Larry Watt holds a copy of his biography of his father, the late Johnny Watt. (Photo courtesy of Nathalie Poirier, Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre)
Writing Johnny Watt’s life story was moving experience for his son
‘He was the bedrock of our family and the community,’ who opened up during interviews, says Larry Watt
Updated October 11 at 4:05 p.m.
Born into a traditional Inuit household, Johnny Watt rose to become one of the most prominent political figures in Nunavik.
He died two years ago, and, as he was nearing the end of his life his son, Larry Watt, saw an opportunity to put his father’s story down on paper before it was lost to the ages.
The result is the book Johnny Watt: His Life, His World, His Ways, based on more than 30 hours of interviews Watt did with his son and the book’s co-writer, Robyn Bryant.
It’s important that “future generations will be able to have knowledge of the life experience my father had,” said Larry Watt.
“He was the bedrock of our family and of the community, and I felt it was important for me to share his stories because none of my family members had any time to do it,” he said in an interview from his office at the Tulattavik Health Centre in Kuujjuaq, where he is the centre’s director.
The book was written from two interview sessions Larry and Bryant had with Johnny. They were done over the course of two weeks, and collected hours upon hours of memories from Johnny’s life story.
At the time they interviewed Johnny, he had retired from public life.
“We were very fortunate for him to agree to being interviewed for so many hours,” said Watt. “He wasn’t willing to share his story just to anyone.”
Especially opening up “for my co-writer, who is qallunaaq [non-Inuit], I think it was great for him to do that.”
For most of his life, Johnny Watt did not bring his work home with him. From Larry’s perspective, his father was always a calm and collected man.
So when during the interviews many details of his father’s struggles emerged — and in some cases, his strong reaction to them even years later — it came as a surprise.
For example: “When he was talking about the E-8 disks, when the government used them to identify us,” recalled Larry, “he started telling us the story and he threw his E-8 disk on the coffee table.
“I had never seen him being aggressive like that.”
The system of E-disks — known as the time as the Eskimo identification system — was carried out by the federal government from the early 1940s through the late 1970s.
Each Inuk was assigned an identification number on a disk, which was used for interactions with the government. No other Canadians were required to use that system.
That, and also when Johnny talked about his dogs being killed by RCMP officers when he was young, is when he showed emotions his son had never seen before.
“That side of the life he experienced, I never felt it until I saw him tell the story.”
It meant a lot to Larry to have his father open up to him.
“From there, I respected him even more, because he put a lot of these emotions on the sideline,” Larry said. “The bad experiences did not weigh him down for what he had to do.
“Over the years, I didn’t feel any tension, any aggravations within our household, even though he was going through all these changes.”
Johnny Watt lived most of his life in Kuujjuaq, where he and his wife, Louisa, had six children.
His involvement in the Kuujjuaq community was invaluable.
He helped the community during a famine in the 1940s when he worked for the Hudson’s Bay Co. and distributed food rations to people along the Koksoak River; he was a pilot helping ships going up the river; he was the first Inuk mayor from 1973 to 1991; and he held a top position with Makivvik Corp.
“When I look back,” Larry said, “he did all these things in a calm way, in a very intelligent way, he made it all look really easy.”
He said “most of the interviews were done in Inuktitut. So I had to translate it [for] my co-writer in English, and then we wrote the book.”
The translation process was difficult, and “we had to make sure what he meant was well conveyed in the book,” Larry said.
In June 2021, during the final steps of production for the book, Johnny died in Kuujjuaq’s Tusaajiapik Elders’ Home at the age of 94.
For Larry, the book grew even more important for him.
“When he was at the elders’ home and we did our last interview, I was so relieved that the story was complete,” he said.
After that, Watt and Bryant needed to build a meaningful book out of it.
The book is designed so all chapters are concerned with independent topics, instead of writing it in a chronological order.
“We wanted to make sure schools could use the book for modules,” Larry said.
The book is available online on the Avataq Cultural Institute website, at publicationsnunavik.com or at the Tivi Galleries in Kuujjuaq.
Note: This article was updated to include the publicationsnunavik.com website as a place to purchase the book.
I hope it inspires him to write……”Larry get some Steven King inspiration and write a book about Little People”(and not about Roffles) little people. How they stole a dog team or surviving on an large island that belongs to them….etc
The honorable gentleman I have heard encouraged the leaders of the succeeding generation to take on the job/work of representing the people locally and regionally. They have done well with in their roles in the political and business matters – difficult work that requires/demands the best of men and women.
Johnny Watt was a fine man, a gentleman. He was one of the more dedicated to making a good future for Inuit of Nunavik. But I don’t agree that the ones he encouraged towards the next generation did well. What we have for leadership today, would make the dead turn over in their graves and be disappointed.