A Half-Normal End

Basler BT-67. Kenn Borek Air.

The last day of cadets was June 2.  The cadets played sports & games in the gym; a fun way to finish the regular training year.  I apologized for not being allowed to organize a year end Field Training eXercise (FTX) in May.  There’s always next year.  The Department of National Defence also made the difficult decision to cancel all summer camps for the upcoming summer.  When will COVID-19 finally go away?     

High school final exams came and went without any issues.  The exams were written across three days.  My Social Studies students wrote exams and my guitar students completed a final performance test.  Report cards were also completed on time.

Kindergarten Graduation occurred on June 3, but only the parents & guardians of the students were allowed to attend.  The ceremony was held in the classroom.  I wasn’t there, but I can safely assume the students were happy to be moving on to Grade 1.  The same could be said for the parents & guardians. 

At the beginning of June, a Basler BT-67 plane, operated by Kenn Borek Air, regularly flew into Arctic Bay from Resolute to deliver 45-gallon barrels of gasoline.  Apparently, we had run out of gas for vehicles.  Or, the amount of gas left in the silos were dangerously low.

There are 5 large white gas silos at the Gas Station, but not all of them are for vehicles.  I think one is filled with fuel for airplanes.  I managed to photograph the BT-67 on June 4 as it was coming in to land.  I’m not sure how long the airlift operation will last, but it may be for a while.  The Government of Nunavut needs to draw up plans to build another gas silo, or two, otherwise, we may be in the same situation next year.  The people of Arctic Bay don’t want to end up in a Mad Max scenario.

Thank you, Resolute Bay & Kenn Borek Air, for giving us gas!

Teachers & students enjoyed a day of year-end activities on June 4.  The only downside was that we weren’t allowed to have a barbecue.

The festivities began in the late morning with an outdoor garbage cleanup around the school.  The snow melted a few weeks earlier, revealing a lot of discarded items on the ground.  Latex gloves and garbage bags were given out.  The cleanup lasted 35 minutes.  The land around the school looked more pristine.

The last hour of the day was devoted to a round robin of games.  The Events Committee organized 7 games and divided the student-body into 7 groups.  Half of the teachers would run the stations and the other half would supervise the groups.  High school students could join the groups or help the teachers running the stations.  The 7 activities were: GameX (dodgeball variant), Soccer, Relay Race, Jump Rope, Capture The Flag, Nakataq, and Cat & Mouse.

I supervised Nakataq.  It’s a throwing game where you try to knock a small rock off the top of an inuksuk.  I built 4 inuksuks behind the gym using large rocks.  The students used bean bags instead of rocks because I didn’t want the outdoor gym wall to be damaged.

The round robin began at 2:35pm.  Groups spent 10 minutes at each station.  I helped the students by passing back the bean bags they threw.  Everyone had fun.

The last day of school for students was Monday, June 7.  Students spent the day helping teachers clean their classrooms and deciding what to do with their school work.  High school students cleaned out their lockers.  Report cards were picked up and mailed out.  When the clock struck 3:35pm, the students were free until mid-August.  I wished them a safe & happy summer.

Tuesday, June 8 was the last day for teachers.  We spent most of the day making sure our classrooms were clean and all the furniture was moved to one corner.  Our floors would be cleaned over the summer.

A year end pizza & Nanaimo bar party was held in the Staff Room at 2pm.  The staff used this opportunity to thank and present parting gifts to the high school art teacher who was retiring after 14 years in Arctic Bay.  She received an ulu and a sewn purse bag.  She shared a few stories of her time in the community, thanked everyone for welcoming & supporting her, and vowed to come back for a visit when the time was right.

At the end of the presentation and short speeches, someone asked, “Who’ll be the most senior southerner in August?”  There was a short pause in the air and then everyone looked at me.  They were right.  I never thought that would happen.  I’ve only taught in Arctic Bay for 8 & a half years, but in the new school year, I’ll be the southerner with the most teaching experience in Inuujaq School.  I’ll have to be ready to answer orientation questions from new southern hires.  Maybe I’ll be like the art teacher and stay in Arctic Bay for 14 years.  Or, be like Frank, and stay for 33!

Everyone wished each other a safe & happy summer at the end of the party.  I locked my classroom and turned in my keys at the main office.  I would pick them up in August.

I left the community on June 10.  There were more passengers this time on the Canadian North plane.  There was only one person on the plane with me last year.  The plane flew towards Pond Inlet, passing Strathcona Sound, Baillarge Bay, and Elwin Inlet.  I was able to photograph these waterways because I was sitting on the left side of the plane.  I will use these pictures in the future to plan trips.  I want to explore Elwin Inlet because I only reached the entrance in 2020.  I’ll need to pull a qamutik packed with extra fuel cans to make the round trip.

The plane landed in Pond Inlet, picked up more passengers, and continued to Iqaluit.  The plane landed without difficulty.  I took a taxi to my brother’s apartment because I had to overnight.  I proceeded to Yummy Shawarma after dropping off my luggage.  The large beef shawarma tasted excellent.

I used the spare time I had to walk around Iqaluit on June 11.  My flight to Ottawa wasn’t until 5:25pm.  The weather was sunny & warm, but I still wore a jacket & toque.  Construction season had begun in the territorial capital.  I photographed a large residential complex being built on top of strong steel beams.  In Nunavut, buildings are suspended above the ground to avoid being damaged by permafrost.

The exterior of the Arctic College residence building, across the street from the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut, was being renovated.  When I arrived in Iqaluit in 2012, it was known as the Nova Hotel.  The owners changed the name to Hotel Arctic sometime later.  The building was sold to the Qikiqtaaluk Corporation in 2017 who turned it into a residence for Arctic College students.  I still remember sitting in the hotel restaurant in 2012, the morning after I arrived in Iqaluit, thinking, “What am I doing here?  Did I make the right choice coming here to teach music at Inuksuk High School?”  Yes, I did make the right choice.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have continued my teaching career in Arctic Bay.

I photographed a memorial to the unmarked graves found at the Kamloops Residential School in front of the Elders Centre.  The memorial contained children’s shoes, toys, dolls, and signs demanding all former residential schools be searched for unmarked graves.  Every Child Matters!

Iqaluit deep-sea port.

Construction on Iqaluit’s deep-sea port is expected to resume shortly.  I think there’s still more dredging and control demolitions to be done.  It’ll be at least another year before the port is ready to begin operations. 

The flight to Ottawa left on time and arrived in the nation’s capital without incident.  My summer vacation has begun.

I’ll be taking a break from my blogging duties until August.  You may go back and read some and/or all my previous posts.  There’re 364 to choose.  Have a safe & healthy summer and I’ll see you all in August!

 

A Horrifying & Gruesome Discovery

Warning: This post contains harsh truths & opinions, and shocking photographs that may cause strong emotional reactions.  Regardless, what follows needs to be said, understood, and accepted.

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This is your last chance to pass if you’re not ready to read what needs to be said.  Ready?  Okay, let’s begin.

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I knew things were bad, but the recent horrifying & gruesome discovery in Kamloops, British Columbia, has really amplified the level of brutality Canada can inflict on its own people.  On May 27, 2021, 200 unmarked graves were found near the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.  Ground penetrating radar was used to locate the graves.  They are the final resting places of Aboriginal children who died attending the school.  The search was funded by a “Pathway to Healing grant and carried out by the Nation’s Language and Culture Department.” 

The school was built in 1890 and was originally known as the Kamloops Industrial School.  Its name was changed in 1893.  The Catholic Church of Canada ran the school until 1969.  The federal government took over and eventually closed the school in 1978.  Over the course of its existence, the school became notorious for being poorly constructed, underfunded, and a place where children were malnourished, abused, neglected, and subjected to racist, colonial attitudes.  The problems were well known and even reported at times, but the people in authority often ignored these reports because they too held racist & colonial attitudes, and only cared about forcibly assimilating Canada’s Aboriginal population into mainstream white society. 

"The Scream" - Kent Monkman (2017).

The Aboriginal children who attended were forcibly removed from their homes and were forbidden to speak their own languages and practice their cultures.  They were forced to live at the school and forbidden to see their parents & families for most of the school year.

An example of the school appearing to be "nice", but in reality, not.
This offer is meaningless if your child is hundreds of kilometres away and
you can't afford the transportation costs.

The discovery sent shockwaves across the country.  Statements have been released.  Makeshift memorials have been created everywhere and calls for all former school sites to be searched have been demanded.  By the looks of what’s happening, I think this will proceed, and I hope it does.  

The worst part is that this was not an isolated case.  Canada’s residential school system operated 130 schools across the country between 1831 and 1996.  One hundred & fifty thousand children were “taught” at these schools.  The negative things I listed in the second paragraph occurred in all the schools.  They also happened at residential schools in Newfoundland & Labrador, but they operated under a different administration, because Newfoundland & Labrador didn’t join confederation until 1949.  It’s why the survivors from these schools weren’t mentioned in the federal government apology of 2008.  They had to wait until late 2017.

The locating of residential school gravesites began as far back as 1975.  I must confess I thought it began much, much later because the last school closed in 1996.  Previous gravesite discoveries often received little media attention, and responses from the general public & governments, most likely because they thought these were isolated cases, not a systemic problem, or not their problem at all.  It’s also because the majority of Canadians were not educated enough about the horrors of residential schools.  This is being corrected, though slowly, since the federal government’s apology of 2008.  (The churches that ran residential schools began issuing apologies in 1986). 

The discovery in Kamloops has finally, in the eyes of Aboriginal/Indigenous Peoples, galvanized Canadians to address its horrible & dark past.

I only began to learn about the horrors of residential schools in the early 2000s.  They were still operating when I was in elementary school!  My level of knowledge has been increasing since I moved to Nunavut in 2012 and from teaching the Nunavut approved Grade 10 Social Studies module.  I still have a lot to learn, understand, and accept.  I have plenty of books in my classroom that I still need to read.  I hope to get through all of them, but I have to take breaks between books.  You can find many of them on Amazon.  Just search “residential schools”.

"A Mother's Grief" - Kent Monkman (2017).

I know that many children died trying to flee back home, but I’m not sure if an exact number of missing has been determined.  The Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) concluded in its 2015 report that around 4,100 children died at the schools.  (The report is spread across 11 thick books).  What I want to know is how the people in power could let this happen, accept it as “the norm,” and not return deceased children to their homes for proper burial?  It’s like all forms of common sense just disappeared.  Racism & apathy are to blame.

I attended many educational schools & institutions since birth and even work in one now.  NONE of them had/have cemeteries attached to them.  When you have a cemetery attached to a school, that’s an automatic failure to provide a safe & healthy learning environment.  The school needs to be immediately shut down.  It’s a disgrace that the people in charge did not see this and accepted it as “the norm”.  The churches received funding from the federal government to run the schools.  Government authorities were cheap, apathetic, and racist.  They were always looking at ways to cut costs.  They never invested the necessary amount of money needed to build safe schools, they hired people who weren’t even qualified to teach (the rate was as high as 40%), and they failed to protect the children from pedophiles and abusers.  Even if the proper funding was provided, the system would still be a failure & unjust because the schools were far from home and the ultimate goal was assimilation.  It doesn’t matter what useful skills & topics you teach.  If assimilation is at the top, the whole system is wrong.  It should have been a day school system, like the day schools I attended, with all the negative things removed.

Canadians are quick to point fingers south and say it’s the United States that has a racism problem, but the reality is that Canada is no different.  The Aboriginal/Indigenous populations have borne the brunt of it, but it also extends to people of darker skin colour, visible minorities, and Asian ethnicities.  A simple Google search will produce a long list of horrible things Canada has done over the course of its short history.  We are not immune to evil ways. 

Just look at what some Canadians are doing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  They’re threatening health care workers and hurling racist language at them.

White teachers in schools are still being caught using the n-word in everyday conversations and act like it’s not a bad thing. 

I cringe and stop myself from getting upset every time I travel south for Christmas & summer and hear people greet me with, “Welcome back to civilization.”  (The saying implies that I live in an uncivilized place). 

Moving to Nunavut has really opened my eyes to how far removed I was from the harsh realities of living in Canada when I was growing up.  I did learn about a few bad events in school (ex: Chinese head tax, anti-suffragette movement, internment of Japanese civilians during WW2), but these were always framed as isolated events and not part of a systemic problem.  Well, there is a systemic problem, and many still refuse to accept that reality.  They’re still clinging to the “ignorance is bliss” mentality and/or “it’s only in America” thinking.       

Source: OrangeShirtDay.net

Canada is not perfect.  Much more work needs to be done to address & eliminate the systemic (racism) problems we have.  Canadians need to realize this, reflect, accept, and work towards making sure residential schools never happen again.  We must also never forget.  If we take time out of our lives every November 11 to remember the sacrifices of our veterans, then we can take time to remember all the children who suffered & died at residential schools.  Every Child Matters. 

September 30 will be the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.  It’s also known as Orange Shirt Day, which began in 2013.  I encourage all readers to take part.  The day is to commemorate the legacy of the Canada’s residential school system.  You can find more information here.      

To the residential school deniers that may be reading this: your opinions & comments will be actively ignored.  You’re so far removed from reality it’s shocking, but funny to watch.  To quote a famous 1992 American film, “You can’t handle the truth!”  Any & all threats will be forwarded to police authorities.

For now, the people of this country hold their breaths as more ground penetrating radars scan the grounds of former residential schools to find the final resting places of children who never made it home.  Just yesterday, (June 4), 104 unmarked grave sites have been discovered at the former site of Brandon Indian Residential School. 

The architects & administrators of residential schools thought they could bury the past and convince the general public to forget and move on.  They failed.

The truth always wins.