SUICIDE SHOCKWAVES
In eight short weeks, Kuujjuaq has lost three young members of its community to suicide. As Christopher Curtis reports, their deaths are a grim ‘wakeup call’
When Marie-Hélène Cousineau heard the news, she cried for three days.
She hadn’t seen Lukasi Forrest in more than a year, and the two had gradually lost touch since they worked together on a film in 2012. But when she heard that Forrest had taken his own life, it rattled her.
“It was devastating,” said Cousineau, a Montreal-based filmmaker. “What can I say? It’s something so irreversible, you just think, ‘No! You can’t change your mind after that.’ He was such a sharp kid.”
Forrest died on Feb. 2 in Kuujjuaq — a remote Inuit village in Nunavik near the southern rim of Ungava Bay. The 19-year-old’s death marked the third suicide in Kuujjuaq over an eight-week period. Locals say the other victims, also teenagers, attended the same high school and moved in the same social circles as Forrest.
Although suicide rates among Quebec’s Inuit are as much as 25 times higher than the provincial average, the rapid succession of death in Kuujjuaq has sent shock waves through the community of roughly 2,500 residents.
News of Forrest’s death comes as the Quebec coroner is set to launch a public inquiry into a rash of suicides in two Innu reserves near Sept-Îles.
In neighbouring Nunavut, the coroner’s office released a report last September urging the territorial government to declare a state of emergency over the alarming rate of suicide in remote Inuit communities.
Kuujjuaq’s mayor says the latest death is further evidence that immediate action must be taken to fight the youth suicide problem. But, he added, the suicides must be viewed in the context of deeper problems such as housing shortages, rampant poverty and a history of colonial violence.
“This has been a real wake-up call,” said Tunu Napartuk. “There are issues we have to deal with as a community, there are issues each family has to deal with together, and as a father I have my own personal responsibility toward my children. I need to make sure they understand that they have support.”
People close to Forrest say he fell into a deep depression just before Christmas, when his best friend, Brent Koneak, killed himself. The 18-year-old’s death was the first in the recent cluster of suicides and left a deep wound in the community, where nearly 60 per cent of the population is under 30.
The situation worsened a few weeks later, when 16-year-old Mary Cooper took her life. One of her former classmates described her as a smiling and caring person who played sports and excelled at hunting.
The two deaths seemed to hit Forrest especially hard. Friends say he and Koneak had been inseparable and that, in the final weeks of his life, Forrest was overcome with grief.
The usually upbeat teen began posting regular Facebook status updates about loss and starting over, often mentioning Koneak by name.
On Feb. 1, he wrote “I miss you so much B.K. it’s unbelievable.” Just a few hours later, Forrest typed his final status update: “Everyday is a new day” next to a cartoon depicting a smiling face. The next day he was gone. Just a few years earlier, Forrest starred in the award-nominated film Uvanga and his co-workers on set saw great potential in the young man.
“I met him in Montreal, someone told me ‘There’s this kid who’s very expressive and he’d done some circus (arts) and you should meet him,’ ” said Cousineau, who codirected Uvanga. “He was perfect for the role. He spoke English and French and understood Inuktitut, he’d lived in the city but he’d been raised up north. You could tell right away he was this super bright guy, a really sharp, witty, funny teenager.”
After Forrest’s suicide, Napartuk visited the Jaanimmarik high school in hopes of lifting the students’ spirits. Administrators and mental health workers at the school have drafted a list of atrisk students, set aside an area in the building where students can grieve, and provided psychological counselling.
Kuujjuaq residents say they aren’t waiting for outside help to tackle the problem. Several townspeople contacted by the Montreal Gazette say they’ve recently completed a locally sponsored Applied Suicide Intervention Training (ASIST) program to help them identify and help people who are at risk of harming themselves.
“People are pulling together, and there’s actually been a great response to this,” said Napartuk. “In terms of mental-health resources, we actually feel there’s enough available right now. ... Our problems have more to do with basic necessities, like housing.
“A lot of big, three-generation families are packed into threebedroom houses. They love each other, they try to support each other, but when you don’t have enough space for yourself it can create a very stressful environment for everyone.”
Overcrowded living conditions are worse among Quebec’s Inuit than any other population group in Canada, according to Makivik Corp. — the legal entity that represents the province’s Inuit. Makivik’s studies suggest about 68 per cent of Quebec’s Nunavik population do not have adequate housing.
While the federal and Nunavik governments are expected to sign a new housing pact this year — one that would address the shortage of nearly 900 units in the region — construction on the new homes likely won’t begin until 2017.
Mental health experts say housing conditions contribute to the prevalence of depression and mental illness in the region. But historic factors also play a role in the high number of suicides in Inuit communities, experts say.
Dr. Gustavo Turecki, who cowrote an extensive study on suicide in Nunavut, says the federal government’s decision to force the Inuit into settlements during the 1950s created a ripple effect.
“These are communities under a lot of stress,” Dr. Turecki, director of the McGill Group for Suicide Studies, said in an interview last month.
“In Nunavut, the community underwent radical changes in a very short period of time. In decades, the whole social structure changed dramatically, where people went from living on the land to being forced into tiny houses. It’s jarring.”
While the crisis has badly wounded the people of Kuujjuaq, Napartuk believes the town’s young population will overcome this latest crisis. To think otherwise, he says, would be to give up on an entire generation.
“We’re a proud, resilient people and I’m very excited about the future,” Napartuk said. “I’ve just got to make sure we’re feeding that potential, that the services and resources we have support these kids. We want these kids to be the lawyers, the doctors, the engineers and carpenters and local leaders of the future.”
People in the Nunavik region who are having suicidal thoughts and need help can call the Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Help Line at 1-800-265-3333 or the Centre de prévention de suicide du Québec at 1-866-APPELLE.