Success, age and ‘This Child’: Susan Aglukark takes Proust Questionnaire

Susan Aglukark is the happiest she has been in a while.

The popular singer is travelling across Canada for her 34-stop tour dedicated to the 30th anniversary of This Child — the album that made her the first Inuk artist to have a top-10 hit in Canada.

Any tour is a gruelling experience, but Aglukark is still happy.

“I’m the happiest right now, until the next time I’m the happiest,” she said.

Her tour started Feb. 28 and is set to conclude on July 6. She has three concerts to go.

A few hours before stepping on the stage in Glace Bay, N.S., Aglukark took some time to answer the Proust Questionnaire.

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?

I think perfect happiness is unattainable. There is joy.

These 30 years have brought me back the joy that I’d forgotten, and it’s such a privilege to rediscover it.

I think that’s a very special kind of happiness. But perfect happiness, I don’t know what that is.

But, you know, I’m a mother — having a child is pretty close.

What is your greatest achievement?

That I can still do this work, and make a living at it.

I know that when people hear Susan Aglukark, the instant assumption is success and therefore wealth.

But my husband and I have been partners in this from the beginning and 30 years later we can still do this.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re incredibly exhausted all the time, but we still love what we do. And I think that’s success.

Which living person do you most admire?

My mother. She’s just an incredible human being.

Which living person do you most despise?

My abuser, the pedophile who still lives in our communities.

[In 2018, Aglukark testified on the final day of Nunavut hearings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and named her childhood abuser in Rankin Inlet]

What is your current state of mind?

I am very, very grateful. I mean, I get to do a 30th anniversary tour of an unexpected success of a debut album.

I’m living a life I never imagined. I get to sing every night with my band, and I’m living a dream, and I’m just very grateful for that.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

You know, at my age, nothing. At this stage in my life, I don’t think about it.

I hit the stage in my life where this is as good as I get, and I love myself just the way that I am. I have nothing to prove to anybody.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

I’m always kind of apologizing. ‘Oh, sorry. Sorry, I said that. Sorry, I didn’t mean that.’

But again, I’m at a point in my life where I’ve learned to not hold back anymore, and so I say it less than I did before.

What is your greatest regret?

That I wasted so much time and energy on fear.

Once in front of God, what would you tell him?

I think I would ask, ‘Why do some things happen to some people?’

But also, that aside, ‘Thank you. I love my life. Thank you very much.’

Nunatsiaq News is borrowing the old Proust Questionnaire parlour game to get to know people who are in the news. If you know someone in your community who our readers should get to know by taking this questionnaire, let us know by email: editors@nunatsiaq.com.