My adventure with Thomasie Naglingiq

In 1961, I received an invitation to attend the nomination convention for the Progressive Conservative Party in Yellowknife. I had no idea what such a convention was all about. Until that time in my life, I had never attended a meeting of any sort.

I was asked to bring an Inuk with me, all expenses paid. The very idea of traveling all the way to Yellowknife was a major journey in those days. It would take a minimum of three days.

I met with a group of Inuit to see who might be interested in going with me. Without any hesitation whatever, everyone said I should take Thomas Naglingiq. Thomasie had a fair knowledge of English. He agreed and off we went, a 10-hour flight by DC-4 to Montreal, a Trans Canada Airways DC-8 jet to Edmonton and a DC-6 to Yellowknife.

What we didn’t know at that time is that the organizers had decided to give the delegates from the eastern Arctic 50 convention votes each – 100 votes altogether, and more than all the others put together.

We were absolutely overwhelmed by the huge welcome we received at the airport. We couldn’t understand why we suddenly became so popular.

Meals, drinks, invitations to houses – it was wonderful. We were so naive – the candidates wanted our votes.

Thomasie enjoyed the fame and conducted himself with dignity. He played the role very well. Later he told me he had no idea what all the commotion was about.

Then came the candidates’ speeches. John Scott led off with the usual PC platform. Then came Gene Rhéaume. He spoke about the North and communities we knew and people we knew. He had to have our vote.

The difficulty came when we had to write the name of the candidate on the ballot slip – 50 times each. Thomasie could hardly manage and I couldn’t spell “Rhéaume” for the life of me.

But in the end we made it and Rhéaume became the candidate for the PCs in the Northwest Territories, in the newest and largest riding in Canada and in the world.

He lost the election to Tibbie Hardy, the widow of the former MP for the Mackenzie. But he won the next election only a year later.

We had a wonderful adventure. We saw a lot of Canada and Thomasie often talked about it. It was a historic time in Canada.

Thomasie never did get involved in politics. I was bitten by the bug and remained active for some years.

Thomasie, on the other hand, married his life-long companion, Natsiapik, and raised a big family.

I buried my old friend this week. His family, friends and grandchildren came out to pay respect to a fine man of the North.

Bryan Pearson
Iqaluit