Reflections and memories

MALACHI ARREAK

I have made a new start this year, and I want to adhere to my late mother’s advice to respect and care for relatives, and to never spite anyone in case I do the same thing I spited them for.

It has come to pass that I have not respected my mother’s wishes and this has hurt my siblings and relatives. I apologize. It came to a point where alcohol was affecting my judgment. I would like to lead a sober life now.

Enough of my personal reflections, I am writing to fulfill the promises I made to my mother regarding a sober life, as well as to pass along the knowledge and experience I have accumulated over the years.

I have reflected on all of the memories churning around my head and will attempt to convey some of the optimistic dreams Inuit negotiators had, while contemplating the balance between undefined rights and a set of land and resource provisions.

The government had and still has no intention of including any social provisions in a land claim. The one socially related article ended up outside of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement because of the insistence of the government. It was accepted by the leaders once they received assurances of the creation of Nunavut.

Five issues still haunt me today — ones I knew would lead to some of the more difficult clashes after the agreement was ratified. But my politicians threw these issues out the door once the creation of the territory of Nunavut was confirmed.

The five issues are: free government access to Inuit-owned land in less than two years, IIBA coverage of the whole territory (the selections of large known deposits hardened the government’s heart), the percentage of the interest accruable to the capital, selections of lands within the Queen Elizabeth Islands (government would not accept archaeological evidence that showed occupation during the past 100 years, due to the vast petroleum resources), real property taxation and the Contwoyto Lake boundary change. (we knew there were diamonds there, but didn’t know of the deal to excise Lac De Gras so that the Northwest Territories and Canada would develop the first diamond mine.

All of the archaeological evidence collected showed Copper Eskimo sites, so John Parker’s deal was the more surprising. It almost led to the collapse of the agreement.

This, again, is a historical perspective of one who was there, fighting like hell for ancestral lands, but being so young that my opinion wasn’t always accepted. Oh well. This is about what we dreamed of as we negotiated the lands and the provisions for the Inuit of Nunavut.

Visions

I started in the stages of the land-selection process, although I kept my visitations to the main table negotiations ongoing while in school. I would make some arguments to the negotiators during the caucuses, and it was always a thrill to hear it stated to the feds. I have always enjoyed debates.

During the two years it took to compile and record all of the areas of interest to the Inuit, it was the actual work with the elders and the people in the communities that was the most eye-opening for me. I had left for the South during the beginning of my teenage years because the education in the North was not challenging enough and a bursary beckoned at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario.

I guess the youth of today have not had the opportunity to know of the varied visions and dreams that their fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles had for Nunavut and the reasons why Inuit selected the lands. I would like to convey just some of the Inuit visions for development, so that this generation may plan their education for the next five to 10 years.

Some of the visions held by the Inuit in the communities were far encompassing, both in their breadth and length. Others were selected only for their job-creation possibilities. A lot of the visions related to the money Inuit would receive, which could then be used for developing the lands. All of the politicians to date have only created their own little fiefdoms, with the majority of the positions held by non-beneficiaries.

Tourism, infrastructure development, non-renewable development, cultural centres, private schools and future agricultural possibilities were discussed. These also included areas that Inuit could use as platforms for federal responsibilities, such as SAR (search and rescue), fisheries patrols and boundary patrols.

As well, the idea was that 20 years down the road, we could have Inuit pilots, SAR technicians, rangers, doctors and lawyers to deal with these responsibilities. We envisioned that we could use the latest technology, such as the V-22 Osprey, hover craft, GPS, satellite phones, ports for ships and fishing vessels and Inuit language computers.

We also envisioned the development of Inuit-owned land parcels, which would involve the largest number of employees and allow the communities to become more self-sufficient by developing their own economic opportunities. An example is the proposed Isabella Bay national wildlife area. The Inuit selected an area for the creation of a road, a whale watching site, a lodge site and an area for kayaks and boats. Most of the vessels envisioned would be non-polluting.

Certain parcels were selected for non-renewable resources, mainly on speculation, since there were no geological maps of certain areas. This was due to the magnetic anomalies experienced in these sites by the Inuit vessels.

As well, Inuit knew of the basic minerals and, therefore, when a geologist pinpointed the relationships between them and the sought-after minerals, Inuit would state where they had found those types of outcrops and indicator minerals.

The majority were chosen for conservation and continued use by the Inuit. Most if not all of these sites had been occupied for generations. The other usages envisioned were cultural centres and private schools — cultural centres to teach the youth and practise traditional life for the viewing of others, including areas where visitors could make a small tool.

Private schools were envisioned for the best of the Inuit youth, away from the distractions and vices of the communities, where they could learn Inuit Qaujimajatuqangigit.

For all of you QQ’ers, this meant learning social history, sociology, ideology, philosophy, biology, behavioural biology, palaeontology (ancient bones), astronomy, meteorology, psychiatry, botany, geology, archaeology, physiology and my favourites: mythology and genealogy. All of these would be on top of Western educational requirements. I am probably forgetting some-ologies.

Inuit were never really specialists like the agrarian cultures of the West. Of course, we knew about things like geology, which related to the environment, as well as what types of rocks would induce the greatest growth. The education would not only be theoretical, but also physical. It would include traditional family secret training, such as martial arts, hunting skills, secret techniques, traditional caching and curing techniques.

The possibilities we foresaw, not only for Inuit development, but also within the bureaucracy, were for positions such as doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, counsellors, mechanics, pilots, electricians, surveyors, biologists, botanists, environmental technicians, scientists, chemists, geologists, computer programmers, orthodontists, GIS technicians, wildlife officers, police officers, patrol officers, welders and other technical positions.

The onus is on Inuit youth to get educated, because the negotiators knew that we would have to wait a generation before we could have our own bureaucracy. Good educational planning is important for everyone, but we are still a Third World territory in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

The educational system has vastly improved from the time of my youth, but there is still not enough emphasis on academic curriculum during the younger grades. Only in Grade 10 do they introduce science. In my youth, science was an everyday affair, especially biology, astronomy and meteorology from the elders.

Inuit would have liked to have had more hard-line provisions in relation to government positions, to be forced to apprentice Inuit, so that after two or three years, we could get rid of the transients, including all technical positions within NTI and the RIAs. Unfortunately for our young Inuit, we could not overturn the Constitution and impose severe training requirements, nor could we force other social changes that, if implemented, would have completely changed the entire government structure. All of them are imported and it will take several years to change them to meet our challenges.

Change is slow, especially within a bureaucracy such as the federal government and particularly DIAND. (Dept. of Imbeciles, Agrarians, Nitwits and Dinosaurs, is how we referred to them. Even dinosaurs must eventually die, as an asteroid proved 65 million years ago.) Change can only happen when there is a revolution, such as we attempted to incite among our youth more than 10 years ago. But revolutions do not happen when people do not believe the ideology.

With all of the distractions today, it is hard to get our youth to vote. We should impose some sort of repercussion for not voting, especially among our youth, perhaps change the voting age to 19. Pierre Trudeau awoke my civil responsibilities, because he stated that voting is not a right, but a privilege.

As for Nunavut’s infrastructure problems, we knew that government would eventually balk and that is why we envisioned Inuit money providing infrastructure for a price, better known later as the P-3 policy. As well, we envisioned Inuit developing infrastructure within the communities, but that is already happening with the new Atuqtuaqvik program.

The most important use for this money may be in developing the Inuit-owned land parcels that have the best chances of succeeding and which can lead to job-creation for our communities.