bountiful & beloved
BONNIE AND MICHELLINE AMMAAQ LIVE IN IGLOOLIK, NORTH OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. IN 1986, THEY LEFT ... OR RATHER, RETURNED TO LIVE OFF THE LAND THAT NURTURES DAUGHTER AND MOTHER, BODY AND SOUL.
Bonnie
When I was seven, my favourite TV show was Three’s Company. I remember that time well. That’s when my family moved out onto the land.
Michelline
Before the 1950s, all Inuit used to live on the land. Then the government said that everyone was going to live in permanent settlements. So everyone — the whole Inuit — moved to Igloolik and other places like it, but they would still go out on the land for periods of time.
We moved to our outpost camp in 1986 and lived out there for 11 years. There was me, my husband, Samueli, and our three children: Isa, Bonnie, and Wilma.
Samueli grew up on t he land, 100 per cent, whereas I got shipped to residential school when I was six, right when I should have been learning about life out on the land. I wanted to recapture that, and Samueli was willing.
Bonnie
To get to outpost camp we travelled in a plywood box, open to the sky. It was so interesting, going from flat land to mountain land. We’d never seen mountains. When we were close, I noticed that my parents were happy. Excited. When they showed us where we would live, I think they cried.
I didn’t miss Igloolik at all. The land was so beautiful. No stores, no school. It wasn’t boring, it was okay for us. I had my knapsack with my toys, my Cabbage Patch Kid. There was enough food — caribou, walrus, bearded seal, beluga, fish, and polar bear. In outpost camp, I only saw my parents as strong and happy all the time.
Every few months we’d go back to Igloolik to visit and stock up. We brought back frozen vegetables, rice, and macaroni, but not pork chops, chicken. Not stuff like that. Nothing compared to the fresh caribou that we ate. Up to today, nothing compares.
Michelline
We had it easy out there. Easier than the old ways. When my parents were growing up, they had to fetch the water daily, pound the fat daily for their light and their heat. The men had to hunt every day for the fat. And feed 20- plus dogs. But we had a stove, a heater, a generator for the lights and the laundry machine. So we had it easy.
Bonnie
My mother went from working at the Co- Op in town to raising us on the land. She let us grow up out there. And I always thank her for the good things she did learn at residential school, even though it’s a broken heart to her. Thanks to her, she told me, “Don’t write sloppy.” She taught us many t hings. She brought s ome schoolbooks — she was surprised that she had to teach me how to speak Inuktitut, but I’d been speaking English in school so I was forgetting.
Michelline
I made sure that they learned math and English too. I’d give them each a box of bullets to do their math even though the box read “Keep out of reach of children.” So, we had fun.
I was six when I went to residential school, after the priest threatened my father. But when I got old enough I stopped going to the church. So none of my children were baptized. Besides, sometimes when I’m driving a skidoo it’s easier for me to pray than when I’m in a church.
Bonnie
I moved back to Igloolik in 1998. I was pregnant and I arrived before my family — it was my first time in Igloolik with no parents, just me. I was not used to it with city people, 24- hour people. It was so hard for me: “I’m trapped! I’m a breathing person but it’s like, I’m in a jail. This is not home, this is not life.”
Michelline
We went to Igloolik to audition for the movie Atanarjuat and we got picked. We didn’t want Bonnie to be without parents in Igloolik, so we never went back to the camp.
It’s hard, it gets too emotional. Outpost camp was the happiest family life that we had. We’ve been living in Igloolik since ’98, but it feels like just a visit. There are happy times, some special nights or occasions, but we’re not home. It’s as if we’re wearing somebody else’s body and we’re just living.
Bonnie
I’d like to go back to living on the land, but my partner has asthma and he has to be in bed a lot, and I don’t know how to hunt. How would we survive?
I get angry. I don’t know how to explain it. I used to get so homesick and walk up to the highest point in Igloolik to look out, to see the land. I would cry and I would say, “Hi home.”
Michelline
Samueli is now 70 years old. Myself, I’m an elder. Bonnie is 37, Isa is 33 and our family has grown: Todd is 20, Bailey is 13, Hector is 10 and Oliver is five. Today we’re going to dig up our igunaq cache. Igunaq is fermented walrus. You know how some cheeses have a strong smell? This is a stronger version of that.
The men prepared the cache last July. They shoot the walrus, cut it up, and braid it into round cylinders. It gets really hard once they tighten it up — the air gets pushed out. They dig a hole and bury it.
All the men in our family hunt — like all Inuit men. Most Inuit women don’t hunt, but when I adopted Isa, my first thought was, “I now have to catch a bear.” To me it was equal rights, women’s lib, something like that.
My first catch with everything — walrus, seal — I started to shake. But the polar bear was different. I wasn’t just shaking … I got so cold! Last month my grandson Bailey caught his first polar bear on his own. He was just checking his fox traps and he saw one and he caught it. I am proud of him.
Among us on the trip for igunaq today, only Hector and Oliver have never caught a polar bear, besides Bonnie. So I thought, “If we see a bear today, Bonnie will have to catch it.”
Bonnie
If I see a polar bear on this trip, I will say, “Run for your life and save yourself!" I don’t know how to start a rifle. Besides, where do you even shoot? What body parts?
Michelline
In outpost camp we all had a job. Bonnie’s job was to clean out the walrus liver. Whereas when we moved to Igloolik, the men do it all and we women are expected to back off. Otherwise you get a funny feeling, from people staring, and you think: “Am I doing something wrong?”
Bonnie
I loved cleaning the walrus liver. One time, my uncle came with his family to our camp. We caught a walrus, and my mother and I tried to be like the other women, just sitting and waiting for the men. But I got an ugly feeling, not doing anything. So I grabbed a knife: “I’m helping the way I’m used to helping.”
Michelline
If i t was j ust our family, we helped with everything and we were comfortable. Even today, we still all do the polar bear skin. I do the feet, Samueli does the head and legs and Bonnie does the body part. I don’t like doing the body part, you just scrape, scrape, scrape. To me, it’s as if no results, just work, work, work. Whereas doing the paws, you see the results. The knuckles go up while you do it.
Bonnie
I watch my parents and worry about when they cannot do it anymore. If our hunters catch a bear, what am I going to do?
Michelline
We never know if Samueli will be here next summer to hunt. If not, it’s just going to be the boys, and they have jobs and their own young ones. As Inuit we want to use everything of what we catch, but if Todd and Isa catch a bear and the skin goes bad because there’s no one to prepare it, they’d have to throw it away. And so even if they’d use the meat, they’d stop hunting because the skins are just getting spoiled. That’s my fear.
It’s important that the young ones go out with Samueli really early, to learn. That’s how Inuit are. Learn by doing.
Bonnie
Going out on the land for the igunaq with my family, I pretend that we’re going home.
IN IGLOOLIK, IT’S AS IF WE’RE WEARING SOMEBODY ELSE’S BODY AND WE’RE JUST LIVING. IN OUTPOST CAMP, I ONLY SAW MY PARENTS AS STRONG AND HAPPY ALL THE TIME.