Rangers shower books on Aupaluk

ODILE NELSON

Summer reading for Aupaluk’s school children brightened this week, thanks to the Canadian Rangers.

On July 2, the 2nd Canadian Ranger Patrol Group of Saint-Jean, Quebec presented tiny Taqsakallak School with 500 second-hand French children’s books.

The book collection was the result of “Project Aupaluk” – a massive book drive organized by the patrol group and sparked by a letter from one of the school’s primary students.

Major Claude Archambault, the acting commanding officer for the patrol group, said the Canadian Rangers often organize projects for their Junior Ranger divisions in Quebec.

But Project Aupaluk, he said, was the first large-scale project of its kind in Nunavik.

Archambault said he and his group, which has conducted summer camps for the children of Nunavik for the past seven years, were happy to be of service to the community of 150.

“I think when we received the letter from the kids from Aupaluk we knew the cause was a good cause. Anything like helping education is worthwhile to put some effort into it,” Archambault said.

The project began simply enough. In April, a letter from Aupaluk arrived at the patrol group’s headquarters. The letter, signed by young Quppa Cain, on behalf of Grade 3 and 4 students, asked the Rangers if they could help gather French books for the school.

“I am a young Inuk from Aupaluk. My friends and I are in the 3rd and 4th grades. We are starting to learn French. We love to read. But we don’t have many French books in our library because our school board must buy books in French, in English, and in Inuktitut. It doesn’t take much money to fill bookshelves with French books. Could you please help us?” the short letter read.

But instead of writing a cheque to buy books, the Rangers decided to ask the residents around Saint-Jean to donate second-hand books.

On June 1 the Rangers began installing collection points around Saint-Jean. By June 20, the patrol had collected more than 2,000 used French books. Most are children’s books but the collection also contains encyclopedias.

“We had great success in book recuperation. We received many more than we were expecting and we’ll probably forward the rest to other communities in the North,” Archambault said.

Archaumbault, Chief Warrant Officer Rick Temple and Captain Daniel Lamoureux, the officer in charge of the project, presented a quarter of those books to Aupaluk this week.

The Canadian Rangers began as a separate component of the Canadian Armed Forces’ Reserves in 1942 to watch the coastline in British Columbia. The first Canadian Rangers were generally outdoor workers who would perform military surveillance while going about their daily jobs.