“How everything had changed”

Natsiapik Nagliniq blends into the crowd gathering at Iqaluit’s Nunatta Sunaqutangit Museum. As audience members take their seats in expectation of tonight’s event, Nagliniq rises from a wooden chair facing the front of the room and takes her place on stage.

“When I was growing up, it seemed to be nice and pristine in those days,” she says. “We learned from our parents. They would tell us different things. It used to be good to learn different things.”

Nagliniq, 67, is the fourth of six speakers in the museum’s elders speakers series, which has been held monthly in the museum’s gallery since November.

“In late fall, early winter, when the ice started forming, we found out the seals would come up to the holes. There would be water coming through the holes. We went back to the father and mother and they said they are seals,” she says.

“The men would go hunting every day, unless it was Sunday,” she recalls. “When Monday came around, every day they would do different things. They would do the things they needed to do. Also, the women, every day they would do chores — sewing and drying the skins and pelts the men had caught.”

She pauses briefly, as though looking back through time. “They would put them on the ground and dry the skins above the qulliq. It would be used for everything from making food to household warmth. The qulliq was used every day in every way. It was our only tool. We used it to make water. That was the only way we could make water,” she says.

“There weren’t a lot of pails at all — one or two. They never seemed to be empty of water. There were not a lot of tea kettles, too. We used to get a lot of ice — it wasn’t that close. All winter, we had ice and we made water. In the summertime, we had water all the time,” she continues.

“When the men had caught game, they would be out for long periods of time. They would go to the traders’ camps. They would take seal and fox pelts to trade and go far away from Cape Dorset. They would take a long time.”

Originally from Cape Dorset, Nagliniq has lived in Iqaluit for many years.

“We didn’t have qallunat food, except for tobacco and tea. We used to get sweets, too, like candy and gum, but they wouldn’t last very long,” she says.

“Sometimes there were hard times. In the springtime, sometimes there was not a lot of game. Seals sometimes were not as plentiful,” she says. “Summertime came after spring. We went back to Cape Dorset and we would wait for the big boat, the Hudson’s Bay Company ship, and the Inuit would go there and help the Hudson’s Bay Company and unload it. We also went over there to have a medical checkup. We would get our chests X-rayed.”

She shifts slightly in her chair. “There were not many qallunat around. When we saw qallunat, we would be very scared of them. We never used to see men with beards. A lot of them had candy — they liked that. One candy was shared by all the children. One little gum was shared by us,” she says.

“When we went to the medical ship, we would get chest X-rays to find out if we had TB. They found out I had TB and my father had TB, so we had to go down South. A lot of us were taken from our camp. We were told to go. We went on a plane in springtime. It must have been April or May.”

She looks out into the crowd, their faces focused on hers. “That was the first time I saw a lot of qallunat. I didn’t know anything about qallunat cars, their food, clothes hanging to dry. The hospital we went to, there used to be a lot of wildlife by the hospital. Not far from the hospital was a huge garden and zoo. That was the first time we found out about certain things — French guys, Indians,” she says.

“It was completely different from the things I had known. The wildlife were tame — not afraid of the qallunat. Carriages, cars — they didn’t run away.”

She looks down again, to the spot in her lap she has been concentrating on all night. “When we went home, it was a very happy time for us. I was homesick a lot — we were down there for many years. We went home by ship. How everything had changed. Everybody was happy,” she says.

“I used to be happy a lot. I would miss qallunat food. At home, I used to want to go away a lot — to qallunat land. The things I used to eat were not around here at all. I missed the things I had gotten used to. They were no longer available, so I used to want to go back. There were a lot of good nurses down there. I used to miss the ones who were good to us.

“There were a lot of good Inuit patients. Because of the food and the cleanliness, when I went back here, they still lived in sod houses. I went back to sod houses. That’s why I wanted to go back down South. To see pretty things. There was no sink to wash everything, no water. There was water, but it would take a long time to make it. The things I used to find good didn’t seem good any more.”

She looks up again, and becomes philosophical.

“People go through different things,” she says. “People experience different things and we learn that way. Once somebody tries to really think about it, we have different ways of doing things — some good, some bad. It has always been like that and it will always be like that.”