped her build the structure this summer.

An architect volunteered to take Sam’s drawing of the building and make professional blueprints, and private businesses and individuals in Kimmirut also provided free labour.

Most of the lumber was already at the camp because her husband had transported it there by snowmobile before he died.

“A day or two after he piled up the last board he said, ‘That’s it, my work is done.’” A day or two later, he died.

The out-of-pocket costs, for things like building materials and airplane tickets, even though the tickets were subsidized by First Air, amounted to between $90,000 and $100,000. The group requested a $10,000 Brighter Futures grant and received $10,000 from the United Church Millennium Mission fund.

The eight-sided structure is about 32 feet wide, with eight 12-foot-long walls.

“We thought it should be almost like a tent or an igloo, but to do that is hard, so it’s as close as we were able to get,” she explained.

Once completed, the centre, which can be reached by boat or foot, will be a place for elder and youth programs, courses in cultural and social skills and different aspects of healing.

“It is for people who want to learn the basic skills of sealskin cleaning, or skills as a way to connect to their culture, to show who we are,” she said. “When we learn about another culture, it helps us to look inside of ourselves.”

She hopes to have the centre finished this summer, complete with insulation and drywall. In the long-term, she’d like to see sleeping and eating areas constructed, along with outhouses.

All the work done so far was achieved without government support. But as the project grows, Gela said, they will need more outside dollars. “Now that I feel we have a good solid foundation, it will be much easier to knock on their door.”

As Gela worked through the loss of her husband, she said, there were times when she felt like giving up. But someone always crossed her path and helped her continue.

“We thought of Sam a lot while we were building,” she said. “Little things kept reminding us. I think he’d be very pleased and I think he’d say he’s proud of me, too.”