New film tells of Nunavik co-op movement

It was a few days before the annual general meeting of the Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec in 2016.

The board members were gathered around a table with staff running in and out with reports, audited financial statements and everything detailing the inner workings of the then-nearly 50-year-old organization of co-operatives in Nunavik’s 14 communities.

John Houston, a writer and filmmaker, and son of the artist James Houston, who played a vital role in co-op development across the North, was there to listen.

He was searching for a story, commissioned by the federation to tell its story for the 50th anniversary.

“Here they are, busy, busy, busy in the run-up to the AGM,” Houston says over the phone from Halifax. “They have this great big agenda to plow through and someone says, ‘Hey, hold up, something is on my mind, it’s bugging me, and if I mention it now, it might help me pay attention during the meeting.’”

He shared that a couple of past presidents of the board were having trouble getting enough money together for their grocery bills. What do we all think of this, he asked the board.

The members went around the table, pushing the button for their microphone, saying they didn’t like the sound of that—these people had worked hard for the co-ops for years. It just wasn’t right.

A solution, it seemed, would take some time though, says Houston.

Then Sarollie Weetaluktuk of Inukjuak jumped up: “Firstly, we really care about this and second, we’ve got a loaded agenda,” Houston recalls him saying. “I’ve got a method if you want to listen.”

He had everyone decide on two dollar figures: the lowest amount that would be worth giving and a high figure at which point criticisms of a “golden ticket” might start flying around.

They decided on those figures, added them together and divided by two to come up with a reasonable sum to offer their predecessors to keep food on their plates.

“Within about 10 minutes, they had it nailed and those fellows would be taken care of as long as they live,” says Houston.

With all of the stories and content Houston gathered, this one didn’t even make the cut.

Atautsikut/Leaving None Behind premiered on Sept. 17 at FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, with 17 people from the federation in the audience.

Although the film is a documentary, there’s no narrator and Houston describes it as more of an oral history: the storytellers are the focus, woven together by an ongoing conversation between himself and Aliva Tulugak, who co-wrote A New Way of Sharing: a personal history of the cooperative movement in Nunavik to commemorate its 40th anniversary.

In the lead-up to the AGM in 2016, the meeting itself and at the 2017 gala, Houston had access to the people who sparked the co-op movement and kept it rolling in Nunavik. And they were all in one place.

From there, he made plans to visit a few communities to hear more.

Harry Surusila, a Puvirnituq elder, is one of the voices in John Houston’s documentary about the co-op movement in Nunavik. (Photo courtesy of  John Houston/Atautsikut Production Ltd.)

“Some people really have a knack for bringing something to life and I started to hear storytellers, someone like Sarah Grey of Kangirsuk, and certainly others, it all just started to come to life,” says Houston.

Grey was a long-time employee and supporter of the co-op movement, along with her husband Elijah.

Kangirsuk was quickly added to the list of stops.

While there, Houston got lucky catching Zebedee Nungak, the writer, advocate and signatory of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, even if just for an hour, while he was weathered in.

“He’s part of the backbone of the film: the one hour he gave us was so powerful,” says Houston.

“That’s kind of how it worked, feeling our way through and getting a lot of help from the federation, Aliva Tulugak, and the board of directors of the federation at the time.”

Alicie Kasudluak Niviaxie of Inukjuak appears in the film. Here, she and director John Houston admire a carving from his collection, made by her late grandfather, Conlucy Nayoumealook, and presented to John’s late father James Houston in 1948. (Photo courtesy of John Houston/Atautsikut Production Ltd.)

From about a thousand pages of transcript and hours of footage, the film was cut into 60 minutes.

The subjects speak about the fur trade and being suppressed by the companies in charge, with no way of getting ahead. “We had to start co-ops, there was no choice if we wanted to be our own people,” Houston recounts hearing, over and over.

“There was nothing casual about this. This was the revelation to me I guess, them explaining how each step was essential.”

In 1967 the various co-ops federated to create a chain of organizations that could share sealift orders, an office in the south, and staff to focus on procurement for all communities, rather than each co-op acting on its own. Truly, together they were better.

The film borrows its title from the federation’s motto: Atautsikut/Together, or leaving none behind.

“Not to be skeptical but there are a lot of mottos today. Every rapacious, predatory corporation has a feel-good sweet model and they lay off 1,600 employees and turns out they didn’t need to, it just made for an $11-billion profit. There is a lot of that stuff going around and those people all have a really sweet motto,” says Houston.

He returns to the story of the federation’s past presidents that the board swiftly decided to support.

“They’re not making a big deal about it, there’s no media there, they just do it,” he says. “Leave no one behind. That was the moment that I fell in love. I fell in love with that story and with those people.”