Taqialoo, Aglukak and Nuka were just your ordinary, semi-nomadic kids growing up near thetop of the world.

But something happened during their grade 7 Year of Travel to 5 continents.

By the time they got home they were ready to start another journey – one that would change, not just them, but the whole world.

How It Happened

To:

Arthur C. Clarke, who taught us to keep looking for alternatives.

&

To the children of today, who can do anything.

This book is a work of alternate universe fiction. Any references to historical events, real places, or real people, are used fictionally. Other names, places, characters and events are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, except the right to write additional works of fiction set in this alternate universe.

Copyright © 2019, Taqialoo Ningauk

ISBN 978-0-9733542-1-8

How It Happenedby Taqialoo Ningauk

Advance Review Copy(not for resale)

How It HappenedTo: Imo Kalluk

Grade 6Naujaat Illiniarvik

From: Taqialoo NingaukChairman, NUNAT Mining and Energy

Date: May 1, 2065

Thank you for writing to me and asking how a handful of semi-nomadic kids just like you, living near the top of the world, managed to end the threat of Global Warming by solving the world’s energy problems.

The technical break-throughs that improved the safety, efficiency and cost effectiveness of our nuclear technology were very important, but I think they are very boring to read about. If you ever want to know those details you can find them on our website at www.nunat.ca.

The subsequent power plant development and our selling of electricity from off-shore barges at $0.02 per kilowatt hour to all who want it are also common knowledge.

What is not well known is how we got started. So, in answer your question, I am sending to you:

The transcript of my sister’s convocation address to the first graduating class of the Nunavut School of Engineering, back in 2047. It describes both what led to the creation of NUNAT Mining and Energy and the early years of its development.

The relevant part of PEZ Notes, dated 1967. Those men laid the ground-work that made our accomplishments possible.

Thanks again for writing to me and good luck with your plan to lead the first mission to the asteroid belt. I look forward to watching your success on Qulliq.

Transcript: Convocation address by Aglukak Ningauk to the firstgraduating class of the Nunavut School of Engineering

– June 10, 2047

In the Beginning

Welcome, all of you, students, family and guests, to this,

the graduation of the first class of Nunavut Arctic College’s

School of Engineering.

I’ve been asked to explain how this came about. To do

that I need to explain not only what we did, but explain,

as briefly as possible, how what we did changed us and

made this possible. And none of that would make any sense

unless I began at the beginning.

The earliest thing I can remember was running behind

the sled. My brothers, Taqialoo and Nuka, were running

beside me. We were dressed, head to foot, in clothes

Anaana had made for us out of tuktoo hides, except our

mitts, which she had made of seal skin.

We all ran behind the sled, except when we got tired.

Then we would hop on, ride for awhile, jump off, and run

again. Running was what we did. It was how we hunted

and how we visited other people. The dogs pulled our stuff,

and we, mostly, ran.

We had snowmobiles, of course. They were fast, but they

were noisy and stinky. And when they ran out of gas, or

broke down, they did not go anywhere. Also, they could

not find their way home in a storm. We used them for

short trips, or if we wanted to get somewhere quickly, or

just for fun. But you only have to get somewhere quickly if

someone makes a bad mistake, and our parents did not

make those sorts of mistakes.

How It Happened 1

I suppose it was their education, just as it was mine and

my siblings’. We learned all the important things; we

practiced them until we consistently did them correctly, no

matter what the circumstances or distractions. But that

practice was not school. It was just life.

My education was not the same as Anaana’s. She told

me that the world was changing; that I would learn what

she knew, but I would also learn what Ataata knew, and

that I would learn other things, too. She taught me the

traditional women’s skills: keeping the family warm,

working with skins, sewing, healing, fire, child-rearing. I

spent time with her, but I also spent time with Ataata. He

taught me to protect and provide for the family, to hunt

and to kill, to fish, to build igloos, to train dogs, to build a

kayak and to paddle it.

We had a house near a polynya. The house was made of

wood. It was a good place to relax and to keep stuff, but

we didn’t spend a lot of time there. Being near the polynya

meant that, to a certain extent, the animals came to us,

rather than us always having to follow them. Still, houses

aren’t much good for hunting. After awhile there are no

land animals near houses. The smart ones leave the area.

The others are soon dead.

We lived in the house-of-wood in the fall, after the

streams froze and before there was ice on the bays and

enough snow for the sled. We also lived in the house-of-

wood in the spring, when the ice was unstable and

dangerous.

There we had a radio, and later a television set. The

programs and the movies showed us places and cultures

different from those we knew, but they were the same few

stories, differing only in details, over and over again, about

How It Happened 2

people we didn’t know. At first they were interesting, but

then they became monotonous.

One good thing about having a bunch of wooden houses

in one place was that I got to spend lots of time with my

cousins when we were there. Usually we just played, as

children everywhere do. But sometimes we went to the

school. It was bigger than any of the houses-of-wood. Most

of the time I went with Anaana, sometimes with Ataata,

almost always with my brothers, but always with my

cousins. School, in those early days, was about being

friends, caring, sharing, and exploring the world around us.

As time went on we played games like soccer, and

badminton, and basketball. We also learned the sounds of

the syllabic alphabet. And we learned numbers. There were

always lots of stories, but mostly we made up our own

games.

How It Happened 3

Grade 1: Reading Syllabics, Counting and Measuring, Story Telling, Introduction to the Land

School changed when I was six or seven. The change was

not obvious at the time, but, looking back, I can see it.

Before, we had learned the numbers and the sounds of the

syllabics. The change was that we started to use these. We

used the numbers for counting and for measuring. For

example, I measured the length of Ataata’s arms so Anaana

could make the sleeves for Ataata’s new parka. I did that

with a tape measure. It was one of the few things that

Anaana kept with us that we did not make. Anaana told

me that she had traded a rabbit skin for it at the trading

post, before I was born.

We learned to read using syllabics. There were books in

the school. The books had big characters and lots of nice

pictures. Some books were about Inuit like us. Other books

were make-believe. Still others seemed to be make-believe,

but Anaana told me they were about Inuit who lived very

far away and looked very different.

She also showed us a special drawing that she called a

map. On the map she showed us the bay near where we

were, and the big hill not far away, and the kuuk where

we caught fish. She showed us some of the places where

we found berries.

And we learned to tell stories – usually in the evening.

First Anaana or Ataata would tell a story about something

that she or he had done or seen earlier that day. Then each

of us children would tell a story about something we had

seen or done earlier that day.

Those were very fun times. It wasn’t that our learning

gave us more control over our lives, because we always

seemed to be free to do what we wanted. Though, lookingHow It Happened 4

back, I can see that our parents arranged things so that we

wanted to do what they wanted us to do. Rather, our

learning gave us more things that we could control. Things

we had not realized before.

That spring, and again that fall, we played "where are

the berries". It was a game, but we learned to identify

places where we could expect to find berries that were

ready to eat. For example, in the spring we looked for

south facing slopes that were a little elevated, yet sheltered

from the wind. And on those slopes we looked for patches

that had good drainage. The snow melted first in such

places and they often had sweet berries from the previous

fall. Sometimes those berries were still frozen, but they

were mumaktoo!

Berries were easier to find in the fall. There were more

of them, but the challenge was to find ripe ones. Those

that ripened early tended to be eaten by the birds and

lemmings before we got to them. So, particularly in the late

fall, we looked on slopes that faced the setting sun.

Mostly we learned the places that our Anaanas, and their

Anaanas before them, had picked berries. But we also

learned to identify new places that were likely to have

berries, and when those berries would be good to eat.

We learned where to find shelter from the wind and the

rain and the snow. We learned where to gather dry moss

for fires, and how to feed a fire without getting burned. We

learned to improvise shelter, using anything we had or

anything we could find. Having was generally better, but

finding could be fun and interesting.

How It Happened 5

Grade 2: Writing Syllabics, Addition and Subtraction, Land Skills, Dance & Drum

As we grew older we started to write syllabics. I

remember a time when I was 7 or 8 years old. We were

living in the house-of-wood. Ataata had gone hunting for a

seal at the polynya and he did not come home that night.

We all told stories, just like we usually did. But Ataata was

not there to hear our stories. Anaana said the stories were

very good and it was too bad that Ataata was not there to

hear them. She said "I’m sure your Ataata would love to

read tonight’s stories when he gets home. Let’s all of us

write down our stories so Ataata can read them when he

gets back." So that’s what we did.

It took a long time to write those stories. But we were

happy because we were doing it for Ataata, while he was

hunting for a seal for us to eat. Pride is frowned upon in

Inuit culture. However, practice and mastery of a skill are

looked upon very favorably. So we were happy doing it,

and no one complained that their hand was getting sore

from holding a pencil.

All of us were happy when Ataata came home the next

afternoon with a big seal. We welcomed him home and

then he lay down to rest. Anaana sharpened her ullu and

skinned the seal. She asked me to put the skin in the

porch. It was heavy because the seal had been very big.

I watched while she cut up the seal. I spread out most of

the pieces in the porch so they would freeze and then put

the frozen pieces into the big box in the porch so they

would stay frozen but seperate until we needed them

another day. But not the heart, the liver, nor one large

piece of meat. Anaana cut those into small pieces. Then we

all had a wonderful meal.

How It Happened 6

After the meal, Ataata went to sleep and my brothers

went outside to play. Anaana asked me to bring in the seal

skin. She told me this skin was a drum-to-be. She and I

then set about working on the hide. She showed me how to

get all the fat and pieces of meat off of it. That’s important

because, if you leave them on, the skin will start to rot. I

held onto the skin while Anaana scraped the hide with her

scrapper. It’s sort of like her ullu, but the edge is not sharp

for cutting.

After all fat and meat was off the skin we took it

outside. Again I held the skin. This time Anaana showed

me how to scrape to get the hairs off the skin. We were

doing this outside because it would make a big mess in the

wooden house if we did it in there. After we got all the

hairs off, she told me to clean the hide in the snow, just

like we had done before with a mitts-to-be skin.

While I was doing that, Anaana got her big sewing

needle, some string, and the large wooden frame. Then I

helped her stretch the hide. First we scraped the hide from

the middle to the edge in all directions in a way that made

the skin bigger, but being careful not to cut or tear it.

Then we used Anaana’s big needle to punch holes all

around the edge of the skin. They had to be about 1 to 2

centimeters from the edge. If the holes were too close to

the edge, the skin might tear when it was stretched. If the

holes were too far from the edge, lots of the skin would be

wasted. That’s because only the skin within the ring of

holes would be good to use for the drum.

Once all the holes were made, Anaana threaded the

strong string onto her big needle and used it to tie the skin

to the frame. At first it was loose. But after the string went

through all the holes we slowly tightened it, until the skin

was stretched tight in all directions. After that, we put the

How It Happened 7

drum-to-be up high on the north wall of the wooden house.

We put it on the north wall so it would be out of the

direct sunlight while it dried; and we put it up high so the

puppies would not eat it. The adult dogs could, of course,

jump high enough to get to the drum-to-be, but they knew

to leave it alone.

Anaana put away her tools. Then she and I joined my

brothers and some cousins, playing in the snow.

Later we all went inside the house-of-wood. We did some

arithmetic until Ataata woke up. Then we gave our written

stories to him, telling him that we had written them down

so he would not miss them. He read each story out loud,

pretending to speak in the voice of the person who wrote

the story. It was great fun. He said he would keep the

stories to read again later. That seemed curious, because

Ataata did not need to read the stories again from the

paper. Ataata always remembered everything he saw, or

heard, or read.

We also started doing more with numbers. We learned to

add and subtract. One winter morning we were running

behind the sled when Ataata spotted some tuktoo. We

stopped. He got closer, fired two shots and killed two of

them. Ataata said, "I started with a box of 20 bullets for

my .303 rifle. How many shots did I fire?"

Taqialoo replied, "You fired two shots."

Ataata then asked, "How many bullets do I have left?"

Taqialoo replied, "You have 18 bullets left."

A few hours later we came upon another herd. This time

Ataata waited awhile; then he fired one shot. Two tuktoo

How It Happened 8

dropped dead. Ataata asked, "How many bullets do I have

left?"

"Seventeen", I replied.

"And how many tuktoo do we now have on the sled?"

"Four", I replied.

That’s how we learned to add and subtract. It was just

part of hunting. We seldom did just one thing. For

example, for awhile on that hunting trip we were heading

down a valley that opened to the south. There was a big

rock off to one side and Ataata headed over to it. It was

taller even than he was.

When we got near the rock I saw something sticking out

around the side of the rock. When we got to the rock we

went around to the south side and saw the biggest Arctic

Willow tree I had ever seen. It was as tall as the rock and

as wide as the rock. Ataata explained that this was because

the tree was growing right next to the rock and the rock

protected the tree from the storm winds in winter. It was

like when we sometimes stopped in a blizzard and I stood

beside Ataata and he sheltered me from the wind. Like

that.

Ataata took out his Swiss Army knife. I didn’t know

about Switzerland or about armies in those days, but I did

know about Ataata’s Swiss Army knife. It wasn’t like most

knives; it could become many different tools! That day

Ataata made it into a saw. He used the saw to cut an

almost straight branch from the tree. Where Ataata cut the

branch, it was about as big around as my wrist. He told

me the branch was both a striker-to-be and a handle-to-be

for a drum he was going to make. He trimmed off the

leaves and smaller side branches. Then he asked me to put

How It Happened 9

the branch on the sled with the tuktoo and attach it so it

wouldn’t fall off. I ran to the sled, tucked the striker-to-be

and handle-to-be under a tuktoo and tied it on with a clove

hitch near the middle and another near where Ataata had

cut it.

Ataata picked up his rifle and we were off again,

continuing the hunt. After we got back to the house-of-

wood, Ataata had me untie the striker-to-be and handle-to-

be. Then he nailed it high on the south side of the house

so it would dry in the sun.

Speaking about guns, we also had a .22 rifle. My

brothers and I used it to shoot rabbits and, when we could,

foxes. Foxes are much harder to find than rabbits. We

learned not to chase after rabbits. They run too fast. And

anyway, there’s no need to chase them.

If you scare one from its nest, watch where goes. Then

turn around, get down low, and wait. The rabbit will run

in a circle and, in a few minutes, it will be running right

at you! I was probably 5 years old when I shot my first

rabbit. The .22 sounded very loud next to my ear, but it

was just like we had practiced. I gave the rabbit to my

anaanatsiaq, and she gave pieces of it to each of her

cousins who were near us.

That’s also how Anaana got a rabbit skin to trade for her

tape measure.

One day Ataata came home from the trading post with a

thin piece of wood, about as long as I was tall. He said

this wood was special; it was drum-to-be. He explained that

our wooden house was made from "soft wood". It wasn’t

that the wood was really soft, but rather that the wood had

How It Happened 10

been cut from trees that had pointy needles. We had seen

pictures of such trees in a book.

He said the wood he had gotten at the trading post was

called "hard wood". Somehow it was called "hard wood"

because it had been cut from trees that had flat leaves. The

book also had pictures of those trees. This did not make

much sense, but that’s the way it was. The real differences

were that the hard wood was stronger and stiffer than the

softwood. Ataata said this was because the rings in hard

wood were closer together. We looked, and the rings were

really close together

Ataata asked me to get a pencil and his big file, the one

he uses to sharpen his snow knife. When I got back, he

drew a line almost down the middle of the drum-to-be, on

one of the wider sides. Then he drew a second line beside

the first line, so that they were as far apart as the nail of

my little finger. He gave the pencil to me to put away.

He took out his Swiss Army knife and cut along a line,

from one end of the drum-to-be to the other end. Then he

cut along the other line. Ataata always keeps his Swiss

Army knife very sharp, but even so, the cuts did not go

very deep.

After putting his Swiss Army knife back in his pocket

Ataata began using the thin edge of his big file to scrape

away the wood between the two lines. It took a long time.

I watched for awhile, then I found my brothers and we

went sliding.

The next day Ataata showed me the drum-to-be. It had a

groove down one side. He used the coarse side of his big

file to taper the grooved side, making it thinner. Then he

let me file the other end of the drum-to-be, but on the side

that did not have the groove.

How It Happened 11

We took turns, until both ends were tapered for a

distance about the width of my hand. Then he had me put

the file away and get the ball of strong, thin cord – the

one we used for mending tears in our fishing net. Ataata

tied one end of the string to the drum-to-be using a clove

hitch, just beyond the tapered part. Then he bent the

drum-to-be into a circle, overlapping the tapered ends. Next

I helped him wrap the two ends together using the strong

twine. Round and round we passed the ball of cord,

keeping it tight. Finally we reached the other end of the

overlap and Ataata tied the cord with another clove hitch.

Ataata got the striker-to-be and handle-to-be down from

the wall. Next, he turned his Swiss Army knife into a saw

and cut the wood into two pieces. Then we scraped the

bark off both pieces. The longer, thinner one was the

striker-to-be. The shorter, fatter one was the handle-to-be.

Then he drilled a small hole through the drum-to-be, put

a screw through the hole, and attached the short handle-to-

be. Finally, we used more of the strong cord to secure the

handle to the wooden circle.

After that Anaana got the drum-to-be skin. I helped her

take it off the frame. Then Ataata put the skin over the

drum frame and I helped him wrap the strong cord around

it four times. The cord pressed the skin into the groove. We

tightened the cord, tying it to the handle.

Next we slowly pulled the skin tight across the frame.

Then Anaana got her ullu and trimmed the skin, leaving

about 5 cm of skin all around, beyond the cord. She gave

the trimmed off piece of skin to Ataata and he wrapped it

around the striker-to-be. He started at one end of the

striker-to-be and wrapped skin over half of it. That was the

part that would be used to strike the drum. The other half

had no skin. It would be the handle of the striker. Ataata

How It Happened 12

wrapped cord around the skin on the striker to keep it on,

and tied it with a double clove hitch.

Finally the drum was complete.

Ataata held the drum in his left hand by the handle. He

picked up the striker with his right hand and gently struck

the frame of the drum. It went boooommm! He struck it a

few more times, then put down the striker. We stretched

the skin tighter and Ataata struck it again. This time it

went BOOOOMMM!

Ataata struck the drum frame, first on the front side,

then on the back side, then on the front side again, and so

on. He started to move, to dance to the music. And he

started to sing. It was wonderful! Anaana joined in the

singing. At first I listened; then I joined in, too. After about

five minutes the song wound down. Ataata said the drum

was good and we would use it again that evening.

That evening, after supper and dishes and homework, we

all got together. Ataata started drumming and dancing,

Anaana started singing, and we all joined in. First one

song, then another, and another. After awhile Ataata gave

the drum and striker to Anaana. She started drumming and

dancing, while the rest of us sang. It went on and on.

Then Anaana showed us kids how to strike the drum

frame with the striker. We each practiced a few times.

Then we each took a turn drumming and dancing, while

the others sang. It was a glorious evening.

After that we drummed and danced and sang on many

evenings. Sometimes we took the drum with us on the sled

when we went hunting. Then we drummed and danced and

sang under the stars, because, of course, there wasn't

enough room in the house-of-snow.

How It Happened 13

I didn't realize my parents knew so many songs. Some

were just fun songs. Others told stories of long ago, or

places far away, or explained how to do things. First we

sang their songs. But then one day Taqialoo started a new

song that he made up. It was good. After that, the rest of

us made up songs, too.

How It Happened 14

How It Happened 15

Grade 3: Story of Nunavut, Multiply and Divide,

Music, Introduction to English, Introduction to

Computers

I did not realize at the time that I was starting to learn

about Nunavut and its long history. But without that

background about the long-ago, the more recent history

would not have made much sense.

There were songs about the strong, short people who

hunted only on land using clubs and spears as weapons and

dogs as helpers. These were the first builders of snow

houses and the first people in Nunavut. They must have

been very smart to figure out how to build such a

wonderful structure. Some songs say they were always here;

other songs suggest they came across the ice from what is

now northern Greenland.

There were songs about those who came over the sea

from Mongolia in umiaq made mostly of skins. They used

bow and arrow, which let them hunt animals from further

away. They also had kayaks that they used for hunting

seals and walrus and whales. They even used their kayaks

to hunt tuktoo on rivers and lakes!

There were songs about the spirits and the shammen.

There were songs about Sedna and her adventures.

These were all songs about those who lived here long

before us.

There were also songs about whalers – people who came

in huge umiaq made all of wood, that were pushed by

giant sails. The stories told how the people thought they

must be fabulously wealthy to have all that wood, and yet

wondered why such obviously wealthy people dressed so

shabbily in clothes that did not keep them warm. It took

quite a while to figure out that these men did not make

How It Happened 16

their own umiaq. Indeed, they did not even own the umiaq

they were on. That suggested there were other men far

away who were so wealthy that even something as valuable

as the huge wooden umiaq was not important to them.

There were stories about the wonderful things they

brought, such as needles made of metal, and the mysterious

deaths that followed their arrival. There were also stories

about the bad things they brought, such as tuberculosis,

tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.

There were stories about the strange ones who followed

the whalers: the traders, the missionaries, the police, the

nurses, the teachers, and, strangest of all, the

administrators.

There were stories about Inuit who traveled to faraway

lands, some never to return, and others who returned only

many years later. There were stories about moving into

settlements near trading posts. Living in settlements was

good for trading, but bad for hunting because soon the

animals near the trading post were gone and people had to

travel very far to hunt for food. There were stories about

the decision to use the houses-of-wood only for parts of the

year. There were also sad stories about children taken away

to residential schools, many of whom never came back.

Ataata was one of those who was taken away for school.

He was one of those who did come back. He said it was

exciting at first to be going on a long journey, but mostly

he missed his family. He said that his school was very

different from the school we were going to. He did not see

his parents, his brothers or his sisters. He was with lots of

other boys, but he did not know them. There were lots of

rules that made no sense, and the food was bad – which

almost made them not realize there was not enough to eat.

How It Happened 17

They almost never ate meat or fish; and when they did, it

was not country food. It was cooked beef or pork or

chicken. But mostly they ate porridge or soup. He said they

did not learn much because there were no elders, no

parents and only one teacher for about 40 children! Ataata

learned some words in English and he learned about

numbers.

After the summer we went to our house-of-wood as usual

to wait for the bay to freeze and the snow to come. One

evening Ataata said it would be time for us to go to school

the next day. He said we would all be going. He said we

would be learning about other types of music. When we got

to school the next morning there were many types of

instruments and we tried all of them!

There were other types of drums; there were small bongo

drums and a big kettledrum. They made different sounds,

but they were not good for traveling. There were

instruments with strings; one was a small banjo, another

was a guitar, and there was also a violin. Some instruments

were made of shiny metal. There was a French Horn and

also a trombone. But my favourite was a flute. I became

quite good at playing it. My brother Nuka liked the piano,

and my brother Taqialoo preferred the guitar. Ataata mostly

played a harp, while Anaana preferred the harmonica. We

listened to some records and learned to read music.

Reading music was quite easy. If the dots went up, the

notes were higher. If the dots went down, the notes were

lower. But mostly we just made up our own tunes. That

was more fun than playing music made up by someone else

and written on paper.

I also started to learn English.

How It Happened 18

The numbers were good. English has letters instead of

syllabics. The letters were not good. Most of the letters

stand for more than one sound. Sometimes groups of letters

stand for sounds that are completely different from any of

the sounds of each of the letters. Sometimes letters have no

sound. Sometimes groups of letters have no sound!

When you see a written word in English you don’t know

how it sounds. There are even some English words that

sound different and mean different things, but have the

same letters in the same order.

I told teacher that’s not a good way to make a language.

Teacher agreed with me, but said "That’s just the way it

is." Teacher explained that English isn’t really one

language. It has words from many languages, but it doesn’t

have all the words of every language. For example, English

has the Inuktitut word "kayak", but not the Inuktitut word

"umiaq". Teacher did not know why, "That’s just the way

it is".

We started by learning English words for things, such as:

hat, mitts, and fish. Then we learned some words for

actions, such as: wear, catch, and eat.

We also learned to multiply. Teacher had us make lines

of pebbles, with the same number of pebbles in each line.

He asked us how many lines we had and how many

pebbles were in each line. We counted and told him, "4

lines with 7 pebbles in each line."

He wrote "7" and "4" on the black board. Then he asked

us how many pebbles in all. We did not know, so he had

us count them.

"28 pebbles" I said.

He put an "x" between the "4" and the "7". Then he put

an "=" after the "7" and wrote "28" after that.

How It Happened 19

Teacher also explained division: "If you have 28 pebbles

and put them into 4 lines with the same number of pebbles

in each line, how many pebbles are in each line?"

Then Teacher asked us how many .22 bullets were in

each new box of bullets. Kanayuk said "50 bullets". Teacher

asked how many bullets were in each row in a box. Tirak

said there were 10 bullets in each row. Teacher asked how

many rows of bullets were in each box. Nuka said there

were 5 rows, but that they staggered a little. Teacher then

said that showed if you divide 50 by 10 the answer is 5.

That's how we learned about division.

One day teacher showed us a computer. There were lots

of buttons with syllabics, letters and numbers on them. If

you press a button, the character on the button appears on

a piece of glass, called a screen. There was also a

"lemming" that we could use to change where the character

appeared on the glass. Except it did not always seem to

work the way we wanted it to work. We were able to use

the computer to write our stories and print them out on

paper. There were also some games in the computer. They

were sort of fun at first, but soon they became boring.

Later, teacher showed us how to use the computer to do

adding and subtracting.

Another day, teacher used the computer to show us a

movie. That’s where people who are not really here seem

to be talking to us and looking at us from behind the glass

screen. I checked; they were not really there. Teacher said

the movie had a name "The Experimental Eskimos". It was

mostly three men talking about when they were young.

They were taken from their homes and sent to live with

How It Happened 20

other families down south in big cities where it was hot

and nobody else spoke Inuktitut. They said they missed

their families. They said they did not learn how to hunt

and live off the land. They learned lots of other things, but

mostly they learned office stuff. So they became office

people. Their names were Peter Ittinuar, Eric Tagoona and

Zebede Nungak.

Peter was the first Inuk to be a member of the Canadian

Parliament and helped make Nunavut separate from the

Northwest Territories. Eric created Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami,

to represent the interests of all Inuit in Canada. Zebedee

was from Nunavik. He helped negotiate the James Bay

Hydroelectric Accord and create Makivik Corporation. They

did good things for Inuit people, but they did not have

good lives for themselves. That was sad.

After that movie, teacher showed us another movie. It

was about polar bears. That was fun to watch. I had seen

polar bears; everyone has. But not so close and not for so

long. It was really interesting, especially watching them

hunt.

The next day teacher told us about the Nunavut Land

Claim Agreement. It was a piece of paper that said Canada

owned Nunavut, but that Inuit would be the boss of

Nunavut and would always be able to hunt, fish and collect

berries whenever and wherever we wanted to. It also said

Canada would give Inuit lots of money and other things

from the south. Teacher said the Nunavut Land Claim

Agreement was good because Canada would help Inuit if

they got sick.

Another day Teacher told us that the world was round,

like a ball. He showed us a globe. It was a special ball

How It Happened 21

with lines on it. He said it was a drawing of the whole

earth, like a map. He explained that people had divided the

land into countries. It wasn’t really clear to us what

countries were, but ok.

He said the blue areas were oceans, the white areas were

ice and the coloured areas were land. He showed us a part

of the globe that he said was Nunavut, and another part

that was the rest of Canada. He also showed us a part of

Canada that was called the Northwest Territories. He said

that, before the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement, Nunavut

had been part of the Northwest Territories.

He told us about other Inuit. Hhe told us about Jose

Kusugak, who was a teacher and broadcaster, who also

developed the standardized syllabics we use for writing. He

told us about Peter Irniq, who was a member of the

Nunavut Implementation Commission. He told us about

Tagak Curley, who was a politician and who ran Nunasi,

which is the business arm of Nunavut Tungavvik Inc. He

told us about Cathy Towtongie, who was a politician and

leader of NTI. He told us about Mary Cousins, who was an

activist and an educator who taught lots of Inuit to speak

Inuktitut, particularly those who forgot it after going to

residential schools. He also told us about Paul Quassa, who

helped start NTI and also helped negotiate the Nunavut

Land Claim Agreement.

How It Happened 22

How It Happened 23

Grade 4: Land Skills, Tool Using and Tool Making, English Reading and Vocabulary

After freeze-up we went to the flow-edge and hunted for

seals. My cousins, Kanayuk and Tirak, came with us, and

so did their parents. Tirak is about my age and her sister,

Kanayuk is about a year older. Their Anaana, Geela, was

our nurse. Their Ataata, Rob, was our "plant man". He

usually took care of the water plant, the sewage treatment

plant and the power plant. He’s not an Inuk. He grew up

in a big city called Vancouver. That’s where he met Geela,

when they were students at university. He was studying

engineering and she was studying to be a nurse.

Ataata brought us with him as he waited for seals. He

taught us to build hunting shelters and to hide from the

seals. And instead of taking the seals himself he had us

shoot them. He also showed us how to get a seal with a

harpoon.

After about a week Geela and Rob went back to their

house-of-wood, but Kanayuk and Tirak stayed with us.

As winter continued, the flow-edge moved further away.

We followed the flow-edge because that’s where the seals

were. One day we got to an island. It had some unusual

rocks on it that were not covered by snow. Anaana showed

us how to break off pieces. Later she showed us how to

shape and sharpen them to make arrowheads, knives, ullus,

and scrapers. We had to try lots of times, but we became

good at hitting the rock just right to get the shape we

wanted.

The days were short and the nights were long. We had

lots of time for stories. Ataata told us many stories about

How It Happened 24

the creation of Nunavut. He told us about Paul Quassa and

Jack Anawak. He told us about Canada and its constitution.

Anaana taught us to use the tools we made from the

special rock. The stone knifes were very sharp and they

stayed sharp longer than the metal knives, but they were

harder to sharpen.

We caught many seals that winter. When the days started

getting longer we headed inland to follow the tuktoo. Then

we returned to the flow edge to get baby seals. Before

break-up we headed south. After many days we came to a

valley with a big cliff on the north side. We went down

into the valley. It was the strangest place I had ever been.

There were lots and lots of Arctic Willow trees. But they

were not the short, ground-hugging Arctic Willows that I

was used to. These grew straight up and many of them

were taller than Ataata! Ataata cut several of these trees

and had each of us cut several of them too, using the stone

knives we had made. We put them on the sled, tying them

securely.

After that we found a herd of tuktoo and followed them

north. After our next kill Anaana showed us the bone in

the tuktoo that could be used as a needle for sewing. I

tried to use it. It worked, but it was not as easy to use as

the metal needles from the trading post. She also showed

us how to take the sinews from the legs of the tuktoo and

prepare them for use as thread for sewing or as a bow

string. I practiced sewing with my bone needle and tuktoo

sinew.

We returned to our house-of-wood shortly before break-

up and set the cut trees out to dry. Kanayuk and Tirak

were very happy to be back with their parents. Seeing them

How It Happened 25

back together again helped Taqialoo, Nuka and me

appreciate what our Ataata went through when he went to

residential school.

That spring I did a lot of reading in English and learned

lots of English words. But it did not change my opinion

about English. If anything it strengthened my opinion that

English is a terrible language. Inuktitut is much better.

We learned to use more types of tools. We already knew

how to use the stone tools Anaana taught us to make. Now

we learned to use hand drills and electric drills; hand saws

and electric saws; planes and chisels. Ataata also showed us

how to make a bow and arrows, using the straight trees we

had cut and sinews from tuktoo.

When the ice went out of the bay we did more fishing.

We fished with a kakiavik. We also fished with a net and

with a jig and with a fishing rod. And Anaana also showed

us how to reach into a tidal pool and pull out an ugly-fish.

That took lots of practice, mostly how to know where they

would be. But after awhile we became good at it. She

showed us which seaweed is good to eat. She also showed

us how to build stone traps for catching fish.

That summer we followed the tuktoo. But it was

different. Instead of Ataata doing most of the hunting, he

had me and my brothers doing most of it. We scouted for

tuktoo, we followed their tracks, we shot them with the .22

and with the .303; and we skinned them.

Ataata told us that we would learn lots of new things in

the years to come. But the most important thing was to be

able to take care of our family. The first thing to learn was

How It Happened 26

how to do that, so we could survive even if the boats and

airplanes from the south stopped coming. Once we knew

we could take care of ourselves and our family, we would

be ready for more.

He explained that we would soon begin "the year of the

land". We would go hunting with some of our cousins.

Ataata or Anaana would be with us, but mostly just in case

we had serious difficulty. We would be making our own

decisions! We would use only the tools we made and wear

only clothing we made with those tools.

We practiced using our bow and arrows. It was not at all

like hunting with a gun. First we had to practice hitting a

target very close to us. As we got better, we kept moving

the target further away. But soon we could shoot the

arrows no further. The bows, and our arms, just did not

have as much power as even the .22! So when we went

hunting using the bows we had to get very close to the

animal.

We learned to pay close attention to the wind and the

sun, using them to our advantage when hunting. Years

earlier Ataata had explained how Inuit used to use inukshuk

to help in hunting. Now we started to use them, too.

We also built some kayaks. We used sinew to lash some

of the straight Arctic Willows together and used them to

build the frames of the kayaks. Anaana showed us how to

sew seal skins together to make the skin of a kayak, and

how to make the seams water tight using seal fat.

We used the kayaks to hunt seals in the bay and tuktoo

in the kuuk with our bows and arrows. It was much easier

to get close to a tuktoo that to a seal! Then one day

Ataata told us get our kayaks ready, but in addition to the

How It Happened 27

bows and arrows he also brought the .303. We paddled a

long time and eventually saw a whale blow.

We stopped and waited. A few minutes later we saw it

blow again. Ataata asked us, "Where is it going? "

I told him it was following along the shore, but staying

far off land, where the water starts to get really deep.

Then he asked, "Where do we have to go to meet it?"

Nuka replied, "If we go that way, the tide, current and

wind will make us meet the whale over there."

Ataata asked, "Do you two agree with him?"

We indicated our agreement.

Ataata said, "OK, let’s go."

We paddled silently for a long time before we got near

the whale. When we did, Ataata moved ahead of us and

shot the whale right through the eye with the .303. It died

almost instantly. We each tied our sealskin ropes to the

base of its tail and fanned out like a dog team, pulling the

whale to shore.

It was a long, hard paddle, but we got the whale back

to shore and beached it at high tide. We rested a few

minutes, our first break in many hours. Then we started

cutting up the whale. We had lots to eat! But that was not

all.

Ataata showed us how to cut out the baleen. We would

be using it as snow knives next winter for igloo building.

Ataata explained that we were not strong enough yet to

kill a whale with just our bows. He wanted us to learn how

to do things, but did not want us to die trying. Ataata said

that killing a whale with a bow and arrow was very

dangerous, even for someone as strong as he was.

How It Happened 28

How It Happened 29

Grade 5: The Year of the Land

We returned to the house-of-wood when it started getting

cold. Ataata got a job driving the water truck. He told us

he was doing his civic duty; that everyone had to take

turns doing things that needed to be done. A few days later

I went to school with my brothers, some cousins and

Anaana.

Teacher told us that we would be spending most of the

year out on the land, but that we would be doing stuff in

school, too. Teacher showed us how to use a computer to

connect to the Internet. She explained how to use a web

browser to search for information. Wow!

There was some information in Inuktitut, but there was

so much more in English.

I was starting to understand why we had been learning

English. Actually, there was too much in English. And not

all of it was right. We could see that some web sites said

things that contradicted other web sites. That was very

disturbing; how could we know which web sites to believe?

In the weeks that followed we learned how one idea led

to another. We learned how to type in questions that would

lead to information that we wanted. We learned about bias

and agendas. We learned to think critically and to read

critically.

Then we got our stuff together and headed out onto the

land. It was the first time I was on the land without

Ataata! That felt strange. We headed first to the kuuk and

How It Happened 30

caught some fish. That gave us food for us and for the

dogs.

After 2 days of fishing we went back to the community

and gave some fish to Ataata, Rob and Geela. Then we

headed to the coast, where we collected shellfish and

seaweed at low tide. Next we went inland and collected

blueberries and blackberries. We also found mushrooms and

onions growing wild. And shortly before sunset we got a

rabbit.

In the days that followed we caught birds before they

headed south and we killed tuktoo as they migrated south.

After awhile we returned to the houses-of-wood and to

school, where we learned more about searching the

Internet. A few weeks later we headed for the flow edge

with sleds, where we caught seals. We followed the flow

edge for a few months, then returned again to the houses-

of-wood. At school we spent a couple of weeks focused on

critical reading and critical thinking.

Then we went back on the land, where we hunted for

tuktoo and then birds as they returned north.

We had learned that the world was divided into

countries. When we returned to the house-of-wood we

learned more about people in other parts of the world. One

day teacher told us that we would need a passport to go to

another country. She said that the next day she would take

our pictures for our passports. She said we did not need

passports now, but we would need them later, that they

were government things, and they took lots of time to get.

How It Happened 31

Next teacher gave each of us a form. That’s a piece of

paper where we had to write answers to the questions that

were on it. She said these forms were Passport Application

Forms from the government in Ottawa.

After break-up we went back out on the land with

Anaana and Ataata. It was good to know that we could

take care of ourselves, but it was even better to be a whole

family again! Kanayuk and Tirak came with us for a few

weeks and then went back home. It was hard for them;

they wanted to be out on the land, but they also wanted to

be with their parents. And their parents had jobs that

mostly kept them in the community. That was before we

had enough nurses and engineers for them to spend some

time out on the land and also some time in the community.

How It Happened 32

How It Happened 33

Grade 6: Mastering English, A Week at a Nearby Community

We returned to the house-of-wood shortly before freeze-

up. At school we read many books, mostly in English. A

few were suggested by teacher. We each read them, then

discussed them. One such book was The Jungle Book. Ittells a story about a young boy who gets lost in a jungle, is

found by wolves and is raised by them! Anne of GreenGables was another. It’s the story of an orphan girl who

goes to live with a family and has lots of adventures while

living in a house-of-wood.

We also picked a lot of books by ourselves. Some of the

books were in the school. Others we got from the Internet.

One of them was Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. It was

a future story about Mia, a girl who lived with her father

in a big space ship that traveled to planets that circled

many stars. It was a very big space ship with a jungle in it.

When she is 14 years of age Mia and her classmates have

to kill a big tiger in the jungle, using only metal knives! It

was supposed to teach them about cooperation. We hunt

polar bears, which are about as big as a tiger, but we don’t

do it with just knives. Anyway, after that the students are

put on a planet, each in a different place, and they have to

survive for a month on their own. Except something goes

wrong and the space ship does not come to pick them up

for several months. People living on the planet don’t like

the people who live in the space ships. They find some of

the students and capture them. Mia also finds some of the

students and together they free the others, just before their

parents come and bring them back to the space ship.

How It Happened 34

The books were a good way for us to learn more

English. They also made us think about things we had

never considered.

One day Ataata told us that we would be going to visit

some cousins in another community, and that we would be

going in an airplane! He explained that we would be there

for about 2 weeks; and a few weeks after we got back

here, some of those cousins would come to visit us. He

explained that this trip would prepare us for next year,

which would be "The Year of Travel".

He showed us our passports. They were little books with

our name and picture. They said we were Canadian

citizens. He said we would show the passports to the

airplane people before we got onto the airplane.

Anaana showed us two boxes that she and Ataata had.

She told us they were called "suitcases". They were used

for packing stuff and taking them on airplane trips. They

were somewhat like qamotik, except they went inside the

airplane, rather than towed behind. She said that tomorrow

we would go to the trading post and pick out a suitcase for

each of us.

Next day the five of us went to the trading post. I

picked out a red suitcase that had two pockets on the

outside. Taqialoo picked out a blue suitcase that had wheels

on the bottom. And Nuka picked out a green suitcase that

had zippers which could be used to make it bigger or

smaller.

That evening we started to pick out what clothes to

bring and to pack them in our suitcases.

Two days later we went to the airport, which is a small

building at the end of the runway and waited for the

How It Happened 35

airplane. A bunch of our cousins were also at the airport

with their parents and suitcases. Soon the airplane arrived.

Teacher gave us our tickets, we gave them to the person

working at the airport and showed our passports to him. He

put our suitcases into the airplane and we got in, along

with the cousins and their parents. The plane drove very

fast, bumping along the runway. Then the nose of the plane

lifted up and we went up into the air! It was very noisy,

but there were no more bumps until we landed. From up

there we could see very far, until we got so high that we

went into a cloud. Then we could not see anything but

white for awhile.

It was strange seeing the other community from the air

as we went down. First we saw tiny houses. Then, as we

got lower we saw tiny people. Then we landed. There were

lots of people waiting at the airport. Ataata and Anaana

knew many of them and there were lots of "qanuipiit"? We

were introduced to lots of people, too many to remember

who they all were.

After awhile we left the airport with Auntie Jeeteetah

and Uncle Imoona and their son Geetee. They said we

would be staying with them. We walked to the community

and they showed us their school, their trading post, their

post office and their arena. Then we got to their house. We

talked for awhile, had a lunch and then went to the school.

Geetee showed us their school. It was bigger than ours.

Then we went to the big room, along with everyone else

who came from our community and lots of people from

their community. Their mayor welcomed us to the

community. Their teacher welcomed us to their school.

They talked about some things we would be doing during

the next couple of weeks. There would be some hunting

and fishing trips. There would be a community feast. There

How It Happened 36

would be games. There would be a big dance. There would

also be a few classes, where our teacher would teach the

students of this community and their teacher would teach

us. But mostly we would have time to get to know other

family members.

After a couple of weeks we flew back to our

community. A week later some of the people we met came

to visit us.

How It Happened 37

Grade 7: The Year of Travel

We were told that we would travel to other places and

learn how other people lived. We would go on 6 trips, each

to places very different from where we live and very

different from each other. Each trip would be about a

month long. We would also spend about a month at home

or on the land between trips. Some trips were already

planned, but others were not, and we could suggest places

we wanted to go. In the month before each trip we would

use books and the Internet to learn about the places we

were going to.

For each of these trips we would fly in an airplane to

Rankin Inlet, which is a big community here in Nunavut.

There we would meet people from other communities.

Together we would fly on a much bigger plane to where

we were going. Sometimes we would be going so far away

that we had to change to a third airplane! Not everyone

would be going to the same 6 places, so we would meet

lots of Inuit our own age from many communities, and

their parents, too.

Teacher asked us to each make a list of where we

wanted to go and why we though that would be a good

place to go. I put Mongolia on my list, because I had read

that Inuit had come from Mongolia. I also put England on

my list because I like the Queen; she seems to be a cool

person. In the end, we did not go to Mongolia, but we did

go to England. We also went to lots of other interesting

places.

A few days later teacher told us that our next trip would

be to North Bay, in Ontario. A plane like the one we had

used would take us to Rankin Inlet. Rankin Inlet is much

How It Happened 38

bigger that where we went to school. They have a big

hockey arena. After spending a week in Rankin Inlet we

would get on a much bigger airplane and fly very far, all

the way to North Bay.

I found a book in the school library about the

communities in Nunavut. Rankin Inlet used to be a mining

community. Now it’s the center of our region, with several

stores.

I could not find a book in our library about North Bay,

but I found information about it on the Internet. North Bay

has about 50,000 people. That’s more than all the people in

Nunavut in one community.

We went fishing for a few days. We caught lots of Arctic

Char and froze some of them. Anaana said we would take

the frozen Char with us to North Bay to share with the

people who lived there, and so we would have some

country food to eat. She said North Bay people did not

have much country food!

The day soon came when we left for North Bay. I found

it funny that we had to fly south to get to North Bay.

English is a crazy language.

Our airplane took us to Rankin Inlet. It is much bigger

than the other community we had visited, and we could see

from the airplane that the land there is very flat. I felt

sorry for the kids living there – they had no hills to slide

on! But they did have two stores, both much larger than

our trading post, with lots of curious things. They also have

an arena. An arena is a big building with flat ice in the

middle for skating on and seats around the edge for sitting

on. And they had cars, just like in movies. We could see

the cars from the airplane, and when we were in Rankin

How It Happened 39

Inlet we got to drive in a car. Cool! We also got to meet

kids our own age from other settlements who were also on

their year-of-travel. It took awhile to really understand all

of them because they spoke different dialects. But it was

fun.

We stayed with Auntie Una and Uncle Seepa, and their

3 children, Akayla, Oggallak and Sanaark. They took us to

the arena and showed us how to skate. Then we put on

skates and tried for ourselves. It’s not as easy as it looks,

but it’s a lot of fun. We skated with chairs for the first

couple of days, to learn to balance on those narrow blades.

Then we tried it without the chairs. By the end of the week

we could skate, and turn, and stop without falling. Then it

was time for us to go to North Bay.

The runway at Rankin Inlet is much longer than our

runway. It was early morning when the airplane came to

take us to North Bay. That’s when I learned why they

needed such a long runway. The airplane was huge! It

had no propellers, but it had 4 enormous jet engines! Each

one was bigger than me. When we sat down in the airplane

we discovered that there was a small television screen in

front of each of us! Television on an airplane! What would

they think of next? We had to put on seat belts for take-

off. That jet went up into the air very fast! Then we could

undo the seat belt and walk up and down the isle. The

television came on in front of me, but there were no clouds

in the sky and I was much more interested in watching the

land beneath us. There were lots of lakes and streams. It

was like looking at a giant map. We were going very fast.

After a short while, a flight attendant came down the

isle, pushing a metal cart from which he gave us plastic

cups with juice. We could choose apple juice or orange

How It Happened 40

juice. I chose orange juice. Anaana showed us how to lower

a little table from the seat in front of us. She explained

that we would need the table for our breakfast. A few

minutes later the flight attendant came back with his metal

cart. This time he gave each of us a plastic tray with some

boxes on it. Anaana showed us how to open the boxes.

Inside one was scrabbled eggs and some meat. Inside a

smaller box were some pieces of fruit. There was also a

small plastic bag with a piece of bannock inside. There was

an empty cup, and there was a clear plastic bag with

cutlery inside. It was strange to be eating while flying

through the air. Then the flight attendant came again; this

time he offered us a choice of coffee, tea, milk or water.

When we landed in North Bay we collected our suitcases

and went outside. Everything about North Bay was extreme.

From the air we had seen that it is extremely big. The first

thing we noticed when we got out of the airplane was that

North Bay is extremely hot! The next thing we noticed was

that it is extremely noisy. We got onto a bus that was

extremely big, just like in the movies. The bus driver drove

extremely fast on a road that was extremely flat, straight,

and wide. It had lots of cars. It was just like in the

movies! We got off the bus at a building that was

extremely tall. It had a revolving door, just like in the

movies.

The building was a hotel. We went inside and Ataata

talked to a man behind a big counter. Ataata gave the man

some money and the man gave Ataata some keys. Then we

took our suitcases into a little room called an elevator.

Ataata pressed a button with the number 8 on it. The door

closed and the room started to shake! When the door

opened, we could see out through a window. We were way

How It Happened 41

high up in the air. Anaana said that’s because we will be

living for the next couple of weeks on the eighth floor of

this hotel! We walked along a corridor. Ataata stopped at a

door, put the key into a lock, and opened the door. There

was a room, and connected to that room were other rooms.

It was like a whole house-of-wood. Anaana said it was a

suite.

For awhile we looked everywhere. There was so much

to see and figure out. But after a little while we just sat

down. There was so much to think about. Everything was

just so different!

Soon Ataata said we should go for a walk, but we should

leave our parkas and suitcases in the suite. We went out

the same way we came in. We walked along the sidewalk,

which is like a road, but higher, and only for people and

dogs. We saw traffic lights, where cars stopped. We saw a

park, with green grass and pretty flowers and tall trees

with big leaves. We saw lots of cars moving, and other cars

that were parked. We also saw lots of people walking. So

many people. But none of them, except those who had

come on the airplane with us were Inuit! We heard lots of

people speaking English. But there were also lots of people

speaking a language I did not understand. Ataata said they

were speaking French.

After awhile we saw a shiny metal box with some people

standing near it. Anaana said we should go there and get

something to eat. We walked over to where the people and

the box were. There were two people in the metal box and

there was a strange smell coming from the box. Strange,

but good. When the other people walked away from the

box, Ataata walked up to one of the men inside the box

and said something to him. He said something back and

How It Happened 42

Ataata gave him some money. A few minutes later the man

said, "Here you are, five cheeseburgers, five patat frits, and

five pops. Enjoy!" He handed a tray to Ataata with lots of

stuff on it. Ataata said, "Let’s go to that table and eat

lunch."

There were benches attached to the table. We sat on the

benches and Ataata put the tray in the middle of the table.

He picked up a bannock with stuff in it and took a bite.

Then he said that this is how to eat a cheeseburger, but to

be careful how you hold it, so the stuff does not fall out.

Next he tore open a tiny package that contained salt and

sprinkled it on some patat frits. Then he ate some of them,

and we did the same thing. After that he picked up a cup

with some brown liquid in it. He told us that the tube in

the cup was called a "straw", and that we use it to suck up

the liquid to drink, but not too much at one time. It was

cold, wet, sweet and strange. It made bubbles in our

mouths.

After we finished eating, Anaana picked up the tray and

took it to a box she called a garbage bin. She put the

papers, cups and straws into the garbage bin, then she gave

the tray to one of the men in the shiny metal box.

We walked further and came to an area without

buildings. There were trees. Some had flat leaves, like an

Arctic Willow, except the trees were very tall. Other trees

had pointy needles, like some trees we had seen in a book

at school. There was green grass. There was a stream. And

there were narrow roads that Ataata said were paths for

people to walk on. Anaana explained that this area was a

"park", which was a place inside a settlement that was like

the area between settlements. We saw some ducks on the

stream. Ataata said people were not allowed to hunt ducks,

or other animals, in the parks. It was good to spend time

How It Happened 43

in the park, even if we were not allowed to hunt. It was

much quieter than the other parts of the city.

After awhile Ataata said it was time to meet more

people, so we walked back to a street. After a few minutes

a bus came and we went inside it. Soon we got to a

building that was big, but not tall. We got off the bus and

went into the building, which was a school. We went into

a big room, with lots of people. There were some from our

community. There were others we had met in Rankin Inlet.

And there were Inuit from other communities in Nunavut.

There were so many of us! Ataata and Anaana knew quite

a few of the adults from other settlements. We met many

cousins and talked for awhile. So many dialects of

Inuktitut! The room was even noisier than the streets had

been. After awhile, the mayor of North Bay welcomed us to

her community. Then the principal of the school told us

that we would be meeting kids our own age and spending

time with them for the next couple of weeks.

Except, the North Bay-miut did not speak any dialect of

Inuktitut. They spoke English and French. We had learned

English in school. But English had been mostly for reading

books, for the Internet, and for listening to movies and the

radio. We could read it and listen to it, but we had very

little experience speaking it.

The next few weeks were a challenge as we struggled to

express ourselves in English, but they were also fun. We

watched a movie in a huge theater. We had to wear special

glasses, but when we put them on it seemed like we were

almost in the movie. It was an IMAX movie about flying

through a place called the Grand Canyon. Wow!

There was a swimming pool in our hotel. The water

was much warmer than the water in the kuuks we

How It Happened 44

sometimes had to walk through when we were hunting

during summertime. We bought bathing suits and Anaana

taught us to swim. It was scary at first, but then it was

great fun.

One day we left North Bay very early in the morning

and rode in big buses on a highway to the community of

Sault Saint Marie. The bus went very fast, but the cars on

the highway went even faster. In Sault Saint Marie we got

onto a railway train. It was pulled by a big steam

locomotive with a very loud whistle. Instead of many dogs

pulling one hamootik, this train had one engine pulling

many passenger cars. The world just keeps getting more

and more different. The kids from North Bay said the train

ride was bumpy, but it was a lot smoother than riding in a

hamootik.

It was fun to watch the buildings go past us. So many of

them; all different shapes and sizes. Soon we were outside

the city and in a forest of tall trees. After awhile we

reached a big canyon, with cliffs going way high up on

both sides of us. Cliffs and trees, but no snow – what a

world! Even the North Bay-miut were impressed. When the

train stopped we had an opportunity to walk around, climb

on the rocks and even climb some trees. It was all great

fun with our new friends. But soon the train whistle blew,

signaling us to return to the train. We had lunch as the

train returned to Sault Saint Marie. There the buses took us

to a large bay, where we saw many umiaruak. Some were

like ones we had at home, but most were bigger, and some

were huge! They were so big it was hard to believe they

could float, but they did.

How It Happened 45

After stopping for ice cream (it's cold but yummy) we

returned to North Bay and had a square dance that lasted

well into the night.

The days passed quickly. Our hosts had lots of questions

about life in the Arctic and we had lots of questions about

how they lived. We became used to speaking English and

answering questions that sometimes seemed strange; to cars

and streetlights and highways; to stores and shopping and

restaurants; to crowds and noise and big buildings. It was

exhilarating, but exhausting because we wanted to see and

do everything.

All too soon it was time to say goodbye and return

home. But before we left we got email addresses and

promised to stay in touch.

The trip home was airplanes and Rankin Inlet. They had

seemed so exiting a few short weeks ago. Now they were

almost relaxing. We spent a day getting settled and talking

with cousins. Then we went hunting for a week. Travel had

been great fun, but it was good to be back to our real life.

After that, we went to school again. Teacher had us

write about our trip, what we liked, what we did not like,

what we had learned. We had known that the world was

big, because we had read about it in books and on the

Internet and seen it in movies. Now we had seen it for

ourselves.

Our next trip was going to be to Ottawa. We researched

it on the Internet and read about it in books that the

school had. Ottawa is much bigger that North Bay. We

How It Happened 46

learned that it's also the capital of Canada, though we did

not really understand what that meant.

Soon it was time to leave for Ottawa. This time Anaana

came with us, but Ataata did not. He said he had to do his

civic duty. We were excited to be traveling and exploring

again, but sad that Ataata would not be with us. But

because he would mostly be staying in town, we would be

in touch by phone and Internet.

Again we flew to Rankin Inlet. We met some cousins at

the Rankin Inlet airport, where we played and talked for a

while. Then we boarded a big jet and flew to Ottawa. It

was strange not having Ataata with us. After the plane

started to go down we could see houses EVERYWHERE.

North Bay had been big, but Ottawa was huge! As we got

lower we could see expressways. We had seen them on TV

and in movies, but this was different; this was real.

The airport at Ottawa was huge! It had lots of stores

and even restaurants right in the airport. We had to walk a

long way, in the airport building, to get to where our

luggage was waiting for us. It was on a big metal belt that

went round and round. There were so many suitcases that

it was hard to spot which ones were ours. There were

people there holding up signs. We saw one that was written

in Inuktitut. It said Larga Baffin. Anaana explained that

Larga Baffin was like a hotel, except it was just for Inuit

who came to Ottawa for medical reasons.

Then we saw another, also written in Inuktitut, that

read: "Year of Travel". Soon lots of us were there and we

followed the man with the sign to where 4 big buses were

waiting. We were assigned to a bus, along with lots of

other families. Some were Inuit we had met in North Bay,

but others were Inuit we had not met before.

How It Happened 47

Our bus went on an expressway. At first it was at

ground level, but soon we were driving on a road that was

up in the air! Anaana said it was called an elevated

expressway. Instead of taking us to a hotel, the bus took us

to a big motel. It's like a hotel, except there's no elevator.

All the suites are at ground level. You walk through the

doorway and are outside. There were lots of trees, with

birds and siksik. But again, we were not allowed to hunt

them.

Sometimes we traveled with lots of other Inuit families.

Sometimes we traveled with just one or two other families.

And sometimes it was just the four of us.

One day we went to a shopping mall that had lots of

stores. Then we went up an escalator, that's a set of stairs

that move up, all by themselves. At the top of the stairs

there was a whole other shopping mall with lots more

stores. The number of stores was higher than any number I

had ever counted to before.

One day, several buses came and we all went to the

Parliament Buildings in down town Ottawa. We passed lots

of very tall buildings on our drive. Then we got to an open

area where some buildings had green roofs and seemed

very old. Anaana told us that these were the Parliament

Buildings, like we had seen on TV. We saw a big qulliq

near Parliament. It had crests for all the provinces and

territories of Canada. We went into the Parliament

Buildings. They are very big and made of stone. We went

up a wide staircase and sat in the visitors’ gallery. The

members of Parliament were talking, usually one at a time.

Some spoke in French and others spoke in English. But

even when they spoke in English it was hard to understand

How It Happened 48

them. We knew most of the words, but they put them into

some very strange sentences.

Then Taggak Curley stood up and spoke in Inuktitut. He

was the Member of Parliament representing Nunavut. He

welcomed us to Ottawa and to Parliament. He said he was

sure we would enjoy our visit. Then he briefly explained

the "year of travel", as if the other Members of Parliament

did not know what it was.

One day the four of us went to a restaurant. It was

called Mamaqtoo. We sat at a table and a waiter gave us

menus. When we opened the menus we saw that the left

hand page was in English and the right hand page was in

French. Most of the meals in English were seafood,

particularly Arctic Char. Each of the meals in French were

the same price as the English ones, so they probably were

the same. But when we turned the menu over, the back

page was in Inuktitut. The meals were very different.

Instead of cooked meals such as "Pan Fried Arctic Char

with mixed vegetables and a salad" there were meals that

we liked, such as Frozen Char, Frozen Tuktoo, and

Muktuk! This was great, finally some real food in Ottawa.

The waiter who asked us what we wanted spoke to us in

a strange dialect, but it was definitely Inuktitut. We had a

great feast.

After we finished our meal, Anaana asked if Kalapik was

there, and if she had time to talk with us. The waiter said

yes, and soon an Inuk came out who looked vaguely

familiar. She and Anaana hugged and blubbered for awhile.

Then Kalapik pulled up a chair and joined us. Anaana

explained that Kalapik was our cousin, who was about 10

years older than us. Kalapik asked us lots of questions. How

How It Happened 49

did we like Ottawa? How was our "year of travel" so far?

How did we like her restaurant?

When Nuka responded that he really liked the restaurant

where Kalapik worked, Kalapik responded. "I don't just

work here, I am also one of the owners."

We were surprised that a young Inuk owned a restaurant

in Ottawa. It was very exciting!

She explained that she was a student at Carlton

University in Ottawa. She said that she and the other Inuit

who were studying Business at Carlton University owned

and worked in the restaurant. It gave them practical

business experience which went well with the theory they

learned in class. They also earned a salary, made tips,

received a year-end bonus, and received dividends.

I asked how she found time for classes, homework,

working in the restaurant and also managing the business.

She agreed that it was a lot of work, but said it was just

like being a full time hunter. She said the main difference

is that when she was hunting in Nunavut, the weather

determined when things should be done. Now it was other

people such as teachers, customers and suppliers who

influenced when things were done.

Taqialoo asked how she got the idea to start a

restaurant.

Kalapik replied that it had not been her idea. She said

that Koviano had started the restaurant 5 years earlier with

some of his classmates. The Nunavut Trust had lent them

money to rent a building and start the business because it

was going to be good experience and also because it would

be employing Inuit and they would be selling country food

from Nunavut. After a year they had re-paid the loan. A

couple of years later the business had saved enough money

that it was able to buy its own building.

How It Happened 50

"Wow!" I said. "How did the restaurant make so much

money?"

Kalapik told us that they buy their char from the fish

plant in Pang for $10 a pound. She said that each char

dinner contains 4 ounces of char, plus some potatoes,

carrots, and salad vegetables. She said that, unlike in

Nunavut, the cost of vegetables was negligible in Ottawa.

"We sell a char dinner for $20," said, Kalapik. "So how

much gross profit do we get for each $10 pound of char?"

she asked.

A very excited Nuka said, "You make almost $70 dollars

gross profit for a $10 investment in char, and you get the

$10 back, so you can do it all over again the next day."

"That's right, said Kalapik.

Kalapik then explained that each year new Business

students from Nunavut joined the restaurant. She said that

when she had joined, the restaurant had given her a no-

interest loan so she could buy her share of voting stock in

the company. She said that, when she graduated and left

the business she would sell her voting share back to the

business. The money she got by selling her voting share

would go to paying off her loan. The increase in the value

of her share – between when she bought it and when she

sold it – would reflect her effectiveness in helping to grow

the business. She would receive that money in the form of

non-voting shares in the business.

Taqialoo asked what would happen if the value of a

voting share went down. Kalapik said that had never

happened and she did not think it ever would. She said

that, if it ever did happen, the business would write off the

loans in exchange for the voting shares, but that those

students would not receive any non-voting shares.

I said it all sounded so exciting.

How It Happened 51

Kalapik said things were going to get a lot more exciting.

She said the owners were working on some new ideas.

Kalapik told us she was doing a double major in Business

and Engineering. She said that this summer she and a

couple of other Inuit Engineering students would be

working as interns at an engineering company. She said the

restaurant had hired the engineering company to figure out

how to build a better airport at Pangnirtung, so the

restaurant could get char that had been caught that same

morning!

"Our plan is that the char be caught early in the

morning and brought to the fish plant in Pang by 9AM

each day. By 10AM the char would be cleaned, packed on

ice in coolers, and delivered to the airport. By noon the

char would be in Iqaluit, by 1PM they would be on a jet to

Ottawa. By 4PM they would be in Ottawa, by 5PM they

would be at the restaurant and by 6pm Ottawamiut would

be eating char caught fresh that morning!"

We did not know what to say.

Then Kalapik asked Pitsiulak to come over and talk with

us.

Pitsiulak came over and Kalapik introduced her. Kalapik

then asked Pitsiulak to tell us about the project she was

working on.

Pitsiulak asked us if we had been to the Parliament

Buildings yet. We said that we had.

Pitsiulak said that all those people had to eat lunch

every day, and that often they stayed for supper, too. She

said her plan was that Mamaqtoo would bid for the

contract to manage the parliamentary restaurant. She said

they had two years to get ready to submit their bid. She

said there were lots of Inuit living in Ottawa and many of

them needed jobs.

How It Happened 52

Pitsiulak then said that this plan was about lots more

than just jobs for Inuit in Ottawa. "Its long been known

that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" she

said. Then she added, "Most parliamentarians are still men.

Nunavut only has one Member of Parliament. We will use

the parliamentary restaurant to remind all parliamentarians

about Nunavut every day, in a good way!"

"But that's not all. A good hunter studies her prey so as

to understand what they will do. In a similar way, we will

use the parliamentary restaurant as a way for us to study

parliamentarians! After all, it will take many years and

much support from the Federal government before Nunavut

is able to stand on its own like a province in Canada. It

will be easier to get their help if we understand them

better."

We were quiet for awhile after we got back to the motel.

There was so much to think about.

The next day we went with many other Inuit in big

buses to Canada's Wonderland. It had lots of exciting rides

and other fun things to do.

The next morning the buses took us to an Art Gallery.

Some of the pictures were nice, but it seemed like they

wasted a lot of space. We decided it must be very cheap to

build large buildings in Ottawa. In the afternoon the buses

took us to the Natural History Museum. Some of the things

we saw there were from long ago and far away. Other

things reminded us of home.

We had a few more days to get used to the hustle and

bustle of Ottawa.

One day we went to the Egyptian embassy in Ottawa. It

was a big building with people who came from Egypt.

Teacher told them that we were going to visit Egypt and

How It Happened 53

asked what we should know before we got there. The

Egyptians were very pleased that we were going to their

country. They said Egypt was much hotter than Ottawa

because it is closer to the equator. We would need hats to

protect us from the sun, not from the cold. We would also

need sun glasses because it was often very bright and

sometimes there were sand storms that were a little like

blizzards, except the air was hot and full of sand, not

snow.

Another day the buses took us out of Ottawa, to a farm.

We saw lots of cows and pigs and some horses. We saw

fields with rows of vegetables. There were potatoes and

carrots and corn and even watermelons!

In the afternoon we went to a stable with lots of horses.

Teacher said that if we wanted to ride a camel in Egypt we

should first learn to ride a horse here in Canada! So most

of us learned how to get onto a horse. It sure is strange to

be up so high. Then a guide led us on a ride through the

woods. That was a little scary, but lots of fun. I liked it

even better than the rides at Canada's Wonderland.

After a month in Ottawa it was time to head home.

Ottawa had been great fun, but our brains were tired.

Ataata was waiting for us when we got home. It was so

good to see him again. We had never been apart for so

long. Even though we had talked on the telephone every

day, there was so much to say. But mostly we just wanted

to be with him.

He had our equipment ready and the next day we

headed out onto the land. After a week of hunting we went

back to the house-of-wood and to the school. Our next trip

How It Happened 54

was going to be to Egypt, so we researched about Egypt on

the Internet. Teacher told us that we would spend a couple

of days in England on the way to Egypt and a couple of

days in France on the way back. So we had three places to

research.

Teacher gave us each two pages of word pairs. The first

page was for Egypt. The words were in Inukitut and the

same meaning in Arabic, but also written in syllabics so we

would know how to pronounce them. On the other page

the Inuktitut words were paired with pronunciations of the

words in French.

Teacher said that lots of people in Egypt spoke some

English and a few spoke French, but probably none spoke

Inuktitut. Being able to say a few important words in

Arabic would show the Egyptians that we cared about

them. Teacher also explained that almost nobody in Egypt,

or England, or France had a year-of-travel like we did.

Teacher told us that people in England spoke many

different dialects, most quite different than the dialect

spoken in Canada. She said there were different dialects of

French, too; but that most people in France could also

speak English, though some seemed not to like doing so.

She said there was even a small school in Paris where a

few French people learned to speak Inuktitut.

We took the pages with us when we went back on the

land for a few days. Traveling and school were fun, but it

was good to just be out on the land as a family.

Both Ataata and Anaana were coming with us to Egypt,

so we left our dogs with Rob.

By the time we got on the plane we knew the words on

both pages. We did not know how to read or write in

How It Happened 55

Arabic or French, but we could understand some words and

say them, too.

Getting to Egypt took a long time. First we flew to

Rankin Inlet. There we got on a bigger plane with more

cousins and flew to Ottawa. At the big airport in Ottawa

we met more cousins, some we knew from our trips to

North Bay or Ottawa. Others were cousins we had never

met. We got on an even bigger plane that would take us to

England. There were two isles down the length of the

plane. There were four seats between the isles and three

more seats on the other side of each isle. There was also a

small television set in front of each seat.

After the plane took off we ate supper and watched a

movie on the television. Soon it was dark, but we were too

excited to sleep. After the movie ended Anaana said we

should try to get some rest because tonight was going to be

a very short night. She said that, because we were flying

towards sunrise, we would be losing 5 hours on our flight

to England.

After what seemed like a few minutes of sleep we were

woken up. We could see daylight coming in the windows

and the ocean below us. The stewards gave us a tiny

breakfast of cooked meat and egg on a tray that we put on

the tiny tables that folded down in front of us.

Soon we started to go down. Then we saw lots of houses

and roads. The city was not only bigger than North Bay, it

was even bigger than Ottawa.

We left the plane and walked through a long corridor. It

seemed to go on forever. Finally we got to a big room

where we found our suitcases. There were lots of people.

Not just the ones who had been on our plane. Some spoke

English, but others spoke different languages. We did not

How It Happened 56

know what they were saying or what language they were

speaking, but we noticed that people were speaking in

many different ways. Then we went and stood in a long

line of people.

One group of people at a time went from the front of

the line to where someone was sitting at a table and

looking at them through an open window. When it was our

turn, the man at the widow asked for our passports. Ataata

gave them to him. He did not look at them. Instead he

asked, "What is the purpose of your trip to Great Britian?"

Ataata explained that we were part of a group of Inuit

going on a visit to Egypt. The man then asked how long

we planned to stay in England. Ataata said we would be in

England for two nights. The man asked to see our tickets

for our flight to Egypt. Ataata showed them to him. Then

he looked at our passports. He pressed something into each

of them that left a mark with writing on it. Then he gave

the passports back to Ataata, smiled, and said, "Welcome to

Great Britain. Enjoy your stay. You may go now."

We left that room and went into an even bigger one,

where we got together with the other Inuit who had been

on the plane. We walked past lots and lots of stores, and

lots of people, everywhere. Some were sitting, but most

seemed to be in a big hurry to get somewhere. After awhile

we got outside, where buses were waiting for us. The signs

on the buses read: "Manchester Bus Lines". But these buses

were different from any we had experienced before. There

was a whole bus right on top of the bus we went into! The

bus driver was sitting on the wrong side of the bus. And

strangest of all, the bus was parked on the wrong side of

the road. We had read about all these things. But still,

seeing them for real was just weird.

How It Happened 57

Once in the bus we went up the stairs and walked to

the front of the bus. There were big windows all around us.

We sat and watched as the bus, and all the rest of the

vehicles, drove on the wrong side of the road. The further

we drove, the less traffic there was, the narrower the road,

and the slower we went. But we did not mind. We were

too busy watching the scenery.

The land was very different from the land around North

Bay, which had been mostly forest. We drove through lots

of small towns. Between the towns there were lots of

rolling hills covered in green plants. In many places there

were herds of sheep. Eventually we got to a city called

Liverpool. Many of the buildings looked very old. The buses

stopped at the waterfront and we got off.

We all got together in a big open area and a man started

to speak. He introduced himself as the Mayor of Liverpool

and welcomed us to his city. He said that, long ago, many

sailing ships had left Liverpool for the land now known as

Nunavut. He said some went to fish and others went to

trade for furs. He spoke in a funny dialect. But he spoke

slowly, so we were able to figure out most of what he said.

We looked at the harbor and the buildings and the

people for awhile. So this was where the umiarjuak in the

old songs had come from! Then we went to a big school

where we met lots of kids and their teachers. We had a

lunch of "fish and chips" together. The fish was halibut

with some deep fried bannock around it. The chips were

long, thin pieces of potato that had also been fried. We had

read that this is the favourite meal in Great Britain.

It was good to talk with the kids, but after lunch we got

back on the bus and drove to Manchester. This time the

roads got wider, the traffic got heavier and the bus drove

faster. After about an hour we got off the bus and went

How It Happened 58

into a big building. It was a huge soccer stadium. We

watched the Manchester United soccer team beat Chelsea, 3

to 1. It was an exciting game. All the players were very

good. They did not play the way we did. We play soccer

indoors and when we play, we can bounce the ball off the

boards surrounding the playing field. Their field was very

much larger than ours. They have to keep the ball within

lines drawn on the green grass. That looks like it takes lots

of skill.

But the noise was unbelievable. Most of the other

people watching the game just kept yelling. The noise was

so loud I could not hear what my brother said, and he was

right next to me. We did not understand why they were

yelling. We thought they were yelling because they wanted

to play, too. It is much better to play than just to watch.

After the game we got back on the buses and drove to a

hotel, where we stayed for the night. Early the next

morning we left by bus again, this time to London. London

is a very big city. It was very noisy, but not as noisy as

the soccer game. We saw big buildings, even castles, like in

the picture books in the school. I had thought they were

just make-believe, but there are real castles made out of

stone! There were even men at the castles wearing bright

red coats and hats made of fur. The clothing did not look

comfortable and the men did not look happy. We were told

that the men were guards, but it was not clear what they

were guarding, nor who they were protecting it from.

Surely no one would try to steal a big building made of

stone.

We went to a big museum. It had lots of old stuff from

all over the world. Some of the stuff looked very old and

worn out. Other things looked very nice. Some looked like

they were brand new. We were told that people from

How It Happened 59

England had gone all over the world. They had taken

things, brought them to London and put them in this

museum so people in London could see how things were

and how people lived in other places. I suppose it was a bit

like our year-of-travel, without the traveling.

There was a very tall, thin, stone building, with a clock

near the top. It also had a very big bell that made a loud

noise when it was rung. I thought people in England must

like loud noises for some reason. I thought maybe they

have poor hearing. I thought maybe it's to scare away the

animals. Inuit don't want to scare animals — we want to

hunt and eat them!

Then we got back on the buses and went to a very big

airport. Before we got off the bus our teachers gave us

scarves. They were not like the warm one Anaana had knit

for me from muskox hair. They were thin and light.

Teacher said that women and girls should cover our

foreheads with scarves when we were with other people in

Egypt. Teacher also told us that, while in Egypt everyone

should only touch food with our right hand, never with our

left hand. Then teacher told us that most people in Egypt

would stop whatever they were doing five times each day,

get down on their knees and pray. Teacher said we would

try to be away from Egyptians at these times so as not to

distract them. But if we were with Egyptians who were

praying we were to stand still and stay silent until they

finished. All this was showing respect for their culture.

The airport was even bigger than the one in Ottawa.

Ataata said we had to go into the washrooms and change

clothes. We had to put on light weight clothes that covered

our shoulders and our knees. Then we put our jackets into

our suitcases, because it would be very hot in Egypt.

How It Happened 60

We went through security inspection. It was strange not

having my ulu with me, but I had not needed it because

there had been no frozen fish or meat to cut up. Then we

got on an airplane and flew to Cairo, which is in Egypt,

which is in Africa! We got there shortly after sunset and

could see Cairo from the air. We had read that Cairo had

more than 20,000,000 people. We did not really know how

many that was, but we did not believe it. No place could

have so many people. But when we saw the lights of Cairo

spread out as far as we could see in all directions, we

knew it was really big. Bigger than North Bay, bigger than

Ottawa, bigger even than London!

Again we had to stand in line with our luggage and go

through customs. But this time, most of the people were

speaking a language we did not understand. The customs

man spoke to us in the language we did not understand.

Then he spoke English. He spoke a dialect we had never

heard before, but we could understand him. He asked

where we were from. When we said we were from Nunavut

in Canada he said that he had seen many people from

Canada, but until today he had never seen anyone from

Nunavut. We explained that we were part of a school group

and had come to learn about Egypt. One thing we already

knew was that Egypt is very hot during the day and there

is almost never any snow. He asked if it was true that we

lived in houses made of snow. We told him that we did

sometimes, but that we also lived in houses-of-wood

sometimes. He stamped our passports and said, "Welcome

to Egypt. Enjoy your stay. Maybe someday I will visit

Nunavut and see a house made of snow."

It was well after sunset when we left the airport, but

when we stepped outside of the airport building it was like

How It Happened 61

being hit by a wall of hot air. I had never been so hot. We

were glad that cold air was blowing in the bus. The hot air

hit us again when we got off the bus. Fortunately, the hotel

was much cooler than the outside. This was all very new to

us. We were used to the inside of buildings being warmer

than outside. Never before had we been in buildings that

were colder inside than outside.

We had supper at a restaurant in the hotel. The menu

was in Arabic and in English. We had seen Arabic writing

while researching Egypt on the Internet, but we could not

read those strange, beautiful, curvy letters. However, even

the English part of the menu was strange and made little

sense. Ataata ordered mild lamb curry with rice for all of

us. It tasted good, but if that's what Egyptians consider

mild, I didn't want to eat medium or spicy food. The food

warmed us, just like eating raw fish did, but very much

more so. We all drank lots and lots of water.

Then we went to our suite and watched television for

awhile, but it was in the strange language we did not

understand. Mostly we talked with other kids from Nunavut

who were in the same hotel.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel. A bus

took us to a school. There we went into a large room

where the principal welcomed us. He said that each family

from Nunavut would be spending a week with a family

from Cairo. We were matched with Omar and Hoda and

their parents.

They lived in a nice house of stone, along with their

anaanatsiak. Omar and Hoda spoke English about as well as

we did. Their parents, not so much. But their anaanatsiak

spoke English perfectly, though in an odd dialect.

How It Happened 62

They took us to see some pyramids, because that is

something everyone who comes to Egypt does. They were

huge. We could not imagine how or why people had built

them, but obviously, they had.

One day we went to the Mediterranean Sea. Some

people were swimming in it! We didn't do that, but we did

roll up the legs of our pants and we walked into it a little

bit. Never had I thought the ocean could be so warm!

Another day we went to the Suez Canal and watched big

umiarjauk go past. It was ships in the desert.

They also took us to a big market. It was outside. There

were lots and lots of people. Some were trying to buy

things and others were trying to sell things. Omar explained

the no one expected to sell things for the price they asked

for and no one expected to pay the price being asked. It

was a game called bargaining. If you were trying to buy

and did not know the real price you would either leave

without buying anything, or you would pay too much. If

you were trying to sell and did not know the real price you

would either not sell anything or you would not get as

much money as you should have. It all took a lot of time

and people became very excited, however, they seemed to

be enjoying themselves.

But mostly we played and talked. They told us about

living in Cairo and we told them about living in Nunavut.

We could see some of what they told us, because we were

in Cairo, but they had a hard time believing what we told

them about Nunavut. They had never seen snow, so the

idea of living in a house-of-snow must have seemed really

strange to them.

One day, very early, we got together with some other

families at the school and played soccer outdoors. It was

How It Happened 63

fun to play soccer with our new friends, but even though

the sun had only been up a short time, it still seemed very

hot to us. Their soccer field did not have green grass like

the one in Manchester, and it wasn't as big, but it did have

the white lines. It was not easy getting used to playing

soccer without walls. But we all had fun.

Our week with Hoda and her family went by very fast.

Soon it was time for us to leave them. We traded email

addresses and promised to stay in touch.

We rejoined the other Inuit families and the buses took

us to a community called Beni Suer. There we got on an

umiarjuaq. It was like a long, thin hotel that floated on the

Nile River. Not only did it float, it also had a motor and

for the next few days we watched the land go past as we

went up the kuujuaq. We stopped along the way to visit

places where the stone had been cut to build the pyramids,

and also at a place called the Valley of the Kings, where

the rulers of Egypt long ago had been buried. It was all so

strange, but it seemed very important to the people living

in Egypt.

We ended our trip on the umiarjuaq at Aswan, where

there were some huge dams. Above the dams there was a

lake so big that we could not see across to the other side.

The Egyptians were very proud of these dams. The dams

made electricity that went in wires all over Egypt, so

people would have lights in their houses and power in their

factories. The Egyptians said the dams made it possible for

Egypt to become a modern country.

At Aswan we were again matched up with families.

These were special Egyptians called Bedouin. First they

taught us how to ride on camels! Camels are really tall.

How It Happened 64

You are very high up when you are riding on a camel, and

the ride was very bumpy. Then we rode on the camels with

them to their camp at a nearby oasis in the desert.

In many ways the Bedouin are very different from us.

But in many other ways they are quite similar. They live

where it is hot, while we live where it is cold. We both are

nomadic at times, moving from place to place a lot. We

often live in houses-of-snow, while they often live in houses

of cloth. We hunt animals, while they herd animals. We use

dogs for moving things and sometimes for moving people.

They use camels for moving things and people. We burn

seal fat in our qulliik for light and heat. They burn camel

dung in their fires for light and heat. We both make

bannock, but very differently. Family is very important to

both of us. Both our peoples had their ways of life

disrupted when the British came.

It was good to be away from the crowds. We were used

to snow, but not to sand, and the sand got into everything!

We could not understand how they could seemingly ignore

the sand, but we figured it depends on what you get used

to.

They showed us how they lived and we tried to help

them with their animals. We also tried to explain how we

lived. They were very polite, but I think they had a hard

time believing some of the things we told them. Their

bannock was strange, but good. One day Anaana and I

made some of her bannock for them to try. They said they

liked it.

After a couple of days, everything was packed up and we

all rode camels to another oasis, where we helped them set

up their camp. This moving was very important because, if

they stayed in one place for too long, all the plants would

be eaten. Then there would be no food for their animals

How It Happened 65

and no plants left to re-grow. They had to keep moving,

just like our tuktoo had to keep moving.

The desert was very hot during the day, but it cooled

off quickly when the sun set and it became quite cold at

night.

We traveled with the Bedouin for about a week before

returning to Aswan. It was difficult to leave these nice

people whose ways were both so different from ours and

yet so similar. As with us, parents were the main teachers.

Unlike us, their government did not pay for them to travel

to far-away places to learn how others lived. They said

they were glad we had come, so they could learn about

Inuit.

From Aswan we went by bus to the airport at Cairo and

then flew home after spending a few days in and around

Paris. Flying, which had seemed so strange and wonderful a

few months ago, was becoming normal to us.

It was good to see our cousins when we got home. But

after a couple of days of rest we were ready to head out

onto the land, without sand!

After a couple of weeks hunting and fishing on the land

we returned to the house-of-wood. We went to the school

and started to learn about Brazil. Brazil is very big. It is

very hot, like Egypt. But it is not a dry heat, it is wet

heat. Much of it is a tropical rain-forest containing lots of

different types of plants and animals. Like Egypt and

Nunavut, it was colonized, but by the Portuguese, rather

than by the British. Like communities in Nunavut, some of

the communities in Brazil are connected to other

communities and the outside world only by air and by

boat. They are not directly connected by road to most of

How It Happened 66

the rest of Brazil. One big difference is that that the water

access is year round.

Our flight to Brazil took us to Manous, a city of 2

million people on the Amazon River, most of whom have

aboriginal ancestors. Similar to our visit to Egypt, we spent

a week with a family in Manous. Here again, English was a

second language, but we made ourselves understood. We

talked a lot with our new friends, Camila and Ayrtona, and

they showed us their city. We also played soccer, or tried

to in the heat and humidity and rain. Their father worked

in a shipyard, a place that builds umiarjuak. One day he

took us to visit the shipyard. It was huge, as were the ships

they were building. It was fascinating to see how a ship

was made.

Then we spent a week on a ship, going down the

Amazon to Macapa, which is right on the equator. The

Amazon is huge. It looks like a lake, but it's a river. Mostly

the ship stayed away from the shore. That made it difficult

to see the trees, the land and the animals. But when we

got close to shore there were so many mosquitoes. We have

mosquitoes in Nunavut in summer, but they are nothing,

compared to the mosquitoes along the Amazon.

From Macapa we flew to Rio de Janeiro, where we spent

a week with another family. Si, senior, we learned to speak

a little Portuguese and they learned a few words in

Inuktitut. But mostly we all made do with English. I still

didn't like that crazy language, but I appreciated why we

had to learn it. Otherwise we would be cut off from most

of the world.

Rio de Janeiro is a city on the South Atlantic Ocean. It

does not rain a lot there, like it does in Manous. It has a

tall mountain, with a big statue on top. It also has lots of

nice beaches and lots of sunshine. Most of the people in

How It Happened 67

Rio de Janeiro seem to spend most of their time on a

beach, and they don't wear many clothes. Mostly just tiny

bathing suits. But they play games a lot and they sing a lot

and some of them seem to get drunk a lot. There are lots

of very rich people in Rio de Janeiro. But there are also

lots of very poor people there, too. It reminded me a little

about what I had read of Frobisher Bay, back before

Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories. Except

without the snow, of course.

We played some soccer, the kind where you have to

keep the ball inside the lines. But our new friends also

taught us to play beach volleyball. They mark off a playing

field on a beach, much like in soccer, but smaller. Then

they hang a fishing net across the middle of the field. The

game is played with two teams. Each team stays on their

own side of the net. The players on each team try to hit

the ball over the net towards the other team. Your team

can hit the ball up to 3 times before they have to get the

ball over the net. Also, when the ball goes over the net it

has to touch the ground inside the "field lines".

They have a "cable car". It's a room with windows all

around, so you can look out, and with a wire at the top.

You go into the room and close the door. Then a motor

pulls the wire and the wire pulls the room up into the air.

After awhile the room stops at the top of a big mountain.

After a week in Rio de Janeiro we said adios to our

newest friends, got into an airplane and headed home.

It was becoming almost a new normal. Fly home, rest for

a day, talk with family, then spend a week or so on the

land, then back to school to exchange emails and research

our new destination.

How It Happened 68

Our next trip was going to be to China. It would be our

last country. And it would be even more different that the

other places we had visited. Teacher said that in many

ways China was very modern, but that it also had lots of

history from long ago. While Inuit have a long oral

tradition, the Chinese people have a long written history.

Their ancient writing does not use individual letters, like

English. It also does not use phonetic syllabics, as we do.

Instead it uses an "alphabet" of about 5000 ideographs.

Each ideograph has one or more meanings, and they can be

combined to form more ideas. But some of the

combinations seem strange and others are somewhat

comical. For example, if the symbol for "big" is followed by

the symbol for "mouth", the two together mean "older

brother". Inuit would never be so disrespectful. If you put

two symbols side by side, both being the symbol for

"woman", and then you put the symbol for "roof" over

them both, the three symbols together mean "trouble".

We left in the now usual way, by flying in a small plane

to Rankin Inlet. From there we took a charter jet to

Toronto, where we saw the CN Tower as we flew past it.

Then we got into a plane so big that it was hard to believe

it could fly. It was so big it had two rooms, one on top of

the other. We were in the top room. Our flights to

Manchester and to Manous had been charter flights with

only us Inuit as passengers. This time we were on a

regularly scheduled flight with lots of other people from

many parts of the world. This was going to be a direct,

non-stop flight from Toronto to Beijing.

Our first impression of China was one of speed. Everyone

seemed to move fast and speak fast. There were also lots of

How It Happened 69

people. We had seen crowds almost everywhere in our

travels, so we should have become used to crowds by then,

but somehow, we were not.

Again, English was a second language. Again, we went

through customs with the usual questions, the usual

curiosity and the usual well-wishes.

Beijing was huge, it was crowded, it was noisy, it

seemed chaotic, with people moving in all directions. The

air did not smell good, but the city was clean. We did not

see garbage anywhere. Instead, we saw lots of red and lots

of gold. We had read that these were the two favourite

colours in China and it seemed to be true.

The buses from the airport took us to the Great Wall of

China. We went up on top of it. It was big. It was tall and

it was long. It was so long we could not see an end in

either direction. It was made of lots of stones. Lots of

people must have worked together for a very long time to

have built the wall.

Then the buses took us to a large restaurant where we

had "dim sum". It was a kind of lunch were we sat in

groups at round tables and people would bring carts

containing dishes of food. Most of the food was bannock

with something very tasty inside. We could pick which ones

we wanted to eat. But we did not know what was in each

one until we tasted it. Even then, we often could not tell

what it was, only that it tasted good. The idea seemed to

be to eat a little bit of each of a lot of things.

After dim sum the buses took us to a big building. It

was not a soccer stadium. It was a factory where cars were

being built. We had a tour of the factory. It was huge. We

saw lots of people putting cars together. But we saw even

more robots welding parts and spraying paint and doing

lots of other things. When we first saw the inside of the

How It Happened 70

factory it looked like chaos, but after a short while we

began to see the cars-to-be as they moved through the

factory. We began to see the organization of it all. So many

people and so many robots, all working together. You got

the impression that they could accomplish anything.

After the factory, the buses took us to a big hotel,

where we got our suites and had a big meal of noodles and

vegetables and meat. The vegetables and the meat were cut

into small pieces and mixed with very tasty sauces. We also

had a strange tea. It was not like the tea we could get at

home from the trading post. It was strange, but somehow,

it was sort of good. We drank lots of it from very small

bowls.

That evening the buses took us to another big building.

It was a theater, but not for watching movies. It was for a

circus. There were lots of jugglers and acrobats. Often it

looked like they were about to fall, but they never did.

The next morning we went to a school. We learned that

this type of school was very unusual in China. Most of the

classes were taught in English, even though the students

were Chinese. We went into a big room with lots of

teachers and students. The principal welcomed us to the

school and to China. One of our teachers thanked everyone

for welcoming us. Then we were matched up with their

students. We would not be living with them, as we had

elsewhere, but we would be spending time with them for

the next two weeks while we were in Beijing. I was

matched with Mi, Taqialoo was matched with Cao and

Nuka was matched with Tzu. One of the first things we

found out was that they had no brothers and no sisters.

They were all "only child". They asked lots of questions

about what it was like to have siblings. To us it was

How It Happened 71

normal; to them it was exotic. To them, having siblings was

weirder than being Inuit or even Canadian.

We went to some classes with them. We learned about

the geography and history of China. Sometimes our teachers

taught about Canada and Nunavut. We played soccer. I

think kids all over the world play soccer.

We also spent lots of time talking. They wanted to

practice their English. They were also very curious about

Canada. They had never heard of Nunavut before their

teacher told them we would come to visit them. They spent

lots of time in school and studied at home, too. They did

not hunt, they did not fish, they did not collect berries,

they did not spend time on the land. They were very

competitive. When they played soccer those students seemed

very focused on winning, while we were more interested in

just having fun.

We went many places with our new friends. Sometimes

we walked in the neighborhood. Sometimes we took buses

to places further away. Always it was crowded. Lots of

people, and lots of buildings crowded together. They taught

us to eat with chop sticks. It took awhile, but we got to be

quite good at it. After that, we were able to go to some of

their favourite restaurants that did not have forks and

knives!

One day we went to Tienanmen Square. It was huge, and

there were no buildings in it. The Chinese students and

teachers were very proud of it. Considering how crowded

everywhere else was, it had to be very special for them not

to build on it. We also visited the Forbidden City. It was

called that because, long ago, only the rulers of China

could go inside it. Most people were forbidden to go inside.

Now everyone could go inside to visit.

How It Happened 72

After a couple of weeks we and our new friends took a

train trip to a far away city called Xian. This was the first

time we had really traveled with the people we visited,

other than the Beduin. Our new friends had never been to

Xian. The train went very fast! It was fun to be with our

friends and it was fun to see the countryside go past.

After a few hours the train stopped at the station in Xian

and we all got off. The Chinese teachers had prepared us

for visiting Xian. They had told us that, like many things in

China, it was very old. It had been a famous city thousands

of years ago. They told us about the famous ruler who had

been buried there and the thousands of statues that had

also been buried for thousands of years. But even the

telling and showing us pictures had not fully prepared us

for seeing it for real. There were indeed thousands of life

size statues of warriors! It was hard to image so many

statues. Who had spent so much time making all those

statues, and why? Who had done the hunting and the

farming to supply all those people with food for all the

time they must have spent making those statues? It was

hard to believe. In some ways, the effort must have been

like the effort that went into building the pyramids in

Egypt or the Great Wall we had seen at Beijing. The Great

Wall had seemed strange, but we could sort of understand

why it had been built. But the pyramids and the thousands

of statues were beyond belief, even though we had seen

them with our own eyes.

We spent a couple of days in Xian. Then we exchanged

email addresses with our friends and said goodbye. They

took the high speed train back to Beijing, while we flew to

Chongqing.

In Chongqing we went to a zoo, where we saw Pandas.

They are bears. They are not nearly as big as our Polar

How It Happened 73

Bears. They are both black and white. They move slowly.

They don't eat seals. Instead, they eat bamboo, which is a

type of tree. We had read about them while we were in

our school. It had been hard to imagine a bear eating just

wood and leaves, but we saw them doing it. The world is

full of unimaginable things. We were told that no one in

China eats Pandas.

The next day the buses took us to the Yangtze River,

which is a very big kuugaraq. There we got onto an

umiarjuaq. It was like a hotel that moved on the water. In

many ways it was like the one we had been on in Brazil,

when we went down the Amazon River. This time we were

going to spend three days going down the Yanktze River.

It did not seem to be as big as the Amazon, but it was

still a big kuugaraq. We went through gorges with high

cliffs on both sides. The water moved especially fast in the

gorges. It was fun and exciting. For three days we watched

as the river carried us through some amazing scenery.

Sometimes we got off the ship and saw the land up close.

After three days, we got off at Yichang. There was a

huge dam there. It made lots of electricity for China, sort

of like how the Aswan Dam made lots of electricity for

Egypt. We went on a tour of the electricity plant. It was

enormous.

From Yichang we took another high-speed train to

Shanghai. We saw lots of huge farms. People in China

mostly don't hunt, so they need lots of farms to feed all the

people. We had visited a farm near Ottawa, but that farm

was not nearly as big as these farms seemed to be.

We spent a few days in Shanghai. It was another huge

city with lots of people. There were lots of tall buildings

How It Happened 74

and lots of factories. We visited a factory where they made

steel from iron that had been dug from the ground. It was

very hot and smelly. We visited another factory where they

made cars parts from steel. We also visited a factory where

they assembled cars from lots of parts, like they did in

Beijing. With so many people in China they need lots of

factories to make lots of cars and other things.

One day we visited the port. Hundreds of huge

umiarjuak were being unloaded and reloaded by big cranes

that reached high up in the sky and moved on railway

tracks. We were told that this was the biggest port in the

world, and we could believe it. I could not imagine so

much stuff, and it was all being moved from one place to

another. At one point our guide at the port pointed out a

particularly large umiarjuaq. He said that it had come from

Canada and that it was full of potash. He said Chinese

people were very thankful to Canada for selling our potash

to them. He said Chinese people would use that potash to

help grow vegetables that would feed millions of people. He

said Chinese companies would even send some of the food

to Canada on a different boat for Canadians to eat.

On our last day in Shanghai we went to a large market

with lots of small stores. They sold lots of stuff. Sometimes

we knew what things were, but other times we could not

even figure out what they were for. After a few hours in

the crowds we went to a place called Yu Garden, which we

were told was very famous in China. China has lots of

famous places. Yu Garden had lots of plants that were nice

to look at. It had lots of buildings that were very old. It

also had carved rocks and small bridges over streams. It

was sort of relaxing to be there, after being in the crowds

of the market.

How It Happened 75

From Yu Garden we went to a very tall building. Before

our year-of-travel I would have said no building could be

so tall. The building was called Oriental Pearl Tower. We

went into the building and took an elevator to the top

floor. There was a restaurant there. It had lots of windows

that did not open. We could see very far. The city seemed

to go on forever in all directions. A few at a time, the

other families arrived. The mayor of Shanghai came and

thanked us for visiting her city. She said it was an honour

to have visitors from so far away. One of our teachers

thanked her and said how happy we were to have come

and how welcoming everyone had been. We all had a

delicious meal that included Beijing Duck. It was not like

the wild ducks we sometimes eat in Nunavut but it tasted

very good.

After the meal and a last look at Shanghai we went

down the elevators and took buses to a train station. There

we got onto a special "mag lev" train. The train was

different than any other we had seen. It did not have

wheels! It used magnets to hold itself up in the air and

more magnets to push and pull itself forwards. It went very

fast and it was very quiet. We heard some sound of the

wind going past us, but that was all.

Soon we were at the end of the rail line. From there we

went into a huge airport and boarded our flight to Canada.

We flew through the night and arrived at Vancouver the

next morning.

As we approached Vancouver airport we could see the

ocean and the city and the mountains. We could see cars

and trucks and boats. We could see lots of logs floating in

the kuuks. We could see railway cars filled with something

yellow.

How It Happened 76

After clearing customs we were in another huge airport.

People were talking in many languages. Some spoke in

English, a few spoke in French, but lots of people were

speaking Mandarin. We did not understand what they were

saying, but we recognized the language!

We had a bus tour of Vancouver, and after a few hours

the buses stopped at the bottom of Grouse Mountain. From

there we took a cable car to the top of the mountain. It

was a lot cooler at the top than it had been at the bottom.

We could see the city below us. We went for a walk near

the top of the mountain. Then some of us decided to walk

down a trail to the bottom of the mountain. It was good to

be away from crowds! It wasn't like being out on the land

in Nunavut. For one thing, there were all those tall trees

that blocked our view. There were also lots of birds.

We met the others at the buses. From there we drove

back over a tall bridge, through Stanley Park, and over to

the University of British Columbia. It's a big place with lots

of buildings, some old and some newer. It's sort of a

school, but for older people after high school. We didn't

have one in Nunavut at that time. There we were met by

Meeka and Raigili and Oopah. They were cousins who were

living in Vancouver while studying at the University. They

welcomed us and acted as tour guides, showing us their

University. One place they showed us was a library. It was

old, it was big, and it had lots of books. We had never

seen so many books. I had not thought that so many books

even existed in the whole world.

They said their university was a residential school, but

not like the ones from before. They had a place to live, but

they were free to come and go whenever they wanted to.

They could eat the meals provided, or they could prepare

their own food. They could speak Inuktitut whenever they

How It Happened 77

wanted to, but no one else understood it. The biggest

problems they had were that there was very little country

food except fresh fish, and they missed their families.

Still, they each had chosen to come for a reason. Meeka

was studying to become a doctor. Raigili was studying to

become a pharmacist. Oopah was studying Aviation and

Hospitality. His father had a fly-in / fly-out lodge for

hunting and fishing. His father enjoyed being the guide, but

did not like managing the business. So Oopah was going to

manage and grow the business, while his father would

spend his time out on the land with clients.

We left Vancouver the next day and flew home, in the

now-usual way. Traveling to China had been exciting, but it

was good to be back. After a day of rest we harnessed the

dogs and headed out onto the land for a couple of weeks of

strenuous fun. We fished, we hunted, we sang songs and

we laughed. We did things at the pace that nature set. It

was great to be back on the land!

One evening Taqialoo said how it had been great

meeting and spending time with so many cousins from

across Nunavut. He said we would be seeing them once

more, when we went to Iqaluit next month. But after that

it might be many years, if ever, before we met those from

other settlements again. He said he was going to set up a

web page with a "forum" on it, so we could all stay in

contact, no matter where we were. We all said that

sounded like a great idea and offered to help.

We returned to the house-of-wood and then went to

school the next day. Taqialoo downloaded Vanilla Free

Forum and installed it on on a school computer to test it

out. Anaana started knitting with some special yarn she had

bought in China. She knit and she knit and she knit. She

How It Happened 78

said she was making presents for some family who would

be in Iqaluit whom she had not seen in a very long time.

Teacher told us what we already knew, that our year-of-

travel was almost over. Our next trip would be our last. We

would be going to Iqaluit, to see for ourselves how

Nunavut was run. We would have complete freedom to go

anywhere, see anything, and talk with anyone. We could

even sit in on Cabinet meetings and see how they were

run, though if we did so, we would have to take an oath

of confidentiality, promising not to tell what had been

discussed. We would meet kids our age from all over

Nunavut. There would also be square dances. There would

be time for soccer and hockey and swimming in the Iqaluit

swimming pool. There would be time to talk.

This trip would be a good time to start thinking about

our future and what we wanted to do to help Nunavut be

an even better place to live. We looked at pictures of

Iqaluit and we read about it. We also read more about the

government of Nunavut and about some of the businesses

and organizations in Iqaluit. Iqaluit is much smaller than

most of the places we had visited. But most people there

spoke Inuktitut, so that would certainly be different.

After a few days Taqialoo was satisfied with Vanilla, so

he installed it on a Nearly Free Web Hosting site, made it

live on the Internet and emailed cousins we had met on

our travels.

We headed back out onto the land for a few more days

of hunting. Then it was time to pack for our trip to Iqaluit.

We flew to Rankin Inlet, where we met cousins who had

been with us on some of our travels. Then we got onto a

jet and flew with them to Iqaluit.

How It Happened 79

The Iqaluit airport was much bigger than ours or even

the one at Rankin Inlet. But it was much smaller than

others we had been in. We did not have to go through

customs because Iqaluit is in Canada. We walked into the

Iqaluit airport and soon were surrounded by lots and lots of

people. It was almost like the airport in Cairo or Beijing,

except everyone was speaking a dialect of Inuktitut and

they were not going anywhere. They were there to meet us

and make us welcome!

Anaana's sister Pia, her common-law Nanauq and their

two daughters, Kulluajak and Tapitia were in the crowd

that was there to meet us. After a few minutes they found

us, we got our luggage, and took two taxis to their house.

It was a nice house with a great view of Frobisher Bay.

Kulluajak and Tapitia were a little younger than us, but all

four of them were anxious to hear about our year-of-travel.

We all talked for hours, before finally getting some sleep.

Our visit to Iqaluit was very different than the rest of

our travel. There were about 650 of us kids from other

settlements, plus about 100 year-of-travel kids from Iqaluit.

Then there were about the same number of parents, so we

added about 20% to the Iqaluit population. It simply was

not possible for all of us to go most places as a single

group. Like most parents, ours wanted to visit with friends

and family they had not seen in many years, so that's what

they often did.

Each of the government offices had "welcome" sessions at

9 am Monday to Friday while we were there. So did the

Inuit organizations and many of the other establishments.

We would head out about 8 o'clock each morning. If one

"welcome" room was already full when we got there, we

How It Happened 80

went on to another, and came back the next morning. It

didn't happen often, but it did sometimes.

That first morning we went to Northmart, the biggest

store in Iqaluit. They told us that lots of their merchandise

was delivered by ship between July and October each year,

but they also got fresh groceries flown up every day that

the weather lets the airplanes fly. They told us that about

2000 people shop there every day and buy about 10,000

kilograms of stuff every day! They explained how they

order groceries and other items, how the merchandise gets

to Iqaluit, and how it is moved from the airport to the

warehouse and from there to the shelves. They said they

hoped some of us would want to work at Northmart after

we finished school.

After the "welcome" meeting some of us stayed at the

store for awhile to watch how they got big boxes of stuff

from the warehouse, opened them up, put prices on each

item and put each item on the right shelf for people to

select. There seemed to be a lot of handling and moving.

After that we walked around and talked for awhile. We

met quite a few kids we knew from earlier in the year. We

walked over to an arena and watched people skating. When

those people left the ice others got on and started to play

hockey. We watched that for awhile, then went outside and

watched the people at the fire station cleaning the fire

trucks and other equipment.

That evening we went to the airport. Most of the year-

of-travel people, and lots of Iqualimmiut, were there. We

had great fun square dancing for hours in the airport

building.

The next morning we went to a "welcome" meeting at

the Legislative Assembly. They told us that every settlement

in Nunavut has at least one person who represents them in

How It Happened 81

the Legislative Assembly and speaks on their behalf. We

were told that some of the people who were voted also had

extra jobs and were responsible for departments in the

government. These people were called Cabinet Ministers.

They told us that other people work at "the Ledge", helping

those who were voted, so they would be ready to discuss

whatever needed to be considered.

Our MLA was at the "welcome". When it was over she

took us on a tour of the building. She showed us the room

where they had their discussions. We had seen some of

those discussions on television. It was different, seeing the

room without all the usual people. She showed us the

library, with lots of books and lots of boxes of papers. She

showed us her office and said that one-day, it could be the

office of one of us. She said that politicians make rules so

that people can get along better. She said they also try to

help people when there are problems. We thanked her, but

I didn't think any of us want to be a politician – though

the helping part sounded OK.

How It Happened 82

How It Happened 83

Part Two: Getting Ready

Grade 8: The Year of The Plan

For most kids, the Year of the Plan did not start until

after they returned home from Iqaluit. But for us it was

different. After talking with our MLA we went back to

auntie's house-of-wood. When everyone was there Taqialoo

said he had been thinking and he wanted to share his ideas

with us. Ataata said, "That sounds good, irniq. Who are

you going to marry?" Taqialoo said, "That's not it." But he

blushed, anyway.

We all sat down and Taqialoo started. "I've been thinking

a lot about what Kalapik said at her restaurant in Ottawa.

It makes lots more sense to sell char dinners than to just

sell fish. Nunavut has lots of other things that people

around the world want. Nunavut has metals and oil and

gold and silver and even uranium. But these things are

different from char. If Kalapik and others like her are

careful, there will be char forever. For the other things, no

matter how careful we are, they will be gone some day. So

it's even more important to use them, rather than just to

sell them."

"I also remember what we saw and heard in Egypt and

China. They made huge dams to generate lots of electricity,

and used the electricity to make lives better for lots of

people."

"Nunavut has lots of kuuks, but they are not so big as

the Nile or the Yangtze. And they freeze over for most of

the year. But we have lots of uranium. People in FranceHow It Happened 84

use uranium to make electricity and use the electricity to

power almost everything in their country."

"I was thinking that we should mine uranium in

Nunavut. But instead of selling it, we should use it to make

electricity and sell the electricity to people who want to use

it to improve how they live."

"We could start by building a new settlement near where

there is natural gas in the high arctic. We could mine the

mountain at Mary River and send the iron ore to the new

settlement. There we would use the natural gas to heat the

iron and change it into steel. Then we could use the steel

to make barges and tugboats. We would also use steel and

other material to build atomic power plants that would be

on the barges. We would build a uranium mine near Baker

Lake, process the uranium and use the processed uranium

to fuel the atomic power plants. We would anchor barges

near large cities and sell electricity to the cities."

"There would be lots more jobs for Inuit and we would

get lots more money for electricity than for uranium."

We were all stunned. I had never heard of such an idea

and I don't think anyone else had, either.

After a moment of silence, Nuka asked, "Wouldn't those

countries want to buy uranium and own their own power

plants, instead of paying us for electricity?"

Taqialoo replied, "Yes, they would, at first. But we could

show them why it would be better this way."

"One big issue is design and permitting costs. Now, each

reactor starts the process all over. Each is custom made. We

will mass-produce our power plants. That will save lots of

time and money. Another big issue is disposal of radioactive

waste and disposal of the power plant when it is no longer

usable. Most countries don't have good places to do those

things. Nunavut does. We will choose three small islands

How It Happened 85

way high up in the Arctic, where Inuit traditionally don't

go."

"The first would be a place for radioactive waste. No one

would ever go there once the place had been built. Near

that island would be a second island that would be used as

the base for robotic equipment that would be sent to the

waste island when needed. Those robots would be used

until they could not operate reliably. Then they would be

left on the island with the radioactive waste. The third

island, somewhat further away, is where Inuit would live

and from which they would control the robots and the

power plants on the barges."

"By doing this we will be able to get extra money for

our electricity because the customer will not have the

before-costs and after-costs that come with owning an

atomic power plant."

Ataata slowly said, "It's a good idea. It's going to take

lots of time and lots of work. You are going to need lots of

help. And in the end, it might not work out the way you

want. But it's a good idea and I'm proud of you."

I said that I had been thinking about becoming an

engineer, sort of like Tirak's Ataata. Then I added, "but you

are going to need lots of engineers. Perhaps I'll become an

engineer and then start an engineering college here in

Nunavut."

Taqialoo said "That would be great. It would help a lot."

Nuka then said "You're going to need someone to run

those mines and another person to manage the steel mill.

You're going to need someone to manage the factories

making things out of steel and someone else to manage the

building of robots and another person to be the boss of

boat and barge building. I like making things. Maybe I will

manage those factories."

How It Happened 86

Anaana said, "You're going to need lots of money to pay

for everything you will need and everyone who will work

on this. Nunavut Trust has lots of money from the Nunavut

Land Claims Agreement, but I don't think it has enough

money for this."

"You are right, as always, Anaana." replied Taqialoo.

"That's why we will have to build a gold mine. We will

need lots of Inuit artists who will make jewelry from the

gold. That way Nunavut will get lots more money than it

would by just selling the gold. First a small gold mine,

then use the money it makes to build a medium size gold

mine and then use the money from the medium one to

build a big gold mine.

Money from the big gold mine will pay the expenses of

building the gas community and the iron mine. It will pay

for building the uranium mine and the factories and the

barges and the power plants. We may have to take time

out to build a diamond mine, too, depending on how much

money we need. But Nunavut is very rich. If we do things

right it will work."

There was silence for a few moments. Then Nanauq said,

"I see how the gold mine could work. I see how the artists

could earn lots of money by selling jewelry made of gold,

especially if Inuit owned and operated jewelry stores in big

cities. But how do you get the money to build the iron

mine and the gas community and everything else?"

Taqialoo said, "Remember what we heard about Kalapik's

Arctic Char restaurant? It will be like that. We will create a

business, or maybe several businesses. Most artists don't like

to do their own selling. A selling business will take care of

that for many jewelry makers. Just like Kalapik's restaurant,

this business will retain earnings and use them for

expansion. Jewelry makers and other people in Nunavut

How It Happened 87

won't give their money to us, they will be able to invest

money in the business. They will have voting shares if they

work in the business, or non-voting shares if they are not

working in the business. In either case, the value of their

investment will increase as the business grows."

"There will be one big difference between this business

and the restaurant," Taqialoo said. "Koviano worked for

about a month to get the restaurant ready before people

started buying char dinners. The restaurant spent money

during that month but no money came in, except the

investment from Nunavut Trust. It will probably take 10 to

15 years from the time we start building gas town and

mining for iron, before we sell any electricity. And another

thing, we're going to need an accountant and a lawyer,

too."

There was another silence. Then Pia said, "Fifteen years

may seem like a long time to you. It's longer than you've

been alive. But it's not really all that long. When you have

children you are starting an investment that goes on for 20

years and often longer than that. It's good and its normal

for young people to want things to happen right away.

Older people will understand that good things take time.

The money they invest in the electricity business will

support them when they get old."

Then Ataata said, "Money from the gold mine will help

some things happen faster. But one thing it won't speed up

is getting all the skilled engineers you are going to need.

I've often spoken with Rob. You see, I've known for a long

time that my panik was probably going to become an

engineer. You need lots of years of schooling to become an

engineer. Then you need years of work experience to

become a Professional Engineer. But that's just the start.

After that you need many years of practical experience

How It Happened 88

doing lots of things to become really good. And to do this

electricity thing you’ll need lots of really, really good

engineers who work to the Nunavut standard of mastery."

He went on, "I suggest you speak with Paul at Nunavut

Arctic College while we are here in Iqaluit. He's not an

engineer, but he's a good person. Tell him about wanting to

start a school for engineers as part of Arctic College. I think

he will give you lots of useful information."

At that point, Pia announced that supper was ready. So

we ate and then went to the airport for another evening of

square dancing. It was great fun.

When we got back we started making a list of people

and organizations we should visit while we were in Iqaluit.

It soon became a long list: The Land Use Planning Board,

the Water Board, NTI and the Regional Inuit Organizations,

Nunavut Trust, Qulliq Energy Corporation, Legal Registries.

After awhile, Nuka said, "I think were should talk with the

Premier, too." We all agreed.

The next day we went to the "welcome" meeting at

Nunavut Arctic College. Lots of kids were there. We were

told about NAC and how it offered all sorts of programs in

all communities for high school graduates, and some for

those who had not graduated. They told us about the

teacher training program, the nursing program, the trades

preparation program, the jewelry making program, the fur

program and the law program.

They explained that some programs were available in

each community, but not every program every year. They

explained that some programs were only available in certain

communities and that there were student residences that we

could live in if we were taking a program in a community

that was not our home community. They explained that it

How It Happened 89

was important for us to let them know which programs we

wanted because it helped them plan what programs they

would offer. Then they had a tour of their main building.

Most of the kids went on the tour. We saw classrooms and

the library and the cafeteria and their offices.

We stayed around after the tour and talked with the

people for awhile. Then Taqialoo told them that our Ataata

had suggested we speak with the president of the College.

A few minutes later we were in his office and he was

asking us how he could help us.

Taqialoo explained his idea for the electricity business.

Then I told him about my plan to set up an engineering

program at Nunavut Arctic College.

The President said that was a great idea. He explained

that I would have to study lots of mathematics and science

during the next few years. He said I would have to

concentrate on my studies.

He said I would have to study more English because no

one was teaching engineering in Inuktitut yet. He said that

after I finished school I would have to go south to a

university to study engineering. He said there would be

tests I would have to take so the engineering schools would

know that I had learned what I needed to start their

programs. He said engineering is usually a four or five year

program at most universities. He said I should plan to take

some extra courses in management and in teaching because

I would learn things that would help me be good at

running an engineering program at NAC.

He explained that I would have to work for an

engineering company for two years after I graduated from

engineering before I could write a special test to become a

How It Happened 90

Professional Engineer. He offered to help me pick a

university when I was closer to being ready to apply to

one.

He said that after I became a Professional Engineer I

should probably work for another year or two at a different

engineering company. Then I should teach engineering at an

engineering school for two years, then work at yet another

engineering company for another couple of years and finally

teach engineering at a different university for another year

or two. He said that after that I would be ready to set up

an engineering program at NAC.

He said I would be ready to start the engineering school

in about 20 years and asked me to stay in touch during

that time. He said he knew that it seemed like a long time

in the future, but that the time would pass very fast.

He explained that his position as President of NAC was a

political appointment. He said that meant that the Premier

of Nunavut could give him a different job at any time and

that a different Premier might appoint someone else as

President of NAC. He said that someone else would

probably be President of NAC by the time I was ready to

start the engineering school. But he promised that if he was

no longer President he would let the new President know

about my plan, so things could be ready.

He suggested we also speak with Mary Ellen at the

Nunavut Innovation and Research Institute. We thanked him

and said we would.

The next day we went to the "welcome" meeting at NIRI.

There were only a few other kids there. Mary Ellen was the

wellcomer. She told us about the labs they have and their

processes for registering and approving research in Nunavut.

When she asked for questions Taqialoo explained the

How It Happened 91

electricity project, told her that we had been to NAC

yesterday and that Paul had suggested we see her.

She was very enthusiastic about the electricity project.

She said the Russians were the most advanced at building

reactors on barges. She said we would be able to learn a

lot from them, but that we would have to do quite a bit of

our own research, too. She suggested we study lots of math

and physics and chemistry. She said we would have to go

south to graduate in engineering, but that we could take

some courses over the Internet. She also said that, in

addition to studying calculus, we should study applied

statistics. She said that statistics does not prove things to be

true, but it helps us understand the likelihood of one thing

being affected by another. She explained that it is also the

basis of understanding many properties of the real world,

such as pressure in gases and the likelihood of nuclear

chain reactions. She said she looked forward to working

with us in the years ahead.

We went to lots of "welcome" meetings over the next

few weeks. We talked with lots of adults and they all

encouraged us to go ahead with the electricity project.

We also talked with lots of kids who were on their year-

of-travel. Some already knew what they wanted to do.

Others had not yet decided. Most said they liked the

electricity project and a quite a few said they wanted to

help. We told them about the web forum that Taqialoo had

set up so people could stay in touch more easily.

We all knew that we would be going home to our small

communities soon and that we would probably not see

anyone except family for at least the next four years.

How It Happened 92

One of the kids I met was Udlu. He was solidly built,

with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips. He was

interested in marine biology. His family's house-of-wood

was at the base of a mountain on the east coast of Baffin

Island, way north, across the strait from Greenland. They

hunted all up and down the east coast of the island. He

told wonderful stories and he was as keen on marine

animals as Taqialoo was on electricity. It took only two

days and I had a crush on him.

Udlu and I danced together at the last square dance

before going home. It was an evening that seemed to go on

and on. After the dance there were fireworks. We went

together to watch them, along with lots of other kids.

That's where he kissed me, and I kissed him back. I'd never

kissed anyone like that before and didn't really know what

I was doing.

We stayed in touch by email and the forum. Six years

later we were married. Today we have two young sons,

Kooyoo and Miaka. But that's jumping ahead in the story.

We returned home and, as usual, went hunting for a

week or so. It was good to be back on the land. It was

good to be away from the crowds, to be away from the

hustle and bustle, to just be family again.

Then we went back to the house-of-wood, and to school.

But school was different. Teacher provided no direction. We

just hung out and talked. We talked about anything and

everything. Our younger cousins were curious about our

year-of-travel, so we told them about the places we had

gone, the things we had done, the sights we had seen, the

food we had eaten and the people we had met. We could

tell that they weren't quite sure if they should believe

everything we said.

How It Happened 93

After about a week, teacher asked us to write about our

year-of-travel. We were to write about whatever interested

us the most. Teacher said we should keep what we wrote

and re-read it in a few months.

Then teacher explained that next year would be the-year-

of-the-plan. I know that sounds kind of ominous, but it

really wasn't. Teacher asked us to each think about what

we wanted to do when were adults. Teacher told us that

we had seen many different ways of living. Where did we

want to live? How did we want to live? What did we want

to do to contribute to our family and our community?

Teacher asked us to write it down, and explained that

we were to think about it while we were on the land this

coming summer. We would review our ideas when we came

back to school in the fall and would be able to change our

minds if we wanted to.

Taqialoo said he had already decided. He told teacher

and the whole class about his idea to generate electricity

and sell it to other countries. Some of our cousins already

knew about Taqialoo's electricity idea, and of course our

parents knew.

Teacher said it seemed to be a good idea, and asked

what other kids thought about it.

I said that I liked the idea. I said I planned to become

an engineer. I said that Taqialoo's idea would need lots of

engineers, so after I became an engineer I would make a

school for engineers. That way lots of people in Nunavut

could become engineers.

Teacher agreed that was a good idea.

Then Eetuk said she liked robots and wanted to become

a builder of robots. She said the electricity idea would need

How It Happened 94

lots of robots so Inuit would be safe while working with

uranium.

Kailapi said he liked the mines he had seen in Peru and

in Australia. He said he wanted to learn to be a miner and

then to make a mine in Nunavut.

Kanayuk said she wanted to be a nurse, just like her

Anaana. She said that Nunavut was always going to need

nurses, no matter what happened.

Ooloopie said he had liked the huge ship building factory

he'd visited in Brazil. He wanted to learn to design and

build ships and then start a ship building factory in

Nunavut.

Magi said he liked dogs. He said that he had seen a dog

help a blind person walk on a sidewalk in Ottawa that had

lots of people on it. He wanted to train dogs so they could

help people.

Nuka talked about liking to make things. He said he

planned to make lots of things that would be needed for

the electricity project.

Teacher said we all had good ideas.

Teacher explained that sometimes people change their

ideas as they get older. She said that we should enjoy some

time on the land with our families and think again when

we got back. She said that, whatever we set out to do, our

next step would be figuring out how to get ready. She said

we could talk to people and we could use the Internet to

get information, and that she would help us, too.

We spent a few glorious months on the land with our

parents. We fished and we hunted. We collected seaweed

and duck eggs and berries. We dug clams and we snared

How It Happened 95

rabbits. We traveled far in our kayaks. Occasionally we met

another family. When we did, we usually spent a day or

two with them, before going our separate ways. It was

great to have the land to ourselves and not be crowded like

all the people in those places we had seen in the year-of-

travel.

After we got back to our house-of-wood we got together

with our cousins. None of us had changed our minds. If

anything, we were even more excited at the prospect of

what lay ahead.

Next day we all went to school. Our parents went with

us, as they often did. Teacher welcomed us back and said

we all seemed so eager. We said we were. We were a little

anxious, but very excited. Teacher said we should each use

the Internet to research what was needed for our Plan.

While us kids did research about requirements to get into

engineering and mining and nursing and robotics at

universities, the parents went into the music room. It was

OK, because we used headphones.

The next day we all returned to school. Teacher asked

each of us what we needed to do and what we needed to

study. Kanayuk said she needed to learn about biology to

become a nurse. Magi also needed to learn about biology

for raising dogs, but the rest of us did not need to learn

about it, even though it sounded interesting. We all needed

to learn lots more English and mathematics, except Magi.

Kanayuk also needed to learn chemistry, which was about

what happened when different things were mixed together.

Eetuk did not need chemistry for robotics and Ooloopie did

not need it for shipbuilding, but I needed it for engineering

as did Taqialoo for nuclear electricity and Kailapi for

mining. Most of us also needed to learn about physics.

How It Happened 96

Magi needed to learn more about dog nutrition, dog

psychology and human psychology.

Teacher said we should all start by learning more

English, because not everything we needed to know was

available in Inuktitut yet.

Teacher also said we should start by learning geometry.

Teacher said geometry was a very old subject, but it was

also one of the first that had been translated into Inuktitut.

That was because it was about straight lines and circles and

angles between lines. Teacher said we would not use

geometry very often in the future, but that it would

sharpen our thinking, which would be very useful. Most of

us should also learn algebra, which was about relationships

between things and forces. And we should learn more about

computers and about science.

That evening we talked about the Plans with our parents.

They said they liked what we were doing. They also said

the most important thing was being a family. They said

that we were going to need to learn many things that they

did not know. They said we were going to have to learn

from Teacher and from books and from the Internet. They

said they were going to learn with us, at least for awhile.

Up until the year-of-travel we had mostly learned from

our parents, with Teacher filling in bits and pieces. From

now on we would be learning together. We were so happy,

because we would continue to be a family.

The next day Teacher told us about Qulliq. Teacher said

Qulliq was a new type of computer that we would be

getting in a few months. Teacher said the Department of

Education had been working on it for 2 years and it was in

final testing.

How It Happened 97

Qulliq was the laptop computer that really changed

everything for us and for Nunavut. Qulliq was named for

the seal oil lamps we used, because it too used seal oil as

its source of energy. Qulliq computers used seal oil in a

fuel cell process to produce the electricity the computer

needed.

Qulliq computers also connected directly with the new

low earth orbit satellites that passed overhead. This meant

we could do our schoolwork over the Internet anywhere on

the land or at the flow edge, so long as we did not run out

of seal oil! It meant we could each follow our Plan and

learn what we needed to know for the future, while

continuing to live the life we loved with the people we

loved!

It also made it possible for us to stay in touch with the

many people we had met during our year-of-travel,

including Udlu.

We spent a few weeks learning more English. It was

easier now than it had been. I think that was because we

had used English so much during our year-of-travel. We

learned about tenses and parts of speech and types of

sentences. English has so many rules, and for every rule

there seems to be many exceptions. I still did not like

English, but I understood why it was necessary for us to

learn it.

We started Euclidean Geometry, too. It was indeed all

about lines, the points and angles where they met and the

relationships between them. I had not imagined such

complexity from just a few lines, but the elegance of it was

very appealing. Pythagoras's Theorem was particularly

beautiful. The idea of a square in Pythagoras's Theorem

How It Happened 98

matched up with the squared numbers we encountered in

Algebra, so that was nice, too.

Teacher gave each of us kids a copy of Asimov’s NewGuide to Science by a Dr. Asimov. Teacher said it was a

little outdated, but that it was the best science-in-one-place

book. It certainly was easy to read and easy to understand.

We shared our Asimov books with our parents for a few

weeks, but by the time we got back from our next land trip

extra copies had arrived for them.

We spent time in the house-of-wood and then we headed

out onto the land for awhile. English was useless out-on-

the-land. It did not have the right words for family or for

hunting or for travel. So we did not use it. I could, and

did, draw Pythagoras's Theorem on the snow. But we did

not bring Euclid's Elements with us. Algebra was of no use

to us, either. We now knew English names for more types

of land formations, but other than that, nothing we had

learned from Asimov was of any practical use to us out-on-

the-land. Teacher had told us that this would be the case,

but that in time it would all come together and we would

accomplish our objectives.

When we got back to our house-of-wood we went back

to school and more English, math and science. Teacher told

us that Rob would be teaching us about electricity and

carpentry in the afternoons for a couple of weeks.

Rob said our first project would be to make a lamp. He

said the lamp would have several parts. There would be the

electrical part, there would be a wooden stand to hold the

light and there would be a lamp-shade, so we would have

light, without having to look right at the bulb.

How It Happened 99

He explained that electricity required two wires and he

drew some diagrams on the white-board. It seemed easy

enough. He explained that the stand would be made of a

post – to hold the light, and a base – to keep the stand

from falling over. We would be able to decorate the

lampshade any way we wanted.

Rob taught us to use a T-square and a pencil to mark

two parallel lines on a piece of wood, perpendicular to its

length. These lines marked the top and bottom of the

lamppost. It was like geometry. It was also like what Ataata

had done when he made the drum. Then Rob taught us to

use a crosscut saw to cut the wood along the lines. Rob

explained that it would be important for future projects for

us to cut straight beside a line, so we practiced until we

were good at it. Then Rob had us cut another piece of

wood that would become the base.

Rob had us draw two lines on the base, lines that

connected opposite corners and that crossed in the middle

of the base. More geometry. He had us draw similar lines

on each end of the lamppost-to-be. Then he taught us to

drill a 10-millimeter hole through the base, centered where

the two lines crossed. That was easy. It was not so easy to

drill a long hole through the lamppost-to-be from one end

to the other and have the hole centered. Rob showed us

how to use a vice and a drill press to do this.

Rob showed us how to put a 10-millimeter dowel into

the hole in the base and the lamppost-to-be, to hold them

together. He showed us how to mark around where the

lamppost-to-be touched the base. He then had us take them

apart and drill 4 small holes through the base, so that thin

screws could go through and join the base to the lamppost-

to-be. When we put them together with the screws we did

not put in the wooden dowel, so there would be a place

How It Happened 100

for the wire to go. Then we cut 4 small pieces of wood, all

the same size, and used 2 thin screws to attach each one to

a corner of the under-side of the base. This was so there

would be space for the wire to go under the base of the

lamp.

Rob showed us how to use a "tap" to put threads inside

the hole at the top of the lamppost. Then he showed us

how to thread a hollow metal pipe into that hole. After

that Rob showed us how to use wire cutters to cut wire.

Then he had each of us cut a 2-meter length of double

wire, push it through the metal pipe and all the way out

the base.

After we did this, Rob showed us how to separate the

double wires for about 10 centimeters and take 1 centimeter

of the rubber insulation off the 4 ends of the double wire.

That was tricky. I cut all the way through one of the wires

and was going to start over with another piece. But Rob

said it would be OK to cut through the other wire and

continue on. My lamp cord would be 1 cm shorter than

planned, but perfectly usable. Rob said that whenever I saw

my lamp it would remind me to be careful and it would

also remind me to figure out how to fix things when

something went wrong, rather than to start over.

Rob then showed us how to attach the light socket to the

metal pipe. After that Rob showed us a special electrician's

knot for tying the two separated parts of the wire so they

could not go into the pipe. Finally he showed us how to

twist the strands of the wires, screw them onto the light

socket and attach the two parts of the light socket to each

other.

After that we learned how to use the same electrician's

knot while attaching a plug to the other end of the wire.

How It Happened 101

Rob then went back and forth between the white board

and his lamp, explaining how each part of the lamp

corresponded to a part of the diagram. He said that in the

future we would do the same types of things with wires,

but some of them would be more complicated.

Next, Rob had each of us put a light bulb into our lamp.

Then, one at a time, we each plugged in our lamp and

turned on the switch that was in the socket. Mine worked,

as did most of the others. Nuka's light did not go on. He

unplugged it from the wall and looked carefully at what he

had done. One wire had come loose from the socket. He re-

attached it and this time his lamp worked, too. We each

took our lamp to our house-of-wood.

The next afternoon Rob talked with us about building

houses. Rob said that at the end of grade 11 we would

each be given lumber and other materials to build our own

small "starter house-of-wood". In grade 10 we would have

the opportunity to be a senior helper, assisting a grade 11

student build their "starter house-of-wood". In grade 9 we

would have the opportunity to be a junior helper.

This year we were going to learn to use a saw to make

straight cuts and a hammer to drive nails. We were also

going to learn a few basic principles about the design of

buildings. We would learn these things while building a

small shed.

At the time, the only thing I found surprising was that

grown-ups thought they had to tell us about stuff like this.

We kids all knew about house-of-wood building in high

school, because we had seen our older cousins doing it and

talked with them.

Over the next week or so we cut lots of boards and some

two-by-fours, and even a few two-by-sixes. It was not so

How It Happened 102

much that we learned to cut straight, because we had

already done that while building our lamps. Rather, we

became skilled at doing it quickly and repeatedly without

getting tired.

Rob explained that there were four main things to

consider when planning a building-of-wood.

The first was suitability. The building had to be suitable

for its intended use, location and occupants. The design

also had to be buildable by the people who would build it,

using the materials and tools available.

The second was cost, both construction cost and

operating cost over its useful life.

The third was strength. Each part of the building had to

be strong enough to support not just the stuff above it, but

also any stuff (such as snow and people and things) that

could likely be above it at any time in the future.

The fourth was stiffness. No parts of the building should

bend significantly, even in a very strong wind or when lots

of people danced in it, for example.

Rob told us that there were several standard approaches

to construction and that each one optimized for different

things. We would learn about them and how to pick the

approach most suitable to the circumstances.

Designing and building my shed was fun.

The floor was 2 meters by 3 meters. The low wall was 2

meters tall and the high wall was 2.4 meters tall. I did it

that way so the rain and snow would come off easily, but

it would also be easy and safe to work on the roof.

First I built two sawhorses for cutting and for use as

scaffolding, and a ladder so I would be able to get to the

roof. Next I built a base with two sliders, so the shed could

How It Happened 103

easily be moved. On top of that I built a box frame, using

2x6s for the horizontal pieces and four 2x4s for the upright

posts between the top and bottom rectangles. I used

tongue-and-grove boards for the sides. I nailed them

vertically to the sides of the top and bottom rectangles.

The 2x4s supported the weight of the roof, me working

on the roof, and future snow. The boards on the sides not

only kept the snow out, they also kept the roof from flying

off in a strong wind and the 2x4s from shifting.

I put a door with a window in the tall wall by framing

it with two 2x4s that I notched so I could nail them to the

top and bottom of the shed frame. On three other sides I

put a board on the inside, diagonally from one top corner

to the opposite bottom corner and nailed all the side boards

to them. On the side with the door I tied the boards

together with three horizontal boards on each side of the

door. This kept all the walls stiff.

I used tongue-and-groove boards for the floor and regular

boards for the roof, which overhung by 10 centimeters all

around. I attached roll roofing to the roof boards with a

liquid glue and then used roofing nails to make sure it

would not lift, even in the worst of weather. The building

had no insulation because it was a shed, not a tiny house-

of-wood.

Taqialoo, Nuka and I helped each other to nail our

vertical boards, because it's a lot easier that way than one

person nailing both the top and bottom of each board.

A few days after we finished our sheds we headed out

onto the land.

When we returned to school the Qulliq laptops had

arrived, and they were wonderful pieces of engineering.

How It Happened 104

They were small and lightweight. Like most laptops, a

Qulliq had a screen and a keyboard that folded together to

protect each other. A Qulliq did not have a spinning hard

drive. Instead it used solid state thumb drives. The Qulliq

had eight USB 3 ports. At first I was surprised and could

not imagine needing so many. Then I learned why they

were needed.

We used one port for the drive that held the OpenBSD

operating system. We used the second port for a drive that

contained executable programs that ran under the operating

system. Both of these were usually set as read only, so they

could not be corrupted. The third port was for a drive

where we stored our data. The fourth port was usually used

for storing downloaded files, but it was also used for

making backups of other drives.

I used the fifth port to connect a lemming and the sixth

to attach the antenna that connected Qulliq to the Internet

through the Low Earth Orbit satellite network. I sometimes

used the seventh port to connect a combined headset and

microphone. At school we sometimes used the eighth port

to connect to a printer, but on the land we usually used it

to re-charge a cell phone or camera or to connect a light.

Ataata used it to connect a regular sized keyboard, because

his fingers were big and he found it difficult to type on his

Qulliq's small keyboard.

The Qulliq also has an HTMI port for connecting to a

large display screen at school. But the really wonderful

thing was the USB C port. It was the port we used to

connect a Qulliq to the fuel cell module or a solar panel.

The fuel cell turned seal oil, or any oil for that matter, into

electricity for the Qulliq and also provided heat to warm

our igloo. It was much more efficient at getting energy out

of seal oil than a soapstone qulliq was. It was real,

How It Happened 105

practical progress, except that we could not build a

replacement ourselves while we were out on the land.

We spend a couple of weeks getting to know the Qulliq.

We had to learn the OpenBSD operating system and the

main programs for web browsing, reading books, writing,

making spreadsheets and other such things.

One of the first things I did was make a sealskin case for

my Qulliq and a second one to hold the fuel cell, the

thumb drives, headphone, lemming, and light. Anaana

made similar cases for herself, Ataata, Taqialoo and Nuka.

After a couple of weeks we went back out onto the land.

After a day of hunting we built an igloo and ate. Then,

instead of sitting around chatting, or singing, or drum-

dancing, Nuka set up his Qulliq and we all listened as a

program read A Tale of Two Cities to us. It did not work. We could hear it OK, but we were

learning new words and hearing words used in ways that

were unusual for us. We needed to stop and think about

what was being said. So we each set up our own Qulliq

and listened using earphones.

It was new, it was amazing, it was strange, it was funny,

and it was sort of horrifying, too. What had happened to

us? If Atattatsiaq had stuck his head into our igloo he

would not known what to think. We were all sitting there

ignoring each other. Not even the biggest disagreement

imaginable could have done that to us. But we did it for

the first chapter.

When we had all finished it, we started discussing what

we had read. It was amazing how we each focused on

different things in the story. For the second chapter

Taqialoo and I decided to read the words on the screen,

rather than listen to the story being read. Listening was

How It Happened 106

enjoyable, even entertaining, but it was not as easy to go

back and re-read a sentence, or to pause and think about

what I had just read. After discussing the second chapter

we each put our Qulliq away and turned to more

traditional Inuit pastimes.

A blizzard moved in during the night, so we mostly

stayed inside the igloo. We used a Qulliq to connect to

Teacher and to some other students who were also waiting

out the blizzard. It was a lot like discussions in school,

except we were far apart.

After that I did Euclidean Geometry from 2500 years ago,

in syllabics, on a Qulliq, in an igloo, in a blizzard. Talk

about mind blowing!

I did some algebra, some physics and some chemistry,

too. I also looked at some on-line tutorials about how to

write computer programs.

I discovered some free, on-line engineering courses being

given by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were

intriguing at first, but I soon discovered that I had quite a

bit to learn before I was ready for MIT.

The weather improved the next day, so we went hunting

and got a seal. That evening we continued reading A Taleof Two Cities. We discussed it among ourselves and also

with Teacher and cousins using a Qulliq.

We followed the flow edge for about a month, hunting

for seals and doing school work.

When we returned to our house-of-wood, Geela helped

Teacher with chemistry laboratory, where we learned to do

experiments based upon what we had been studying.

How It Happened 107

Similarly, Rob helped Teacher with physics laboratory,

where we did other experiments.

Experiments were fun, except the writing down part.

Teacher explained that writing down was standard because

most people were not trained to remember the way we

were. Teacher also said that after a long time, even Inuit

did not always remember everything. Sometimes, something

is only found to be important long after it happened. That's

when good notes are crucial.

Teacher said that in other places students cut open dead

animals to learn about muscles and bones and organs, but

we did not need to do that in school because we already

knew about those things.

After a few weeks we went hunting again. Hunting and

school went hand-in-hand now. We read The Outline ofHistory by Wells. We learned about Newton and the Three

Laws of Motion. We learned about optics and

thermodynamics. We learned about magnetism and

electricity. Asimov had given us a good overview, but now

we were going deeper.

We sort of settled into a new routine. A couple of

months on the land, followed by a couple of weeks in the

house-of-wood. Our hunting trips took us far and wide,

over much of the Kivalliq region of Nunavut. During winter

we mostly followed the flow edge. During warmer times we

often went inland, following the tuktoo. Occasionally we

spent a couple of days with another family. They, too, were

traveling with Qulliq. That made it easier to meet up.

How It Happened 108

How It Happened 109

Grades 9 and 10: The Years of Preparation

When we went to the house-of-wood that next Fall,

Quitsaq and I helped Anirnik build her starter house.

There were only a few rules about starter houses. The

roof had to be sloped, for drainage, but it could not be too

steep – for safety while building and also when being on

the roof. The roof could either slope only one way, or it

could slope in two opposite directions. The house had to be

only one story high, but if the roof sloped two ways, it

could have small, attic-type rooms under the peaked roof. It

had to have at least two doors, in case of a fire or being

snowed in. It had to use one of three different, pre-built

utility room modules. Wiring and plumbing should be

associated with interior walls whenever possible.

After you finished building your starter house-of-wood

you owned it, sort of. In the first two years you could only

sell it to Nunavut Housing Corporation. After two years you

could sell it to any Nunavut resident who did not already

own a starter house-of-wood.

Nunavut Housing Corporation supplied several standard

designs that students could modify, but structural modifica-

tions had to be reviewed by NHC for safety. Alternatively,

you could design your own starter house from scratch. But

few kids did that, in part because the safety review for

such custom designed houses took much longer.

Anirnik was going to be the assistant manager of the

trading post after she finished high school. She chose a

standard, all-wood design with a combination kitchen and

living room in the front and two bedrooms in the back. It

could be extended in the future. Her main modification was

to make one bedroom quite a bit larger than the other one.

How It Happened 110

She said she wanted to have lots of babies, so she designed

the larger bedroom with bunk beds on two walls. She also

made the laundry room and the entry porch a little larger.

First thing we did was dig down about a meter to

permafrost near the four corners. There we buried some old

dosser blades with stainless steel braided wire attached.

These would be used as tie-downs once the house frame

was built. During the stormy part of the year they would

be frozen solid in th ground. They would prevent the house

from being blown away in very strong winds.

We used screw-jacks for supports. On these we put the

main beams.

We built each main beam from four 20 foot long 2 by

12s, to make a 4 by 12 beam that was 40 feet long. For

each main beam we cut one 2 by 12 in half and used the

halves at the ends, so the joints were not in the same

place. The 2 by 12s were glued together and then bolted

near the joints and ends.

The design concept was a box-within-a-box. The livable

house was the inner box. The 15-centimeter space between

the inner and outer boxes was where the insulation went.

We had little machines that each converted a roll of plastic

film into bubble-wrap. We used the bubble-wrap as

insulation.

First we built a frame for the box that was going to be

the floor of the house. Then we put posts on top of that

frame. They would support the box that would become the

ceiling-and-roof. On each of the four sides we built boxes

for the frames that would become the walls. Once the wall

framing was finished we put up some temporary scaffolding.

Over top of the walls, and resting on the posts, we built

the box that would become the ceiling-and-roof. Each of

How It Happened 111

these six boxes had interior sub-frames to tie through the

boxes so their sides would be stiff.

Anirnik used the video camera on her Qulliq for a

building inspection by Housing's Structural Engineer in

Iqaluit and called a halt to construction until the weather

looked like it would be good for a few days.

When the weather was clear we nailed boards for the

ceiling and closed up the sides of the ceiling-and-roof box.

We put a vapour barrier on top of the ceiling boards. Then

we filled the ceiling-and-roof box with plastic bubble-wrap.

We built the roof first so it would protect us and the floor

from any rain that might fall.

We started by attaching a 1-meter wide strip of

stretchable mesh from the high side of the roof to the low

side at one end. Anirnik had three machines that used

special roles of flat plastic sheeting and made bubble-wrap.

It was quick and easy. We made bubble-wrap and put it in

the box under the mesh. Then we attached another piece of

mesh and put more bubble-wrap. After a few hours we had

the whole roof insulated with bubble-wrap. Then we nailed

on the roof-boards. That was followed by a coat of roofing

cement and then a layer of over-lapped roll roofing.

We put frames into the walls for windows and doors.

Then Rob used a fork lift truck to put the utility room

module into place. Once that was done we nailed vertical

boards that would be the inside walls and attached a

vapour barrier. We closed up the sides of the wall boxes

and attached stretchable mesh. Then we filled the walls

with more bubble-wrap and nailed coloured vertical boards

to be the outer walls. We hung the two doors and put

double-layer glass panels into the window frames.

We put crossbeams into the floor to support a bottom

layer of quarter inch chipboard. The walls hung down past

How It Happened 112

the floor box, so they served as the sides of the floor box.

We filled the floor with bubble-wrap and nailed floorboards

into place. At that point the exterior of the house was

complete.

Anirnik checked in with Building Inspection several times

during construction.

We built an interior wall that separated the two

bedrooms from the rest of the house and put two doorways

into it. Then we put in a wall to separate the two

bedrooms from each other. We built in closets and dressers.

Anirnik built a Porcher bed for her room by cutting two

sheets of 7 millimeter plywood and fitting the seven pieces

together. We did not build the bunk beds; Anirnik said she

would build them when she was expecting babies.

We built the bathroom between Anirnik's bedroom and

the utility room. We extended the wall on the opposite side

of the utility room and built cabinets, a counter and

installed the kitchen sink. We built the laundry room on

the third side of the utility room. We attached pipes to the

pipe stubs on the utility room walls and ran them to the

sinks, toilet, tub, and washing machine. All the pipes were

short and they were in or on interior walls, so they were

unlikely to freeze. We placed outlet boxes, switch boxes

and light fixture boxes where Anirnik wanted them and ran

wiring from the electrical panel in the utility room to the

boxes. After another inspection we finished the electrical

work. We built a table that Anirnik could use for eating or

sewing or studying or anything. We built four chairs, and

Anirnik's house-of-wood was done.

I learned a lot helping Anirnik build her house-of-wood.

Doing a good job mostly amounted to paying attention to

the details while keeping the big picture clearly in mind.

How It Happened 113

During this time Teacher got us started on Symbolic

Logic. The name of the course sounded a little scary, but

the course was fine. After a few days Ataata said that it

was just the Inuit way of thinking, but written down in a

standardized way that used some Inuit Syllabics in a non-

Inuit way.

After freeze-up we went back onto the ice and followed

the flow edge. It was good to be away from the bustle of

our little settlement. We hunted seals during the day and

continued with Symbolic Logic and Algebra and Chemistry

and Physics in the evenings. After a few months we

returned to our house-of-wood.

Teacher had something new to show us when we came

to school. She had microscopes and telescopes. She showed

us how to use a telescope to look at the moon and the

planets and the stars.

With the microscopes she showed us how to look at

things that are very tiny. Geela helped teach us about tiny

plants and animals too small to be seen with just our eyes.

We learned about cells and the parts of cells and how cells

divided. This was biology, but not traditional Inuit biology.

We thought the water we drank from streams was clean

and fresh. We discovered it was full of life! Maybe that's

why it tasted so good.

We also started trigonometry, which is a little like

geometry. A triangle has three sides and three internal

angles. Trigonometry is about the ratios between them and

how to use the ones you know to calculate the ones you

don't know.

We went back out onto the land and carried on as

before, hunting by day and doing school in the evenings.

How It Happened 114

When we got back to our house-of-wood, Teacher

introduced us to calculus. Teacher said that we knew that

time and distance and speed and acceleration were all

related. And indeed we did. Teacher then told us that

calculus was the way the formulas that connected time and

distance and speed and acceleration were related to each

other. Teacher also told us that we should start thinking

about if we wanted to build a starter house, and if so,

what it should be.

We followed the tuktoo as they headed north. And we

continued our studies. Anaana and Ataata kept at them

with us kids. If anything, they seemed to be enjoying it

even more than we were. Ataata said on more than one

occasion that this was very different than residential school

had been. He sure wished he could have done school like

this with his parents.

When we next got back to our house-of-wood it was late

summer. This time I was going to be a senior helper. My

cousin Gou and I helped Pelagie build his starter-house-of-

wood. Except it was hard to call it a starter house. It had

three bedrooms and a den, but the design was still similar

to that of Anirnik's house, a box-within-a-box.

When the starter house program had first begun about 15

years earlier, the houses were little more than insulated

sheds with a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen-living-

room. As years went by, students learned more from each

other while working as helpers. So they started coming up

with larger, more complex house designs. The program

evolved, but the name has always stayed the same.

Pelagie planned and coordinated everything, and he did

more than his share of the actual construction. It was to be

How It Happened 115

his house, after all. But the experience was different for

me. With Anirnik, I had mostly cut boards the way I was

told to cut them and nailed them where I was told to nail

them. With Pelagie I was much more involved in planning

how to actually build the frame and figuring out the

sequence of doing things.

In school we started on electronics and organic

chemistry. Teacher also introduced us to statistics. Anaana

had some difficulty with the concept of predictive statistics.

She had no difficulty calculating a mean and understood

what it meant. But she had an attachment to the

uniqueness of each individual. The idea that you could

probably know things about an individual without having

met the individual did not seem right to her.

She could calculate the average height of a group of

people whom she knew. But to then presume to know

anything about the height of someone you had not met

seemed wrong to her. She said it was pre-judging, and that

it was not the Inuit way.

She eventually accepted that it was part of a different

way of looking at the world. There were lots of things in

the world that were not the way she had known them to

be when she was a girl. But she had learned to go with the

flow on most things.

When we went fishing she measured the lengths of the

fish we caught. She calculated means, modes and medians.

She calculated standard deviations and moving averages.

Eventually she conceded that she could predict the size of

the next fish to be caught, but only when the standard

deviation of the past several fish had been small and the

interval between catching them was also small. I read on

How It Happened 116

the Internet that it took Issac Newton ten years to invent

calculus. I think Anaana re-invented it in a month.

About this time I went back to the MIT website and

some of the courses that had been too difficult for me a

few years earlier. They still were not easy, but I could

follow the lessons. I wondered if I should consider studying

engineering over the Internet. It would be nice to stay with

my family and the life I loved. I called Nunavut Arctic

College and Paul was still there. We spoke for awhile and I

asked him what he thought about studying engineering over

the Internet. He was glad to hear from me and he was in

favor of me taking some engineering courses that way. He

suggested that the NAC Engineering School would probably

offer many on-line courses. He said that if I only wanted to

learn engineering, then the Internet would be great. But if I

still wanted to set up a school of engineering at NAC I

should probably spend time actually at more than one

engineering campus. I thanked him and promised to stay in

touch.

When we got back to our house-of-wood we went

through the Starter House catalog. This was a serious

matter and we spent a few evenings talking about which

houses to build. I favored a three-bedroom model similar to

the one I had helped Pelagie build. I knew I would be

away for long stretches of time while studying engineering

and while getting work experience as an engineer. I

planned to rent my house-of-wood to Nunavut Housing

Corporation while I was away and to use the den to store

my stuff. I figured that government would be able to use

my house to help attract a doctor or a dentist or a project

manager who had a family. They might be less inclined to

How It Happened 117

come if the house only had one or two bedrooms. I figured

the rental income would help pay for my studies.

Anaana and Ataata agreed with my choice. Taqialoo and

Nuka also liked the idea. Taqialoo also selected a three

bedroom design with a den, but the building he chose was

less square than mine. His main beams would be longer,

but his cross beams would not have to span as far. Nuka

had to be different, in a good way. He selected a four-

bedroom house with no den. He agreed with renting as a

three-bedroom house, but wanted to be able to leave his

clothes hanging in the closet in the fourth bedroom.

Next day we discussed our choices with Teacher.

Teacher informed the Department of Education and then

told us, as if we did not already know, that the material

for our houses would arrive shortly after the ice went out

of the bay next summer.

A couple of days later Mayor came to school and talked

with us about the places that were ready to be built on.

There were quite a few to choose from. Mayor said the

community was required to have enough places ready for at

least three years of building. This was an important

decision. We discussed it with Ataata and Ananna. Taqialoo,

Nuka and I selected places that were close to each other

and also not too far from where we were now living. A

week later I asked Oqituq to be my senior helper and Mosie

to be my junior helper. They were excited, and so was I.

A few days later we finished our physics lab, wrote a

practice test intended to show scholastic aptitude and then

headed back out onto the land.

Taqialoo had taken a geology course and a prospecting

course and a law course over the Internet during the winter

and gotten a prospector's license. So, as usual, we did more

How It Happened 118

than one thing. In addition to following tuktoo, we also

followed signs of gold. Between Ataata's traditional

knowledge and Taqialoo's course knowledge we were able

to identify several promising locations. Taqialoo staked his

claims, then used his Qulliq to locate them precisely and to

file them. He also incorporated a company to hold the

claims. He called the company NUNAT Mining and Energy

Inc. That's us, of course. Ataata's name is Nauya. Anaana's

name is Uliut. And then there's Nuka, Taqialoo, and I'm

Aglukaq.

How It Happened 119

Grade 11: The House-of-wood

When we got back to school Teacher started us on

graphs and calculus and robotics. Teacher also told us that,

for those of us whose Plan called for attending college or

university, it was time to choose where we wanted to go

and it would soon be time to submit applications. Teacher

said we should also plan to take the Scholastic Aptitude

Test. Teacher said that many universities did not require it,

but that it could be quite helpful, particularly if we were

applying to a place that did not get many applicants from

Nunavut.

Starting the discussion that evening was perhaps the

hardest thing I had ever done. It was certainly harder than

killing my first polar bear.

There are lots of great universities in Canada, as well as

other places in the world. In one sense, there were too

many to seriously consider all of them. But it was more

than just choosing where to study. I had never been away

from my parents and my brothers. Should I go someplace

without any of them? Should two or all three of us go to

the same place? Would our parents continue to study with

us? What did they want? It seemed like it would be a

discussion about breaking up our family – the only family I

had ever known. And beyond all that, I wanted to be with

Udlu, too.

I could tell that Taqialoo and Nuka were also

uncomfortable. I knew they felt the same way, except about

Udlu, of course.

I finally said "I've been thinking about what Teacher said

today about universities, and I really don't know."

How It Happened 120

Anaana promptly changed the tone. "You three are really

growing up and we are proud of you. You know, it's a

parent's job to grow up their children. Your Ataata and I

have had so much fun growing up you three. It's been the

best thing, ever."

"You will always be our children and part of our family.

But you will soon become adults, too. You will want to

start your own families and have fun raising kids, just as

we have."

"Your Ataata and I have talked about the future. It's

been fun doing high school with you. We've learned so

much that we never imagined. The Year-of-Travel was

wonderful, but we don't want to live where it's hot and

where there are lots of people. Nunavut is our home and

it's where we want to stay."

Ataata then said, "Growing up you three has been so

much fun that we've decided to do it again. When you all

go away to university we are going to have more children

and grow them up, too."

In retrospect, it was an logical decision, but I had not

seen it coming. Ataata added, "It won't be the same as

raising you three, because they will be different people. But

it will be fun."

It did not take long for the three of us to decide that we

wanted to stay together. Leaving our parents was going to

be hard enough. We did not want to suddenly be all alone

in a sea of thousands of people we did not know. There

followed a discussion about universities.

Waterloo and University of Toronto were great places for

engineering. But in the end we selected the University of

British Columbia. It had engineering and mining. But it was

one of the few Canadian universities that also specialized in

marine biology. It also turned out to be a great choice for

How It Happened 121

a reason we did not anticipate. Without going to UBC it's

unlikely we would have connected with the Haida and,

through them, Puglaas, or at least not as soon. But I'm

getting a little ahead of myself again.

It was fun building robots. I designed mine so it could

shovel snow. I set up a secure Internet-of-things access so I

could see what the robot saw and so I could control my

robot using my Qulliq. We finished our lab work, wrote the

Scholastic Aptitude Test and sent off our applications to

UBC. We also applied to Waterloo and Dalhousie, just in

case.

Then we headed out. It was great to be back on the

land, but it was also bittersweet. It would be the last time

we would be doing this, at least for a long time. This time

next year we would be at university without Ataata and

Anaana. We were not giving up the land for good, but we

had chosen life paths that would keep us far from home for

many years and would change everything. By the time the

electricity project was done we would be very different

people. We would spend long periods of time on the land

in the future, but it wouldn't be quite the same. I pushed

those thoughts from my mind. Instead, I concentrated on

living in the moment and enjoying everything we did. As

much as I tried to hold onto every moment, the time

seemed to fly by.

When we returned to the house-of-wood at freeze-up our

acceptances from UBC were waiting for us. Based upon

those acceptances we submitted our applications for

Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students. Teacher

introduced us to the Properties of Materials course, got us

How It Happened 122

started on Relativity, and, with Geela, we did organic

chemistry lab.

After that we followed the flow edge and hunted seals.

Lots of seals. Ataata was our hunter and head of our

family. Our culture said that he ate first. The hunter had to

eat his fill so he would be strong and able to provide for

his family. Without a strong hunter the whole family would

perish. That was the way it had been, forever.

In reality, all five of us were hunters, though the rest of

us were not as strong as Ataata. The introduction of rifles

had changed Inuit lifestyle considerably. Strength was still

important, but not as critical as it had been when our

ancestors hunted only with bow and arrow and harpoon.

Taqialoo, Nuka and I were still growing and it seemed as

if we ate everything in sight. Anaana also ate lots because

she was pregnant. And we also had to feed our dogs. So

that's why we hunted so much. But we only made clean

kills. We did not take chances. If we were not certain the

seal would die instantly we did not take the shot. We

waited for a better one. Animals were our source of food

and we appreciated them. We did not want them to suffer.

I had left my robot outside when we went back onto the

land. Each evening after we ate I would use Qulliq to

control my robot and shovel our front doorway. Then I

would have the robot plug itself in so its battery would

stay charged. It was fun. I think I was practicing staying

connected while being away.

As the days got longer we collected even more seal meat

for our trip back to the shoreline. We went when the moon

was full. We got there and waited for low tide. The sea ice

was broken into big chunks. As the tide went out the

blocks of ice settled at odd angles. We carefully went

How It Happened 123

between and beneath the blocks to get to the sea floor.

There we collected fresh seaweed and dug for clams. After

eating nothing but seal meat for more than a month the

seaweed and the clams tasted great! But we could not

linger under the ice because the tide soon turned back and

the ice blocks shifted in the rising water.

We did not get much fresh food for the next few days

while we searched for tuktoo heading north, except a few

rabbits and some berries that had spent the winter under

the snow. The spring berries were mamaktoo as always. We

were happy when we found the tuktoo and followed the

herd for more than a month as they headed for the calving

grounds. Again there was a lot to eat. But the tuktoo leave

no berries behind, except when they are running from

wolves.

Taqialoo collected rock samples from several promising

outcrops as we went and filed more claims.

Nuka had become an excellent shot. Several times he was

able to shoot wolves. He only took head shots. That way

the kill was instantaneous and the pelt would be

undamaged. I helped him skin the wolves and work the

hides, as I had learned from Anaana. When Nuka told

Anaana about his idea to sell the wolf hides at the trading

post she suggested that we help him make the wolf skins

into parkas and that he sell the parkas instead, for even

more money. So that's what we did. Anaana understood the

economics of value added.

As summer approached, we, somewhat reluctantly, left

the tuktoo and headed back to the house-of-wood. Taqialoo,

Nuka and I did not know when we would next have fresh

How It Happened 124

tuktoo to eat. But at least we had some frozen tuktoo on

our sled. And frozen is almost as good as fresh.

When we got back to school the five of us spent two

weeks doing our high school comprehensive exams. While

the material was academic, the exams were structured in

accordance with Inuit tradition. They covered everything we

had ever learned in school. Parts were written, parts were

oral and parts were practical. They required that we

demonstrate mastery of all the material.

After the exams we went fishing until sea-lift. One

evening after supper I discussed an idea with the others. At

the end of our year-of-travel our cousins had shown us

dormitories at UBC for out-of-town students such as us. But

I suggested that we rent a furnished house near campus

instead. Renting one house would cost less than renting

four dorm rooms.

They liked the idea, not just because of the cost saving,

but because we would not be living with so many people.

It would be a place to be together, but away from the

crowds of the city and the campus.

I used Qulliq to show them several 4-bedroom houses-of-

wood-and-stone. I wanted 4 bedrooms so Udlu could share

the house with us. Anaana said it was a good plan, but it

was not going to last. Either Udlu would move out or he

would move in with me. It was my turn to blush. Of

course she was right, and Udlu did not move out. But I'm

getting ahead of myself again.

Our construction materials came on the first sea-lift.

Watching that material being brought ashore was very

confusing. We were happy because we would soon be

How It Happened 125

building our houses-of-wood. We were also sad because,

when we started to build them, Ataata and Anaana would

head back out onto the land without us. Of course we

knew they could survive without us. They had done that

before we were born. But it would be the first time we had

not had our parents with us. We weren't leaving them, they

were leaving us!

We had our building locations. We had our materials. We

had our helpers. But we didn’t have our parents. So we

started building. I was not used to being in charge. That

was a bit odd. But I soon got used to it. I particularly liked

using a tripod and a block-and-tackle to lift frames and

beams into place.

Ataata and Anaana went fishing and every few days they

returned to us with dried Arctic Char. They had not

abandoned us.

Construction went smoothly and in a few weeks our

houses-of-wood were finished. Ataata and Anaana were

back from fishing and we had a community feast. We

moved into our new houses-of-wood. It was good to be in

my house and know that I had led the building of it. It

was odd to be there alone. I had never lived alone before. I

did not bring much stuff into my house-of-wood. Truth be

told, I did not have much stuff. The house felt too big and

too empty. Remember, we mostly lived a nomadic life, with

just what we and the dogs could carry or pull.

I did some community service for awhile, helping Mayor

with paperwork in the town hall office.

Then one day the Minister of Education came to town.

There was a big celebration. Twelve of us were graduating

from high school, which was more than ever before for our

How It Happened 126

settlement. Education had changed over the years since

Nunavut had been created. It was still unusual for parents

to graduate at the same time as their children, but it was

becoming more common.

So the Minister gave a speech and we got our diplomas.

The three of us, and four of our cousins, signed rental

agreements with the Department of Housing. We each

would receive $2000 per month from Housing for the use of

our houses-of-wood, in addition to our FANS money.

Money had not been important to us while living out on

the land. But we understood from our Year-of-Travel that

money would be important down south. So much was

changing and even more change was about to happen.

All too soon it was the day before we were due to leave

for Vancouver. We had a community feast and a dance. We

ate, we danced, we sang, we talked. I don't think anyone

slept that night. Seven of us would be leaving for

universities or colleges the next morning. People left our

settlement all the time to go hunting or fishing or

gathering, but this was different.

We had a few hours of rest in the morning. I used my

Qulliq to "talk" with Udlu for awhile. He had also been up

partying all night with his family. Soon we heard the plane

coming and it was time to say goodbye to our cousins, our

aunties, our uncles, and, of course, our parents. The whole

settlement was at the runway to see us off.

How It Happened 127

Part Three — Making It Happen

UBC Year One

The trip to Vancouver went smoothly. We were

experienced fliers, after all. Akayla and Oggallak joined us

when we changed planes in Rankin Inlet. We talked for

awhile, catching up on what had happened since we had

last seen them in Iqaluit. Olu joined us when our plane

landed in Yellowknife. So there was more catching up to

do.

Things were different when we got to Vancouver. Our

cousins Meeka, Oopah and Raigili, whom we met there at

the end of our Year-of-Travel, had all graduated and left

Vancouver. We were on our own for the first time. We

were each traveling with the same suitcase we had used

during our Year-of-Travel. We took a taxi from the airport

to the house we had rented. Udlu was sitting on the step

waiting for us when we got there. He hugged all of us, but

I also got a big kiss. I knew Anaana was right, as always; I

did not think we would be needing that fourth bedroom for

very long.

Udlu had already gotten the keys, so we went inside and

looked around. It was old, but it was clean and bright. We

picked our rooms, unpacked, and washed up. The house

had two bathrooms, so it did not take long. I used Qulliq

to contact Anaana and Ataata, and to let them see the

house we would be living in. Everyone said "Qanuipit."

Then we walked to UBC. It was just the same as I

remembered it from when we had toured it with our

cousins. We found the Admissions Office and picked up our

How It Happened 128

course schedule. We had arranged that we would all be

taking classes together in the first semester. It was what we

were used to. We had English, Calculus, Chemistry, Physics

and Civilization: East Meets West. We wandered around

campus for awhile, talking with lots of people who were

doing the same thing. We did not see any other Inuit, but

we saw a few First Nation people. We also saw some

people who seemed to be from India and some who were

Black. But most of the students seemed to be either of

European or Oriental ancestry.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to our

rented-house. I'm not sure what Taqialoo and Nuka did

after supper, but Udlu and I talked for hours.

Next morning we all walked back to campus for

Orientation. There was a speech by the Dean. There were

organized tours. We were used to there being 10 to 15

students in a class. We found where our classes and labs

would be. The rooms were huge. There were hundreds of

seats in each room, and each subject would be taught in a

different room. Chemistry and Physics had both classroom

lectures and lab work. Calculus was just classroom lectures.

English and Civilization had both classroom lectures and

study groups.

We were told to form study groups of three to five

students, but that the members of our study group should

be people we had not known before and we should all have

different backgrounds. I formed a study group with Jiixa,

who was from Haida Gwai, Carmen, who was from Toronto

but whose parents had come from Ireland and Spain,

Mohamed, who was from Nepal, and Tang, who was from

Vancouver, but whose parents had come from Vietnam.

Taqialoo, Nuka and Udlu also had diverse study groups.

How It Happened 129

We were assigned a third year student as our "mentor".

She explained that it was important to arrive a little early

for each class and not to miss any classes. She took us to

the bookstore to get our textbooks. She said that since we

were all taking the same classes and living together, two

copies of each book should be enough if we were able to

share. We said we were used to sharing. It was the Inuit

way. We asked if we could just download our textbooks

onto our Qulliq. Once we explained to her that a Qulliq

was a type of laptop computer she said that "textbooks did

not work that way".

She also said we should not party too much. She said

that lots of students party too much in their first year and

fail because they don't spend enough time studying. She

said we would meet lots of new people. She said we should

take our time getting to know them, and be a little

cautious of strangers. She said that a large part of the

university experience is learning to balance what we have

to do with what we want to do.

We started classes the next morning. University was

definitely not like school as we had known it. We were

used to Teacher leading free-for-all discussions. That was

clearly not possible with 500 or 800 students in a room.

Instead, the Professor talked and sometimes wrote on the

green-board. We listened and took notes. Occasionally the

Professor asked a question, some students raised their hand

and the Professor selected one student to answer the

question.

I thought at first that that first day was a review day,

because we had already learned that stuff with Teacher,

except for the Civilization course. Parts of Civilization

How It Happened 130

seemed similar to bits and pieces of things we learned

during our Year-of-Travel, but organized in a weird way.

I later found out that most other students found that first

day of classes to be very hard because their Teachers had

not taught them what Teacher had taught us.

We soon got into a rhythm and time flew by. Most

students were from Vancouver, but quite a few were from

other places. The study groups initially met on campus, but

after awhile, ours seemed to gravitate to our rented-house.

One effect of that was that instead of small study groups,

we often had one big study group that was much like our

old classroom, except without Teacher. After finishing our

study sessions we often talked about other things, including

where we had come from and how we had lived before

coming to UBC.

One day I told about our visit to Mamaqtoo in Ottawa

and about how Kalapik and Pitsiulak had both worked in

the restaurant and were part owners of it. Jiixa was

particularly intrigued by that story and asked lots of

questions about Kalapik, Pitsiulak and Mamaqtoo.

A few days later Jiixa asked if we thought a restaurant

similar to Mamaktoo could be possible in Vancouver. I said

Mamaqtoo worked because lots of Inuit lived in Ottawa and

it was able to get Arctic Char flown from Pangnirtung. Jiixa

replied that there were quite a few Haida living in

Vancouver and lots of other First Nations people lived here,

too. She said lots of salmon were caught in Haida Gwai

and they could be flown to Vancouver in just a few hours.

We agreed, it could work.

A week later Jiixa said she had been discussing the

salmon restaurant idea with some of her cousins who were

also studying at UBC. She said they were interested.

How It Happened 131

"Would we explain it to them, too? Would we be interested

in becoming partners with them?"

A salmon restaurant certainly had not been part of our

plan. Taqialoo started thinking out loud. "It could work.

Not now, but maybe next September. We would have to

find a big place in the right location, with good transporta-

tion. The ground floor would be the restaurant, and the

restaurant owners would live in the upper floors. Bring your

cousins around some time and let's discuss this further."

Jiixa brought Gaaying and Niis to meet with us about a

week later. We talked for several hours. They were

intrigued by the idea of gaining practical business

experience while studying. We got Pitsiulak on a Qulliq and

he had a few suggestions.

He said it only required a few people to get the idea

going, but it would require quite a few more to keep the

restaurant going without impacting schoolwork too much.

"Figure on one shift per person per week working in the

restaurant and one shift per person per week working on

the business. Any more than that," he said, "and either

schoolwork, health or life will suffer."

He said the first thing that was needed was a core team

of committed people. Next they needed a suitable location.

He said to be sure to check city zoning, traffic patterns and

the quality of any building being considered. The third

issue would be financing to get started. They also needed a

reliable, year round supply of salmon. Finally, they needed

a promotion plan that would attract people to the

restaurant.

It was all practical business stuff.

How It Happened 132

A few days later Jiixa asked if she, Gaaying and Niis

could move into the room Udlu was no longer using, since

he was sleeping with me. They proposed bringing in a bunk

bed for the two guys. They said the room would be tight,

but that they would be able to use the saved dorm rent

money as their contribution to the startup costs of the

salmon restaurant. We agreed, but reminded them that they

would have to contribute to the cost of house food.

During the next few weeks Jiixa and her cousins spent

their free time walking around looking at buildings. They

found several promising locations. Then, with a bit of help

from Pitsiulak, they put together a business plan and

arranged to meet with the Haida Council during Christmas

break.

FANS provided money for traveling home for the

Christmas Holidays, so that's what Taqialoo, Nuka and I

did. Udlu came with us. Anaana and Ataata had met him

when we were all in Iqaluit, but this was different. He was

no longer just a crush, he was their panik's boyfriend. I

don't know of any culture in the world where that is not

important. Certainly none that we learned about during our

Year-of-Travel, nor during our Civilization course.

But Udlu was not the center of attention when we got

home. While we were in Vancouver Anaana had given birth

to twin girls! I finally had sisters!

We each owned a house-of-wood, but we had rented

them to Housing, so the four of us stayed with Anaana and

Ataata, Ashevak and Karliin for a couple of days. We talked

and decompressed from the crowds of Vancouver. Anaana

knew we were coming, so she had made a suit of tuktoo

hide for Udlu. By the third day we were tired of sitting. So

How It Happened 133

the boys harnessed the dogs while Anaana and I packed up

Ashevak and Karliin. Then we all took off to the flow edge.

When we got close to the flow-edge Taqialoo and Nuka

went seal-hunting while Ataata and Udlu built an igloo, and

Anaana and I took care of the babies. A couple of hours

later they returned with a ringed seal and we ate.

Next morning a blizzard blew in and Udlu showed

everyone that he was more than capable of taking care of a

family. He built an igloo for the two of us that required no

crack-filling. It looked small beside the one he and Ataata

had built, but an eight-person igloo is a big igloo, even if

two of the people are just infants. It was nice to have our

own igloo, but mostly, if we were not outside, we were in

the big igloo with the others. We spent a few weeks

hunting and just living a normal life; but all too soon we

headed back to Vancouver and UBC.

While all UBC students took the same five courses in first

semester, in the second semester we choose courses based

upon our areas of interest. I chose two math courses:

Differential Equations, and Biometry. The latter was an

applied statistics course offered by the Biology department.

Udlu also took it. I also chose two physics classes: one was

Energy and the other was Properties of Materials.

UBC had a Modern Language requirement. We were told

Inuktitut would be acceptable as a Modern Language. We

considered it; we considered everything together. We

considered all learning the same language together, but

soon discarded that idea. Four people all knowing the same

language would give us very little more than one person

knowing that language.

I decided to learn Mandarin. Lots of new Engineering

was being done in China and I wanted to be able to access

How It Happened 134

it directly. Also, the Chinese were likely to be the biggest

market for our energy and things go more smoothly if you

are able to speak the language of your customer. Taqialoo

decided to learn Irdu because India has the second largest

population in the world and has a long coastline. It too

would be a prime market for our energy. Udlu decided to

learn Russian because Russia was the major country in

marine research where English was not the primary

language. Nuka decided to learn Japanese because of their

history of quality manufacturing and their dependence on

nuclear energy.

Second semester classes were much smaller than first

semester ones had been. Generally they had only one

hundred to two hundred students.

That first Energy class was very different from any class I

had previously attended. There was a tall ladder in the

front of the classroom when I got there. Professor began

the class by climbing the ladder with a block of wood.

Professor said the block of wood weighted 1 kilogram. Then

Professor dropped it from 5 meters above the floor. We all

heard it land. Professor climbed down the ladder and asked

how much energy had been released, where it came from

and where it was now?

After that discussion Professor picked up the block of

wood and a hatchet, and walked over to a chopping block.

Professor split the block of wood into kindling and small

sticks. Professor placed them onto a metal plate and lit

them. Soon those of us in the front few rows could feel the

heat. When the fire was going well Professor asked how

much energy was being released, where was it coming from

and where was it going?

After that discussion Professor held up a pocket watch.

Professor said the watch had a luminous dial that could be

How It Happened 135

seen in the dark. He said that glow-in-the-dark watch dials

used to use radium paint, which is radioactive. But they

stopped making them that way because the people who

painted the numbers used to lick the tiny brushes to get a

sharp point and they ended up dying of radiation poisoning.

Professor said radiation was serious business. Then Professor

asked how much energy could be produced from 1 kilogram

of yellowcake uranium fuel in a modern nuclear reactor,

where that energy came from and where it went.

After that discussion Professor wrote Einstein's famous

equation E=mc2 on the green board. Professor asked how

much energy Einstein's equation said was in 1 kilogram of

anything. Professor asked why does a modern nuclear

reactor produce so much less energy than Einstein's

equation? What are the implications of that?

I had thought that nuclear reactors gave us the power of

the atom. Turned out, they only give us a minuscule

portion of the power in some atoms.

It promised to be a great course, and it was. We went

on a field trip to Alcan's hydro generating station near

Kitimat. Gravity may be a weak force, but given enough

height and enough water, it can produce an amazing

amount of power. Of course, that hydroelectric energy was

just re-packaged solar power, which in turn was the

radiated waste heat from nuclear processes in the sun.

I had been intrigued by energy engineering before, but

after that course I was hooked on it.

Jiixa and her cousins had had mixed results. The Haida

Council had been intrigued by the idea of getting a good

price for their salmon and establishing a market for it in

Vancouver. But they were concerned about several things.

First, salmon was traditionally a seasonal catch and they

How It Happened 136

would have to assure a year round supply. Second, they

were concerned about the financial risk. Third, they were

concerned about the idea of a student owned and run

business.

We talked and talked. Eventually we put together a

proposal to rent the building for a year, with two, one-year

extensions, and a fixed price purchase option – all subject

to approval and support by the Haida Council.

We also put together a long-term salmon supply

agreement at market price plus a 15% markup. We argued

that the year round aspect would give the Haida an

opportunity to establish their own fish pens that would lead

to expanded year round sales and year round employment

in Haida Gwai.

We also drafted a long-term transportation agreement

with price tied to both inflation and cost of fuel. They also

lined up 20 Haida students in Vancouver who were each

willing to commit to working in the business and investing

a small amount of money into it.

Jiixa and her cousins went over the package with us and

with Pitsiulak. The four of us agreed to participate for the

first two years and then be bought out. Pitsiulak offered to

be a consultant to the project in exchange for 1/10 of 1%

of the first year's profit, which was likely to be enough to

buy lunch.

He suggested that the package list his role and

remuneration, but not say anything about him. He said that

if the other parties were at all serious, they would spot this

and ask what his experience was. Only if asked were they

to say he had been an active partner in a similar restaurant

in Ottawa when he was a student. And only if asked what

he was doing now were they to say that he was heading up

the Parliament Hill restaurant. Pitsiulak had learned not

How It Happened 137

only how to operate a restaurant, he had also learned the

art of strategic negotiating.

Gaaying had the idea of paneling the inside of the

restaurant with cedar planks from Haida Gwai. It would

provide a decor that reminded them of home. It would also

display a potential Haida Gwai export.

The Haida Council asked if the restaurant would like to

offer deer meat, as well as salmon. That suggestion was

accepted. Without all the pieces, nothing would work. So

everything was contingent on everything else.

It took several months, but by April Jiixa and her

cousins got the support of the Haida Council and also got

their long-term freight agreement. The plan called for Jiixa,

Gaaying and Niis to stay in Vancouver during the summer

and do the renovations themselves. Jiixa's father was a

carpenter. He came to Vancouver to help them and

everything was ready by the middle of August.

After exams Udlu and I went to visit his parents. I'd met

them only briefly in Iqaluit 5 years earlier. We spent about

10 days with them on their mountainous land. They were

great people and their land was beautiful. Then we went to

Pang for the rest of the summer.

Udlu had a summer job assisting with fish habitat

research for Pang Fisheries.

I had a summer job with Kalapik's engineering company.

It had been obvious that Pang's new runway had to be on

the plateau, high above the community. What had not been

obvious was how to get between the community and the

airport. The obvious way was by road. The terrain made

the road costly to build, treacherous to drive and very

expensive to maintain, particularly in winter. In the end,

How It Happened 138

the decision was made to build a cable car system with two

cars that would almost balance each other.

The towers were four stories tall. The top level contained

the electric motors and the regenerative breaking system.

Below this was the passenger level, where people would get

into and out of the 20 passenger gondolas. The cable car

itself had a lower level for cargo. In high winds, pallets of

containers filled with rocks could be added for extra

stability. The bottom of each cable car had a hook in each

corner. When winds were light a platform could be hung

below each cable car. It was large enough for a car or a

small bus or even a small truck. My summer job was to

work with the engineering field team installing the cable

car system.

It was a great summer, but it was over too soon. On the

way back to Vancouver we stopped for a few days to visit

my parents and my two sisters. They were no longer

infants. They were little people with personalities, and they

could walk! They had grown up so fast.

How It Happened 139

UBC Year Two

Jiixa, her father and her cousins had indeed finished the

renovations by the time we returned to Vancouver.

Decades earlier there had been a very successful pizza

restaurant there. Then it had been converted into a Greek

restaurant, which also operated successfully for many years,

before the owner died. His heirs did not share his interest

in the restaurant business and let it decay, and finally

close.

Taqialoo had spent the first half of the summer working

on OpenBSD with Theo Durant in Alberta. Theo had a

reputation as being difficult to work with. Theo's focus on

computer operating system software quality went beyond

anything Taqialoo had ever encountered. In later years

Taqialoo repeatedly said that what he had learned from

Theo made the difference between success and failure for

Gas Town.

Taqialoo spent the second half of that summer panning

for gold with Ataata, Anaana and the twins on some of his

gold claims. Between them they collected almost 100 ounces

of gold, and Taqialoo's first little gold mine was a reality.

Taqialoo made a pair of gold earrings for Anaana. He

sent 10 ounces of gold to Paul at Nunavut Arctic College

for use by students in the College's jewelry making

program. He sold the rest of the gold because we had not

yet set up a network for working with Nunavut artists.

Nuka had gotten a US work via and had spent the

summer helping build electric cars for Tesla Motors. He had

lots to say about factory work and mass production and

continuous change.

How It Happened 140

Kailapi told us about his experience working in a big

gold mine in South Africa.

He'd had fun doing a Skype interview for that job. They

asked him why he wanted to work in a gold mine for the

summer when his cost of air fare would be almost as much

as his whole salary would be. He told them Nunavut had

lots of gold and someday he hoped to work in a gold mine

in Nunavut. He did not mention that he planned to own

part of it.

They also asked if he had ever had any experience being

a minority. He told them he was an Inuk, one of only

about 50,000 in Canada's population of almost 40 million

people. It seemed to satisfy them – they hired him.

He found the people to be very welcoming and good to

work with.

The only thing he did not like was the heat.

So we all had lots to talk about, but not too much time

for talking. We had to move into our new home above the

Haida Salmon Restaurant and get the restaurant ready to

open.

With about a hundred thousand dollars from the sale of

the gold and a similar amount from renting out our four

houses, we had close to two hundred thousand dollars of

working capital, much of which we invested in the Haida

Salmon Restaurant.

Having that much working capital made the startup

relatively easy. In addition to the cedar planking, we

accessorized with old crab pots, used old cedar barrels as

tables, and even had a totem pole beside the entrance,

provided by Jiixa's grandfather.

The restaurant offered good food at reasonable prices. We

invited the entire staff of the Varsity student newspaper for

How It Happened 141

supper on opening night. Their next issue had a feature on

the great new restaurant near campus that was owned and

run by UBC students in the renovated Greek restaurant

location. After that we had a steady stream of customers.

By November a Business professor asked if he could write a

business case about the Haida Salmon Restaurant.

Between the restaurant and classes and studying, we

didn’t have a lot of free time in the fall of our second year

at UBC. Taqialoo, Nuka and I went home for Christmas

break. Udlu worked on a marine research project with one

of his professors on an icebreaker out of Nanimo. It was

the first time we had been apart since we started living

together. It was hard, but we both knew it was only for a

few weeks. And I did miss my parents and sisters. We left

the Restaurant in the hands of Jiixa and her cousins.

As soon as we arrived home Anaana said, "Atii! Let's go

hunting." And that's what we did. Because "home" was not

the house-of-wood, home was all of Nunavut. The twins

were walking and starting to talk. It was a joy to be with

my sisters. Within a few days we found a tuktoo herd and

harvested some. I brought some back to Vancouver to share

with Udlu, who missed it greatly.

One evening, when the seven of us were settled in an

igloo for the evening, Ataata told us he had heard that

there were people from Europe who wanted to mine the

iron at Mary River. That's where we were planning to get

iron for use in the factories in Gas Town. There were other

places in Nunavut to get iron, but none so good as Mary

River.

How It Happened 142

After much discussion, Taqialoo said that it was actually

a good thing. We would buy iron from Mary River, rather

than having to mine it ourselves.

Taqialoo said we should talk with the Qikiqtanni Inuit

Association about it. We should ask them to require

whoever develops the Mary River iron mine to make at

least 10% of each month's production available for purchase

at their dock by any Inuit owned business at 20% more

than the market price for iron.

He said that would enable other small, Inuit owned

businesses to get started in the steel industry in Nunavut

and let our artists find imaginative things to do with iron

ore. He said that the mine developers would probably lock

in most of their sales to European or Chinese steel makers,

but at a price that was far below market rates. The

combination would make us a very valuable customer. Our

small purchases would be welcomed, rather than seen as a

nuisance. It was a good thing because we would be able to

move ahead more rapidly.

Nuka, Udlu and I headed back to Vancouver, but

Taqialoo detoured to Iqaluit, where he met with the Board

of Directors of the Qikiqtanni Inuit Association. He

explained about the 10% production for 20% above market

rate. They seemed dubious. The idea appeared to be

outlandish. No one would want to pay more than market

rates. So he asked them to put that idea on the side for a

moment.

He next explained that he had started a small gold

mining operation in the Kivalliq. He said he wanted their

assistance in contacting artists who would want to create

jewelry out of Nunavut gold. He said that such jewelry

would get a small but still significant price premium if

How It Happened 143

properly marketed, because the gold and the artist were

both from Nunavut. They liked this idea. It would cost

them nothing and it would help some of their people.

Then he reminded them that their artists were very

imaginative. Those artists found creative ways to make art

out of anything and everything. He said some of them

would undoubtedly find creative ways to make art out of

iron ore from Mary River, too. He said that if the people

who wanted to mine the iron at Mary River were unwilling

to let Nunavummiut have any, even at 20% above market

rates, then it would mean something very strange was

happening. It would mean that the ore was much more

valuable than they were letting on.

He explained that he planned to use the money earned

from the gold to start a business in Nunavut that would

make special steel from the iron and then make special

products such as surgical instruments from that steel. Such

instruments have to be very light and are very valuable, so

it would be possible to sell them all over the world. All

this would create more jobs for those Inuit who wanted

them. By this time he had won them over and they agreed

to include the "10% of production for 20% above market"

in their negotiations. He thanked them and told them he

was sure that other things could and would be made in

Nunavut from Mary River iron, too.

Taqialoo also met with Paul to see how the jewelry

making was going. Paul introduced Taqialoo to some of the

students and their instructors, who showed him their work.

Taqialoo was impressed.

He asked about their plans to sell the gold jewelry. They

were having only limited success so far. The markets where

they usually sold their jewelry liked the work but were not

used to buying such expensive pieces. Taqialoo suggested

How It Happened 144

setting up a selling organization for those who wanted to

use it. Most of them said they liked that idea. They wanted

to spend their time making art, not selling it. But they did

want to get paid.

Taqialoo said he would see what he could do. He also

told them that, for the next few years, Nunavut gold would

only be available in the fall because he, too, was a student

and only had time to mine during the summer. He asked

them to each think about how much gold they wanted next

fall.

He said that those first 10 ounces were free, but from

now on the gold would have to be paid for when the

jewelry was sold. If the artists arranged for their own

selling, all they would have to pay for was the gold they

got. If they wanted Taqialoo to sell their work on

consignment, then a fee would have to be negotiated, based

upon the expected difficulty of selling. They said that was

reasonable.

Then Taqialoo flew to Vancouver, where, in addition to

classes and helping with the Haida Salmon Restaurant, he

set up a website for promoting and selling Nunavut gold

jewelry.

He also started a Nunavut gold jewelry selling organiza-

tion. He explained that the website would sell jewelry, but

mostly it was there to let the world know about the

jewelry.

He said he expected most of the jewelry would be sold

through direct contact. Gold jewelry was a special item and

most people buying it wanted a connection to its source.

He proved to be correct about this, as he was about many

things.

How It Happened 145

My second term courses included thermodynamics,

electronics, optics, bio-engineering and Mandarin syntax.

Taqialoo took mineralogy, chemistry of metals, operations

management, market research and Irdu grammar.

Udlu took courses in seamanship and navigation, in

addition to his marine biology courses. In the spring he

started the process of getting his papers as a ship's captain.

That summer I got a job in Kitimat with Alcan, working

in the massive hydro-electric generating station we had

visited in first year. I helped with an efficiency upgrade for

their turbines.

Udlu got a job doing whale research in the Inside

Passage, so we were pretty close. I spent most weekends

watching whales with him, often on his boat. He came to

visit me a few times, and on those occasions we climbed

local mountains in the BC Coast Range.

Taqialoo and Kailapi both brought their girlfriends with

them to Taqialoo's gold claim. Ataata, Anaana and my two

sisters joined them again, so it was quite the camp.

This summer they panned up the kuuk until they found

the seam where the gold was coming from.

Then they started digging.

Digging for gold was very different than panning for it,

but Kailapi's experience paid off. The biggest problem with

digging for gold was separating it from the rock. They had

no heavy equipment for breaking up the rock and neither

road nor marine access for transporting ore.

They were able to extract some gold from the rock with

their hammers, but in the end they went back to panning.

Digging would have to wait until they were ready to

process the ore.

How It Happened 146

When they finally packed up, they brought out the gold

they had panned, the gold they had dug and about 20 kilos

of ore rich in gold. During the fall they experimented with

various ways of extracting the gold from the ore.

Nuka kept his US work via and spent the summer

helping build rockets for SpaceX.

How It Happened 147

UBC Year Three

There was lots of catching up to do when we got back to

UBC and the Haida Salmon Restaurant at the start of third

year. We had been in contact during the summer, of

course. But actually being together was different.

I tried to convey the experience of working with truly

massive machinery at Kitimat. It had been one thing to see

the generators when we went to visit as a class. It was

totally different to actually work with and work on them.

There are hills where we grew up. They seemed big

when we were little. But the mountains of the BC Coast

Range were awe-inspiring. Of course, climbing them with

Udlu had made the experience even better.

In spite of the majesty of the mountains, we had spent

most weekends on his boat. It wasn't actually his. His

professor had rented it for the summer for research. But in

tandem with the whale research, Udlu was accumulating

hours operating the boat. He needed those hours to get his

master's ticket.

Nuka talked about helping to build rockets at SpaceX.

But mostly he talked about the energy of the

organization. There were lots of hard-working people there,

all doing their best to make travel to Mars practical. He

said that in many ways the way we worked was similar to

the way things were at SpaceX. He said the big difference

was that we were all family. SpaceX, on the other hand,

involved many more people, and they were a family only in

the sense that they shared a common focus and objective.

He suggested that it would be useful for Taqialoo to meet

Elon Musk.

How It Happened 148

Taqialoo said that sounded good, because he could see

how to do things now, but it was not so clear how to do

things when the businesses got bigger.

Taqialoo and Kailapi talked about mining for gold. In

order to get lots of gold they were going to need to bring

in equipment for digging, for breaking the rock, and for

extracting the gold. Until then, panning was the best

option. Kailapi said that building infrastructure and bringing

in equipment was going to introduce security issues,

particularly when none of us were there.

I thought about my little snow-shoveling robot. It had a

camera and could be used as a lookout The problem was

that it had to be plugged in after use, in order to re-charge

the battery. There was no place at the gold-site to plug in

my robot and the electricity in its little batteries would

only last for about a week.

We talked about it for awhile. Eetuk said the obvious

source of power was the wind, but snow and ice in winter

were hard on moving parts. He said solar had problems,

too. There wasn't much light in winter. Solar panels had to

be pointed at the sun for them to be efficient, and they

had to be kept free of snow.

On top of those challenges, battery efficiency drops as

temperature drops. He said we needed robot sentries, but it

would take awhile to come up with a practical design.

It actually took him two whole weeks. Of course, it took

considerably longer to build the first prototype, which he

did as a project for one of his courses.

Eetuk's robot was about one meter tall. To ensure

stability in strong winds and prevent it from being knocked

over by roaming tuktoo or polar bears, the robot had three

gyroscopes, arranged in a horizontal triangle at the base,

How It Happened 149

such that their axis were mutually perpendicular. The

flywheels each weighted 2 kilograms. Each was in a sealed

chamber. There was a vacuum pump located between the

three gyroscopes. The vacuum pump kept those chambers

almost like outer space. The thing was, the gyroscopes were

also electric motor-generators.

The robot had a panel with solar cells on both sides.

That was so that if one side got iced up in bad weather,

the other could be used to generate electricity until the

robot could clean away the ice and snow.

The solar cells produced electricity from sunlight. That

electricity was used to power the vacuum pump when

needed. The surplus electricity was used to spin up the

gyroscopes, which kept the robot upright, even if it was

kicked by a polar bear. The more sunlight, the faster the

gyroscopes spun, and the more stable the robot. Usually the

limiting factor for a gyroscope is that the outer edge of the

spinning wheel has to rotate slower than the speed of

sound. If it tries to go faster, it will break apart. Since

these gyroscopes were rotating in vacuums, they were not

limited by the speed of sound. As the gyroscopes spun up,

they stored energy. When the robot needed energy, wire

coils tapped the rotational energy of the gyroscopes,

converting as much as was needed into electricity. It was a

robust, yet elegant, robot solution.

Udlu had his boat operating hours and got his ship's

captain papers. He found an old tugboat that was up for

auction, bought it, and we helped him fix it up. He worked

out a deal with the Coast Guard. They would transport the

tug to Cambridge Bay next spring on an icebreaker and

provide him with recording sonar equipment. In exchange,

How It Happened 150

he would provide them with seabed mapping data from his

travels in the arctic doing marine mammal research.

We still put in our shifts at the Haida Salmon restaurant,

but Jiixa brought in an additional group of Haida students

because the restaurant was getting more and more busy.

Our time in the Restaurant was a good break from

studying and our other business activities.

The gold jewelry selling business was taking off. By

Christmas we had the kinks out of the processes and were

able to turn it over to cousin Kudlak to manage on a day-

to-day basis.

My courses included bioengineering and engineering

optics.

Niis and I were part of the team working in the Salmon

Restaurant one particular Thursday evening late in the fall.

It was much like any other evening. The early rush of UBC

students was close to finishing up their meals when a hush

came over the place. It had happened before; sometimes

when a bunch of bikers came in, or when a drunk person

staggered in, or when a police officer in uniform came in.

We all looked up. All I saw was a well-dressed woman,

older than most UBC students, perhaps in her 30s, taking a

seat. She was not a faculty member – UBC students don’t

react that way to faculty members.

Niis came up to me and said in a quiet voice, "That's

Puglaas!" I didn’t know what she was trying to tell me.

Who, or what, was a puglaas?

Niis saw the quizzical look on my face as I asked "Is she

Haida?"

"No," Niis replied, "but she is First Nation from western

BC. She's a chief of the We Wai Kai Nation on Quadra

How It Happened 151

Island, between Vancouver Island and the mainland. It's not

far from where Udlu was working last summer. She's also a

Crown Prosecutor. She's quite famous among our people.

We all know of her, but I've never met her. Let me wait

her table."

I kept an eye on the table but saw nothing unusual until

the end of the meal. Niis was pouring tea for Puglaas when

Puglaas invited Niis to sit and join her. That does not

happen often. They spoke quietly for about 10 minutes.

Then Niis waved me over and asked me to join them.

Niis introduced us. Puglaas said that she had really

enjoyed her meal, and was pleased to meet me. She said

she had heard rumours about a Salmon Restaurant owned

and operated entirely by aboriginal UBC students, and had

decided to check it out. She said Niis had told her that the

restaurant had been based upon an Inuit idea that was part

of a bigger plan. She asked if I would tell her more.

I told her about Koviano and the original Arctic Char

Restaurant in Ottawa. I told her about Taqialoo's idea to

sell electricity to people all over the world by building

nuclear reactors and putting them on barges. I told her

about the three gold mines that would generate the money

to pay for building Gas Town and the first reactors and

barges. She listened intently, interrupting only occasionally

with a question.

When I finished, she said "That's an incredible plan.

Simply amazing. You know," she added, "I really think you

people have a good chance of pulling it off."

I said, "Thank you", still not really knowing who she

was.

She thought for a few moments. Then she started talking.

"You are going to have lots of challenges, technical,

financial and regulatory; but I'm sure you will have no

How It Happened 152

difficulty overcoming most of them. There is one challenge

that you may not yet be fully aware of, and it could

become the most troublesome of all. I'm thinking about the

petrochemical companies that have exploration leases where

you are planning to build Gas Town. They like to pretend

that they own everything."

Then she asked, "Have you got a loonie?"

I said "Yes".

She said, "Give it to me." I did.

"Good," she said. "Now I can give you legal advice about

civil matters."

"I cannot comment on criminal matters because, as Niis

told you, I am a Crown Prosecutor. But as your attorney I

can advise you on civil matters. The major petrochemical

companies have exploration leases where you are planning

to build Gas Town. The specifics of those leases are secret.

If you try to buy the gas you want, the price will be so

high that you could not afford it. Even if you dug all the

gold in Nunavut, they would still want more. I suggest you

start by ignoring them. They will likely pretend to ignore

you, too, until you start extracting gas. Then they will file

for a Cease and Desist order requesting an immediate

injunction, claiming that you are doing irreparable harm by

decreasing the value of an asset that belongs to them."

"When they do, I suggest you challenge them in court. In

that way you can force them to reveal the terms of their

leases. They will have to either withdraw their application

for the Order, or they will have to reveal the terms of their

leases, at least to the judge, to you and to your lawyers."

"Once you know the terms of the leases you will be in a

position to counter-sue."

"The specifics of your counter-suit will depend upon the

terms of their leases."

How It Happened 153

"The leases may no longer be valid because they have

not done the required exploration or development in recent

years."

"Alternatively, the leases may simply require the

companies to invest a certain amount of their money in

exploration, with no time limits. That would be very

unusual, but this is a very unusual situation and the leases

could say anything."

"If it is the latter, you challenge the validity of their

leases, alleging that they have fully depreciated the value of

their investment in the required exploration and develop-

ment. They no longer have any investment because the

citizens of Canada are the ones that have fully paid for that

through the taxes the petrochemical companies have

avoided paying."

"Then you counter-sue for the net present value of the

gas that was lost when the exploratory well turned into the

world's biggest torch in the 1970s."

"That should be enough to get them to settle and walk

away."

Later that evening Niis and I got together with Taqialoo,

Nuka, Udlu, Jiixa, and Gaaying We went over what Puglaas

had told us. Nuka said, "Wow, that was the best one-dollar

investment, ever!"

And, a few years later, things played out exactly as

Puglaas said they would.

During Christmas break we went south, instead of north.

Nuka had arranged for us to visit the Tesla electric car

manufacturing plant in California where he had worked. So,

after last class, Taqialoo, Nuka, Udlu and I met Anaana,

Ataata and my two sisters at the airport. Those girls were

How It Happened 154

talking and walking and into everything. Udla's parents

were there too; they flew in on the same flight from

Toronto.

First thing we did was Udlu and I got married.

Nuka had rented a 40 foot motor home. The ten of us

spent the next four days driving south. We stayed on the

coast road whenever possible, enjoying both the scenery

and each other's company.

We drove around San Francisco a bit. The city was built

on hills and most of the roads were not designed to

accomodate a 40 foot motor home. We saw big, beautiful

houses, but we also saw people sleeping on the street in

the middle of the day. It was a weird place. We drove into

a Tesla Motors employee parking lot. Nuka had his

employee pass, plus authorization for us to live in the

parking lot in the motor home for a week.

We went into the factory building. The person at the

reception desk seemed surprised that we were there to visit

with my sisters. I guess they don't get many kids as

visitors. But the paperwork was all in order and we were

given nine visitor badges and one employee badge.

Diego, Nuka's supervisor from his summer working at the

plant, met us and showed us around. Nuka was surprised

how much had changed in the 16 months since he had

worked there. After the tour Diego brought us to a

conference room. We talked about the plant for a few

minutes and then Elon Musk came in and introduced

himself. Diego introduced us and Nuka reviewed why we

were there. Taqialoo briefly explained what we were doing

and what our plans were.

How It Happened 155

Elon said he remembered Nuka from is work at both

Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and was glad we had come. He

said he was impressed with what we had accomplished and

admired our plans. He said that our electricity and his

electric cars naturally went together. He said he would do

what he could to help us.

He got into a detailed discussion, mostly with Taqialoo,

about those plans and the challenges we were experiencing.

After about 45 minute Elon said he had to go because he

had another meeting. He invited us to make ourselves at

home at the plant. He suggested that Taqialoo come back

the next morning and spend a week with Elon. Taqialoo

would have an opportunity to see how Elon dealt with day-

to-day matters and, between times, they could talk further

about Taqialoo's plans.

Elon also invited the ten of us to join his family for

Christmas. We accepted.

Next morning Taqialoo went into the plant to meet Elon

and the rest of us drove away in the motor home.

First we continued south to Los Angeles, where we saw

Hollywood and went to Disneyland. After that we drove

into Yosemite National Park. We saw a big waterfall and a

big rock cliff. We also found a huge, overhanging boulder,

where we built a big fire with the boulder at our backs so

we would not be cold. It was a great place to spend the

night.

The next morning we drove on a big highway to a place

called Death Valley. We did not see anything there that was

dead, but it was very dry. It was like most of Nunavut, in

that there were no trees, so we could see for many

kilometers. Of course, it was much warmer than any place

in Nunavut at that time of year.

How It Happened 156

One good thing about Death Valley in December, at least

as far as we were concerned, was that there were very few

people. Disneyland had been much too crowded for our

liking.

From Death Valley we drove to Elon's home, where we

met his family and spent Christmas with them.

Elon said he would be pleased to have Nuka working for

him any time he wanted to. But he suggested that Nuka

might consider spending next the summer working at

Lincoln Electric in Cleveland.

He said that John Lincoln the Third had taken over the

company and was running it the way his grandfather had.

He told us how John and James Lincoln had created, not

only the electric welding industry, but a model for how

businesses should be run.

He said the business had deteriorated after the two

brothers retired, but that John the Third had brought it

back to health. He offered to provide an introduction.

After a short visit we drove back to Vancouver. Ataata,

Anaana and my sisters flew north to the life they loved, as

did Udlu's parents. The rest of us started the second

semester of our third year as undergraduates at UBC.

Shortly after the start of second semester I got a part-

time job at a bioengineering startup near campus that was

owned by some of the faculty.

They were trying to use lasers to separate islet cells from

pancreas tissue so the cells could be cultured and then

enclosed in tiny, semi-permeable ampoules that would be

implanted into patients who had type I diabetes. The

patient’s body would provide nutrients to the cells. The

How It Happened 157

cells, in turn, would produce insulin for the person, so the

person could live a normal life.

The professors could separate the cells in the lab, culture

them, encapsulate them and implant them. But it was a

slow, laborious, expensive process – based upon work

pioneered by McDonald Douglass on the Space Shuttle many

years earlier.

It took me four months to get the new processes

automated and cost-effective. I was working for a share of

the business. It took the professors four more years to get

regulatory approval, so I did not start to see a return for

my effort until a year after that. But then my 5% of the

business did pay off handsomely.

How It Happened 158

How It Happened 159

UBC Year Four

There was lots of catching up to do when we got back to

UBC and the Haida Salmon Restaurant at the start of fourth

year. We had been in contact during the summer, of

course. But actually being together was different.

I had had a summer job doing design work for a

proposed extension of the Trans Canada Highway, north

from Winnipeg to the town of Churchill on James Bay. I

was hired by Ellis-Don to work in their down town Toronto

office, which was on the 68th floor of Trump Tower

Toronto. I had interviewed via email and they offered me

the job the same way. When I accepted they emailed me

the company dress code. I almost quit when I read it. I had

to wear a skirt, high heeled shoes, pantyhose and a short

sleeved blouse. I was also expected to wear "appropriate

make-up". There was nothing to suggest that they meant

traditional Inuit facial tattoos.

When I got off the elevator on the 68th floor the

receptionist was speaking Mandarin on the telephone. So I

automatically introduced myself in Mandarin. She responded

by asking me, in Mandarin, who I was there to see.

Continuing in Mandarin, I replied that I had an

appointment with Mr. Lung. The receptionist spoke with

Mr. Lung on the phone and told him, still speaking

Mandarin, that I was here to see him. She then brought me

to his office and introduced us, in Mandarin.

Mr. Lung welcomed me, in Mandarin, and invited me to

sit. I thanked him, still in Mandarin.

We talked for about 10 minutes, all in Mandarin. Then

he suddenly switched to English, asking, "How is your

English?"

How It Happened 160

I switched to English and replied, "English is not my

mother tongue, but I read, write, understand and speak it

quite well." He said I appeared to be Mongolian, but he

could not place my accent. I replied that I indeed had

ancestors from Mongolia, but that I had been born and

raised in Canada.

"Ah, that explains it." he replied. For the rest of the

summer he and I worked together and we always spoke

Mandarin, switching to English only when the client's

representative was present.

Toronto was sweltering hot that summer, but, due to air

conditioning, the office was only slightly warmer than the

inside of a house-of-snow. Dress code for the men was

three piece woolen suits that would not have been out of

place 150 years earlier in Scotland, in winter. I knew that

keeping warm in those conditions required country food.

But this was down town Toronto. The best I could do was

eat lots of frozen smoked salmon. It kept me warm by

keeping my metabolic rate high.

On the last day Mr. Lung thanked me for my

contribution to the project and asked me if I would

consider joining the firm after I graduated.

I thanked him, but said I had plans to continue my

studies. Then I said I had a bit of a confession to make. I

told him that, while I had Mongolian ancestors, I was

actually an Inuk, and that my mother tongue was Inuktitut,

not Mandarin.

Again he said, "Ah, that explains it." Except, he said it

in my dialect of Inuktitut, and his pronunciation was

flawless!

Udlu and Kooyoo had gone north on the Coast Guard

cutter and then transferred to the tugboat that Udlu had

left at Cambridge Bay the previous fall. Udlu focused on his

How It Happened 161

marine mammal research in the Arctic Archipelago. In

addition, he continued doing sub-sea mapping for the

coastguard. He also scouted for good deep-water harbors on

Melleville Island and identified several that had access to

fresh water for drinking, bedrock for building on, and flat

land for a runway. Kooyoo helped Udlu, but also focused

on identifying promising sites for a gas well.

Taqialoo and Kailapi brought a whole crew with them to

pan for gold. Together they got just over 500 ounces!

Taqialoo's little gold mine made enough money to cover the

startup costs of his medium sized gold mine – just as he

had planned it.

Eetuk was part of the gold panning crew, and he brought

along two sentry robots. The robots worked well and were

a big hit with my little sisters, who were there again with

Ataata and Anaana.

Nuka had spent the summer sweltering in Cleveland.

Lincoln Electric was everything Elon had said it would be.

Nuka did not work as a production engineer, telling people

how to do things better. He worked, as did every new

employee at Lincoln Electric, assembling electric welding

machines. He learned what they did and why they did it

that way. He learned the Lincoln Electric culture of

continuous quality improvement.

Everyone at Lincoln Electric had been coming up with

improvements for more than 100 years, so opportunities for

improvements were hard to find. Near the end of summer

Nuka did come up with one small improvement, not to the

welders, but to the process of assembling them. It involved

using a magnet to hold the nameplate in place while it was

being attached. It reduced the assembly time for each

welder by three seconds. It earned him a small bonus and

How It Happened 162

an invitation to work at Lincoln Electric "any time you

want."

My courses in fourth year included Civil Engineering,

Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Structural

Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mining Engineering,

Nuclear Engineering and Software Engineering. I also took a

Properties of Materials course, a Biological Systems course,

and a 10th century Chinese Literature course.

Early in the term we started to disengage from the Haida

Salmon Restaurant. Gaaying and her cousins were doing an

excellent job and did not need us. Indeed, they were

preparing to hand the restaurant over to their successors

next year.

We met with them and a representative from the Haida

Council. They recognized that it would soon be time to give

us back the money we had invested to help get the

restaurant going. Taqialoo surprised them by saying that we

did not want the money in cash. Rather, over the next

several years we would want it in Haida cedar lumber that

we would use for building Gas Town.

They were pleasantly surprised, but concerned about how

we would get the lumber to the Gas Town site. We

explained that getting construction material anywhere in

Nunavut was always a challenge, but that we would work

something out and give them plenty of notice.

As it turned out, Udlu arranged for the Coast Guard to

bring us a barge and several containers of supplies in

exchange for continued sub-sea mapping. Some of those

containers, containing cedar lumber, were picked up by the

Coast Guard at the Sandspit dock in Haida Gwaii.

How It Happened 163

After Graduation

Udlu and I both applied to Dartmouth University in

Halifax for the following year. I was accepted into their

Masters program for Engineering Management; Udlu was

accepted into their Master of Marine Science program with

the Bedford Institute.

We both took their Cellular Metabolism course in first

year and Enzyme Concepts in second year. My other first

year courses included Project Management, Engineering for

Quality, Incentive Management and Statistical Process

Control. In second year I took Team Development, Long

Term Concepts, Managing Expectations, and Mission

Impossible Projects, with Schneiderman.

Udlu took Mandarin in both years, along with his biology

courses.

Taqialoo applied to the Executive MBA program at the

Ivey School of Business. They were reluctant to accept him

at first because he was half the age of the typical student

in that program. Most students in an Executive MBA

program either want to change fields or feel stymied; they

are not advancing in their career as they want to.

However, Taqialoo was successfully running a jewelry

distribution business, two gold mines, and a natural gas

exploration business. They recognized that he did not have

time to do a regular, in-class for two years, MBA. When

they asked him why he wanted to do an executive MBA, he

told them that he wanted to learn how people in

management think. The faculty at Ivey wanted diversity in

their student body and Taqialoo brought uniqueness; they

had no one like him.

How It Happened 164

Gold Mine One and the Jewelry Sales Organization

generated enough revenue to pay for the equipment needed

to establish Gold Mine Two.

Kailapi headed up operations. He got the drilling and

blasting machinery delivered to Rankin Inlet, along with the

hauling, crushing and extraction equipment. They spent a

couple of months winterizing it all, Nunavut style. Then

they left it there until April.

There was still plenty of well packed snow and the days

were fairly long, making it relatively easy to haul

everything overland to the site of Gold Mine Two.

By August they were producing gold at Gold Mine Two.

By the time snow started to accumulate in October,

almost the entire operation at Gold Mine Two was under-

ground except the bunkhouses. Living through the winter

was normal for us; the crew did not look at it as a

hardship.

By January production leveled off at about 1000 ounces

of gold per month.

When July came around, prospecting began for Gold

Mine 3.

During our second year at Dartmouth we went north

again to visit our family. We were with Kooyoo on

Melleville Island when he and his crew struck gas.

Fortunately they were prepared for it. They capped the

well and started storing gas in the small tank they had.

This gas storage was largely symbolic. The plan all along

had been to use the gas on site.

The big thing was that we had gas! Gas was energy and

energy meant we could do all the things we wanted to do.

Gas Town was a go!

How It Happened 165

We had gas for heat. We had gas for power. We had

power for electricity. We had electricity for light. We had

power for purifying iron and making it into steel. We had

power for making things out of steel.

Gas Town grew rapidly in the years that followed. Its

growth was limited only by the rate at which, first Gold

Mine Two, and later, Gold Mine Three, could provide the

capital for the equipment and by the rate at which we

could recruit skilled Inuit who shared our vision.

We brought in cedar lumber from Haida Gwaii and used

it to build houses-of-cedar. We brought in gas-powered

electric generators of ever increasing size. We brought in an

electric furnace that we used for smelting iron ore from

Mary River. Then, to increase efficiency and throughput, we

brought in a gas powered pre-heater for the iron ore. We

brought in a full machine shop that enabled us to make

almost anything out of that metal.

Gas Town went from nothing to being an outpost camp,

and from being an outpost camp to being a community. We

never considered it to be just a place with a gas well. We

always looked upon it as a community with an industrial

focus. And that made all the difference.

We worked out an agreement with the Coast Guard,

whereby they could use our harbor as a base for their ships

and we got an extended shipping season.

Meanwhile, Kailapi kept prospecting, looking for the site

of Gold Mine Three. Gold Mine Two was doing a great job

financing the startup of Gas Town and laying the

foundation for the future. But it was just too small to take

us where we wanted to go in the time frame we had in

mind.

How It Happened 166

Udlu and I wanted the Engineering School to be

functioning and for us to be selling nuclear electricity to

the world, so we could stop and raise babies of our own.

What was the point of doing all this, if we did not have

babies to share our lives with?

After finishing our Masters' both Udlu and I wanted some

full time work. I needed 2 years of being supervised by a

Professional Engineer to get my Professional Engineer

designation. Udlu wanted to do a substantive study before

picking a topic for doing his PhD. And we wanted to be

together.

With a bit of social engineering we came up with a

solution. We both went to work for FedNav, on their

Umiaq 1. I worked as an engineer, helping to keep the ship

and its equipment operating.

We convinced FedNav that they needed to be seen to be

paying attention to the arctic marine environment in which

they operated. Udlu, with his training in both traditional

Inuit marine observation skills and marine science as

practiced at the Bedford Institute was an ideal choice. He

had credibility in both worlds. And on top of all that, he

had his Master's papers and experience in Arctic waters.

Much of my work on Umiaq 1 was related to routine

maintenance – keeping the ship running. But I also

developed an improved process for cleaning and monitoring

the oil used by the ship's big engine. Impurities in the oil

are an indication that something is wrong. They can also

cause other things to go wrong. That's why my process had

the dual roles of both cleaning and monitoring.

Udlu paid attention to everything in the sea, from the

temperature, salinity and trace elements, to the plankton

How It Happened 167

and the algae, to the crustacean, fish, mollusks, and

mammals.

One thing he documented was that several species of

whales followed us north each spring because of the open

channel behind us. Of course, the Inuit of Labrador already

knew that whales follow the first open leads in spring, so

they waited at several places along our route to hunt the

whales. It was another case of scientific documentation

catching up with Inuit traditional knowledge. But this time

it was an Inuk who did the documenting.

When Umiaq 1 was at sea, we were either working or on

call, 24 hours each day. When it was in port at Quebec

City I was often involved in routine maintenance and Udlu

was often busy analyzing samples and data. But we also

had considerable time off when Umiaq 1 was in port, in

compensation for our duties at sea. So several times each

year we were able to go north to visit Udlu's relatives or

mine. It was great to watch my sisters grow up, and to

spend time on the land with them and my parents.

The girls each had a sister the same age as them who

was with them all the time. But they also had a big sister

who was with them some of the time, but often was

somewhere else. They accepted it, as kids their age accept

everything. But it must have made it difficult to understand

just what "sister" meant.

After getting my Professional Engineer designation, Udlu

and I took a few weeks off to spend time with Anaana,

Ataata, my brothers and my sisters. We met them at Gas

Town, which had its own runway and twice-weekly

scheduled air service by then. From there we took off,

hunting seals. It was great to be back in the real world,

even if it was only for a few weeks.

How It Happened 168

We also had time to talk about the future. Gold Mine

Three was not one spot, like Gold Mine Two was. It was an

area rich in gold. Lots and lots of gold. It could be

expected to yield 1 million ounces of gold each year if we

developed it fully. The problem was that Gold Mine 3 was

both very remote and very spread out. How to get all the

equipment and supplies in there? An all-weather road from

Rankin Inlet would be long, costly, and disruptive. A winter

road from Rankin Inlet was more promising, but it would

be a major challenge.

Alternatively, we could build a dock on the north coast

and either an all-weather road or winter road south to Gold

Mine Three. The road south would be much shorter, but

still long, costly and disruptive. In either case there was the

issue of mine tailings. We would have to dig an awful lot

of rock and dirt each year to get 1 million ounces of gold.

It would all be very disruptive.

We wanted a better way but there did not seem to be

any. We talked and talked. A winter road from the coast

seemed the best option, but we did not like it. Finally

Anaana said, "I know you kids are in a hurry. But you are

young and have time. You are also bright. So take some

time and think further. I'm sure you will come up with a

better way." Ataata concurred, and so did Ashevak and

Karliin.

We got back to Gas Town and kicked the options around

with the rest of the team.

Three days later, just one day before we were to head

back to Quebec City, Eetuk called us all together. He had

an idea.

"The problem of Gold Mine Three," he said, "was that it

had lots of gold, but the gold was mixed with lots of rock

and spread out over a wide area, remote from any access

How It Happened 169

point. Gold mining, other than panning or dredging, used

blasting to fracture the rock, then heavy equipment to

transport that broken rock to a crusher, and then a

relatively small amount of gold was extracted from a very

large amount of crushed rock."

We agreed.

"What if," he said, "we approached the problem in a

completely different way. What if we built tiny robots that

could identify gold and follow veins of gold, digging out

tiny pieces of it? What if we also built tiny transport robots

that could carry away waste rock, carry gold to a gold

collection station, and transport fuel to the digger robots?"

He went on, "What if Gold Mine Three consisted of

many, many small sites? Each site would consist of a

mobile fuel depot, a mobile gold collection bin and a base

station that controlled the robots. Each site would also have

perhaps 20 satellite units, each with their own fuel

dispenser, temporary storage bin for gold, and perhaps 100

tiny digger and transport robots. A small crew would attend

to the equipment at each site and move it from place to

place as needed."

"The tiny robots would be insect-like. They would

probably have 6 legs for mobility. The transport robots

could have 2 hands for gripping either gold or waste rock.

The digger robots could have both a pair of gripper hands

and a pair of digger hands. The digger hands would have

very hard, very tiny points. They would be able to strike

very fast, applying tremendous pressure precisely at a tiny

spot. The digger robots could use their mobility legs to

wedge themselves into place before they strike, and the

transport bots could bring replacement points to the digger

bots when needed. Both types of bots could use fuel cells to

generate electricity."

How It Happened 170

Eetuk said the process would leave a lot of gold behind

because we would not be able to get to every seam, but

that there was so much gold available that we would get

enough.

We were silent for awhile, taking it all in. Then Udlu

said he had read about some tiny shrimp that struck like

that to kill their prey.

Taqialoo said that he liked the idea, and we all indicated

that we concurred.

Taqialoo said that these robots would have to be very

different than any we had prior experience with. We would

not be able to buy most of the components. We would have

to build a facility in Gas Town to make the components

and to assemble them into robots. He asked Eetuk if he

really thought it could be done.

Eetuk said he thought it could, but conceded that it

would be a lot of work to build the first one. "The first big

challenge would be the size. We would need to build tools

that would enable us to build such small things. There is a

name for such tools. They’re called Waldos. They were first

described in a science fiction story by Robert Heinlein and

he gave them that name. The second big challenge would

be mass producing them, because we might need a million

of them!"

Taqialoo said, "OK, prepare a list of what you need to

get started, and another list of what you expect to need to

mass produce these robots. Let's give it a try. But,

everyone, this needs to be kept secret, at least for awhile."

Later that evening I said to Taqialoo, "If we can mass

produce these mini-robots, we might not have to build Gold

How It Happened 171

Mine Three. We might be able to sell the mini-robots for

enough money to pay for the electricity project."

Taqialoo said, "We might. We'll keep our options open."

It took two years for Eetuk and his team to produce their

first functional mini-robot prototype. It took two more years

for them to successfully automate the production process

and begin mass production of the mini-robots. A big

organization would have developed the central and satellite

units in parallel with the mini-robots, so everything would

be ready at about the same time. We had money, due to

Gold Mine Two, but we were severely limited in terms of

the people available to do what needed to be done. So we

prioritized the mini-robots, because they were the hardest

part. It took another six months to prototype the satellite

and central units and a further six months to produce them

reliably, in quantity.

After returning to Quebec City, Udlu and I had both

applied to the University of China to do our PhDs. We

submitted our applications the old fashioned way. We wrote

them out in Mandarin characters on parchment and sent

them to my friend Mi, who hand delivered them.

The admisions office had not seen applications like these

in decades. They had had very few applications from

Canada and none from Inuit. So we attracted attention, as

we intended.

They were also intrigued by our thesis topics. Udlu

proposed to study communications among killer whales.

They asked him, in Mandarin, if killer whales spoke

Mandarin. He replied, in Mandarin, "The killer whales in

Nunavut speak their own dialect of Inuktitut. While I have

How It Happened 172

not yet met any killer whales in China I'm sure they speak

their own dialect of Mandarin."

I proposed to investigate the use of biological agents to

extract uranium atoms from ore or seawater. They did not

think it could be done, but they were intrigued that

someone of Mongolian ancestry was willing to try.

Long story short, we were both accepted.

China was much as I remembered it from our Year-of-

Travel. It was crowded and it was noisy. But it was also

vibrant and alive. While most of the people at the

University were Chinese, there were quite a few from many

other parts of the world. Everyone there was busy. No

matter who we spoke with, they were doing something

interesting.

Taking classes in Mandarin, as opposed to taking classes

about Mandarin, was very different than classes in English.

It reminded us of the difference in mind-set we encountered

when we switched from learning in Inuktitut to learning in

English.

We met a lot of great people in China, but our hearts

were in Nunavut. We were in contact with our families

almost daily. The progress they were making was extremely

gratifying.

We were deeply engaged in our courses and our

research. We wanted to be doing what we were doing and

we enjoyed it. We also enjoyed the people we met. But we

were anxious to get our PhDs done and move on. Time

passed quickly. Fortunately, our research went well.

Udlu was able to record lots of whale sounds. But what

did they mean? Were they talking about how to wash a

seal off an ice pan, or were they philosophizing about the

How It Happened 173

origin of the universe? Or were they just expressing joy at

being alive, in good health and active? How to know?

Udlu caught a young female killer whale, put a tag on

her and then released her back into the wild. The tag had

a camera, a microphone, a geo-positioning system and a

radio transmitter. It enabled him to know where she was,

to see much of what she saw, and to hear her and the

sounds of those around her.

He got to know her quite well during about 4 months.

Then she gave birth. Now Udlu was listening and watching

two killer whales. The interaction between mother and baby

proved to be the key to interpreting their sounds. Udlu was

able to observe and hear the mother encouraging her

daughter to swim. He was able to hear her soothe her

daughter when she was nursing. He was able to hear both

of them as they played together. The baby Killer Whale was

learning its Anaana's language, much the same way most

human babies learn their Anaana's language. And Udlu was

learning to understand Killer Whale, the same way the

infant Killer Whale was learning the language.

My own research was also challenging, in different ways.

Most organisms do not take kindly to radiation. It messes

up their DNA, which messes up both their functioning and

their reproduction. I needed to find something that suffered

little or no damage when exposed to nuclear radiation and

also had an affinity for uranium.

Cockroaches had long been known to be virtually

immune to radiation, so I started by looking at the fauna

and flora in their guts. I checked several dozen varieties of

cockroaches, all with no success. Lots of interesting stuff,

but nothing that showed any affinity for uranium.

How It Happened 174

On a hunch, and a bit out of desperation, I decided to

check some of the stuff that lives near deep-sea vents,

metabolizing methane. I figured I needed something hardy,

and these critters certainly met that description. I also

figured I needed something small, because anything large

with an affinity for uranium would collect too much of it. I

figured that in large enough quantities uranium would be

lethal to anything.

I managed to get a seat on a deep-sea submersible that

was being taken to explore some under-sea vents. They

were willing to attach a Geiger counter to one of the

manipulator arms. It was an interesting dive and I enjoyed

watching as the other researcher conducted his

investigation. But I was anxious to see if there were any

increased radiation readings near any of the vents. Surprise,

surprise! The readings were elevated near several of the

vents. I collected samples of rock, dirt and various tiny life

forms. Some of the samples exhibited elevated radiation

readings!

We returned to the surface with the samples in

pressurized containers and I headed straight to the

laboratory.

Separate and test. And repeat. It took several weeks, but

eventually I isolated not one, but three organisms that had

high levels of radiation. Then it was a matter of cultivating

them to see if they were still accumulating uranium, and

under what conditions. That took almost a year. It took

another six months to determine optimal conditions for

uranium accumulation. I had a way to accumulate uranium

from seawater. We might not need a uranium mine. But if

not, we would have to process a lot of seawater!

How It Happened 175

Two PhDs

Two PhDs later we were back in Nunavut. We spent a

couple of months in and around Gas Town. It was amazing

how fast it had grown. We were making our own steel

from iron ore dug in Nunavut. We had a small rolling mill

and plans for a larger one. We had a pipe mill. We had a

machine shop with a six-axis CNC milling machine. We had

3D printers for making parts out of nylon plastic, and

metals. We were making an ever-growing list of items.

A site had been selected for a future shipyard, another

for an electric generator factory and a third for a reactor

construction facility. A little further away was the site of

our future Engineering school.

As summer approached its end it was time for us to

leave again. We were off to England, where we had two-

year contracts at Oxford. I was to be an engineering

instructor, while Udlu was to be a research fellow.

The difference was one of emphasis. We both taught and

we both did research. It's just that I did more teaching and

less research, while Udlu did more research and less

teaching.

We sort of stood out. There had never been any Inuit at

Oxford and now there were two of us. Stranger yet, we

were not students, but faculty. It was a great opportunity

for us to connect with both students and faculty from all

over the world.

While the academic rigor at Oxford was second to none,

the real focus there was human interaction. We met literally

thousands of people during our time at Oxford and

remained friends with hundreds of them.

How It Happened 176

By the time we left Oxford we had close friends from all

over the world. In the years to come those contacts would

prove invaluable as a brain trust that we could contact

about technical challenges. I expect they will also help us

to understand local perspectives went we start selling

electricity.

My research at Oxford focused on the integration of

technical education and land-based culture. While I was

based in Oxford, the research involved not just the Bedoin

of Egypt, but also the Maori of New Zealand, the Sami of

Lapland, and the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Observing what

they did was relatively easy. Gaining an appreciation of

why they did things the way they did was more

challenging.

During the first semester I taught an introductory course

in chemical engineering. It was good practice in the

realities of academic instruction at the undergraduate level.

During the second semester I was much more challenged,

teaching a course called Inuit Qaujimajatukangiit, in which

I tried to convey the traditional Inuit way of learning about

the world and knowing things. I had 56 students at all

academic levels from perhaps 35 different cultures and

backgrounds. Many of them seemed more interested in

teaching me about the traditional ways of knowing within

the cultures that they came from. So, it was both

fascinating and challenging.

By second year my research on the organic concentration

of uranium had been published and I was asked to teach a

course about that during the first semester of my second

year at Oxford. It was certainly easier to teach than Inuit

Qaujimajatukangiit had been. But then I was asked to teach

the Inuit Qaujimajatukangiit course again during the

How It Happened 177

following semester. This time I had over 100 students. Who

knew so many people from so many places would be

interested in Inuit!

Udlu spent lots of time in the library, digging through

old Admiralty records, looking for accounts of the

interactions between sailors and whales when the whales

were not being hunted. He turned up many accounts of

whales assisting sailors, including whales literally acting as

pilots, leading ships through dangerous channels.

While he found no record of linguistic communication,

communication at a non-verbal level was surprisingly

common and revealed a shared intelligence that was both

fascinating and frustrating.

And they're good to eat, too. We speculated as to

whether killer whales considered human as good eating,

too.

By the time we were ready to leave England, the team at

Gas Town had built a floating dock and was towing it into

place on the mainland in anticipation of its use for getting

supplies to Gold Mine Three during the following year.

Why were we able to build the floating dock while

working on the base and satellite stations, but had not been

able to work on them at the same time as the mini-robots?

The technologies were different, so people with different

skill-sets could work on them.

While much of the rest of the world argued about the

extent to which human activity was contributing, first to

global warming and later to climate change, we took

advantage of the extended open water season to ship more

iron ore from Mary River to Gas Town.

How It Happened 178

We still never bought more than half of our allowed 10%

of Mary River production in any one month, but we were

turning out steel ingots at a respectable rate and rolling

many of them into steel plate, stock-piling extra production

for future use.

It got to the point that we occasionally sold some steel

plate to Mary River. Even with our 20% over-market price

for iron ore, we were able to under-sell their European

owners because they had to pay for fuel and we did not. It

was a tremendous advantage.

Saying goodbye to England was not easy. We had made

so many friends there. But we did not go far.

From England we went to France, where I worked for

EDF at the Tricastin Nuclear Site. I helped improve their

ways of processing spent fuel pellets for their pressurized

water reactors. This was as hard-core nuclear engineering as

you could get in those days. 98% of all electricity in France

came from their nuclear power stations. Those power

stations were critical to the life of virtually everyone in

France. And fuel pellets were at the heart of their reactors.

This was no place for my organic concentrators. The

radiation levels were way too high. Everything was

robotics.

Udlu took the opportunity to do marine research at IMBE

in Marseilles, which is on the coast of the Mediterranean

Sea. The Mediterranean was nothing like the oceans in

Nunavut. Here he could skin-dive for hours, observing to

his heart's content. We rented a small villa just up the

coast. In the summer, when it got too hot at the villa, we

drove north to the Alps and spent our weekends in the

mountains.

How It Happened 179

Whereas Oxford had been about people above all else,

France was about food, above all else. Their food was not

country food, but it was mamaqtoo, so I took a course in

French cooking at Cordon Blue!

It was summer, after our first year in France, when the

technology for Gold Mine Three was finally ready for

deployment and field-testing. Needless to say, everything

went well. Fuel was delivered to the Mainland dock in the

fall. It was transported by snow-cat trains over a snow road

in the spring.

The gold was collected monthly by air-ship. We had

considered using helicopters. They were faster, but they

were very noisy, disrupting the tuktoo herds. The air-ships

scared tuktoo, too, but only when they were very close,

and only for the first few years. In time, tuktoo learned

that air-ships posed no threat and they started to ignore

them unless they got very close.

We had delayed Gold Mine Three by three years so as to

be able to do it with minimum impact to the terrain. We

also wanted to minimize the impact on the wildlife.

A year later we were producing gold at a rate of a

hundred thousand ounces per year, and were ready to scale

up to 1 million ounces per year. The technology had proven

itself and we decided to make the technology available to

others.

The decision was financial and practical and ecological.

Selling gold mining mini-robots and their supporting

infrastructure generated huge amounts of cash. If we did

not make the technology available to others at a reasonable

price, we could be in danger of covert, state-supported

attacks to obtain the technology. And the technology would

How It Happened 180

significantly reduce future damage to the ecology wherever

in the world gold mines were developed.

We also started to experiment, trying to adapt the

technology for other minerals. Success at that has been

limited so far. The mini-bots have to be able to identify

suitable ore, it has to occur in followable veins, and it has

to be valuable enough to be extracted profitably in this

way.

Our two years in France seemed to go by very fast, and

before we knew it, we were off to the United States, where

we both got teaching positions at Harvard. The US had not

started construction of any new nuclear power reactors for

many years, so interest in nuclear engineering was low. I

taught a structural engineering course and another in

engineering quality. I also helped with interviewing and

assessing new applicants to Harvard, both prospective

students and prospective faculty members.

Udlu taught about killer whale communication.

Harvard, like Oxford, put a strong emphasis on

networking and relationship building. We got to meet lots

of great people from all over the world.

Shortly after starting at Harvard I contacted Paul. He

was still President of Arctic College. I told him that I was

still following the plan he had suggested, all those years

ago. I asked him to start promotion for Nunavut Arctic

College's own School of Engineering. He told me he had a

draft communication plan ready for my consideration – that

it had been ready for two years. He sent it to me and we

reviewed it. I liked the general concept but made some

significant changes, some of which he had to get Cabinet

approval for.

How It Happened 181

Instead of the School being in Iqaluit I wanted it at Gas

Town. I wanted new students to be able to build their

Starter House in Gas Town, rather than where they had

gone to school. Instead of an all Nunavummiut faculty I

wanted to have a couple of International faculty members,

but not for the first three years. I wanted our students to

think globally and realize that the rest of the world had

stuff to offer. But I also wanted them to feel that we could

do things ourselves – that we did not have to rely on

others from elsewhere.

Paul's plan gave me one year for preparation after I

returned to Nunavut, followed by two years for constructing

buildings and a fourth year for faculty and staff to become

familiar with the place before accepting applicants in the

fifth year; which was seven years from then.

I told him I liked the messaging, but not the time-line. I

wanted to cut that seven years down to two. I said we

would start construction this coming summer and start our

first classes in September of the following year. I would

finish at Harvard in June and start teaching at NACSE three

months later. Students would live in tupiik, attending

classes in the morning and building their starter houses-of-

cedar in the afternoons. Their first courses would support

the construction.

Harvard was intellectually challenging, but not really

more so than any other place I'd taught or studied. Boston

was crowded and chaotic. You'd think that after Beijing

we'd be able to handle any place. Perhaps the novelty of

traffic congestion had worn off. In any case, we took

whatever opportunities we could to get away for weekends,

even if it was just to hike up Mt. Katawdin or one of the

peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

How It Happened 182

I also got a small consulting contract from the Electric

Boat Company in Mystic, Connecticut. They had read my

paper about bio-accumulation of radioactive particles and

they contacted me. They wanted to use the technology to

remove radioactive particles from the cooling systems of the

reactors they put into the nuclear powered submarines they

build for the US Navy. They figured it could make the

shipboard environment slightly safer for their crews. I asked

if the radiation levels in the coolant were rising over time.

They said, "That’s classified. You don’t have the necessary

US security clearance."

I outlined the steps involved. I told them they had two

main options. We could re-do much of my PhD work,

starting with the collecting and culturing of suitable

organisms. Alternatively, I could attempt to buy some for

them from China. This could be an area of nuclear

development where the US and China could co-operate,

without risk of either side giving weapons technology to the

other. It was a form of under-sea bridge-building. It took

only a few weeks before I received the go-ahead to try to

buy bio-accumulators. That's how, after having done my

PhD in China, I got a Top Secret security clearance from

the US government.

My contacts in China seemed pleased to hear from me,

but they were initially skeptical about selling nuclear

technology to the USA. I asked them to inquire about

approval, stressing the bridge-building possibilities and the

increased safety from having such contacts. They asked if

the results of this work would be available to China. I said

they could ask for that as part of the negotiations.

And that's how I found myself building figurative bridges

between the US and China. Never in my wildest dreams

had I ever even considered that to be a possibility.

How It Happened 183

We visited my family at Gas Town during Christmas

break of our second year at Harvard. My sisters were 15

years old and seemed so grown up! They had almost

completed high school and were working on their own

projects.

One evening after festivities died down I turned to Udlu

and said, "We've been waiting long enough. It's time for us

to start having our own babies. Get me pregnant!"

The Chinese consider it good luck to get pregnant under

the northern lights. It worked for us.

How It Happened 184

How It Happened 185

Nunavut Arctic College School of Engineering

By the time we finished up at Harvard and returned to

Nunavut my pregnancy was starting to show. By the time I

taught the first class of the Nunavut School of Engineering I

was approaching my due date.

That first class did not deal with calculus or

thermodynamics. It dealt with the purpose and philosophy

of engineering.

Those of you who are graduating today may remember

that class. I briefly explained the history of Nunavut. Then I

summarized Taqialoo's vision and the path we had followed

to get to where we were. I explained that what you would

learn in the next five years would prepare you for whatever

path you chose to follow.

You would be able to return to the community where

you had gone to school and help with the machinery of the

community. You could be hunters who could maintain your

own equipment. You could live and work almost anywhere

in the world. Or you could choose to join us here at Gas

Town and help make Taqialoo's vision of Nunavut's future

become real. You each had five years to decide.

Three weeks later our first son was born. I took a week

off, then he and I were back in the classroom. My parents

were there and Anaana helped. But this was our baby, and

Udlu and I were going to have fun raising him. Our second

son was born just over a year later. Like any traditional

Inuit anaana, I wore an amouti and my babies were with

me at all times.

During all my years studying and teaching engineering I'd

never seen someone teaching class while nursing a baby.

But my students accepted it as normal, and for us, it was

normal.

How It Happened 186

Our engineering program included pretty much

everything that most other engineering programs did. We

started with math and science and software development.

Our students did science labs and computer labs and

robotics labs. Then we covered properties of material and

energy, both theory and laboratory. After that we got into

engineering applications, followed by operations manage-

ment and the management of projects.

But in addition we included lots of hands-on training in

the use of tools, instruments and machinery of all kinds.

We provided training in the skilled trades – carpentry,

electricity, welding, plumbing, machining and millrighting.

Our students learned to operate and maintain heavy

equipment. We included practice in diagnosing the failure

of equipment and processes, as well as process improve-

ment.

We kept our students busy on real projects.

Now that their five years are up they are graduating

today with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering, with their

Professional Engineering designation, with a Red Seal trades

certificate, and a heavy equipment operator’s license.

Most of them also have submitted at least one patent

application.

We had borrowed a lesson from James Lincoln. At

Lincoln Electric Company, before someone was considered

fit to be a sales person they had to figure out an

improvement to Lincoln Electric's production process. When

they thought they had an improvement they had to first

demonstrate it to the Chairman of the Board in his office. If

it was successful there, they both went down to the factory

floor and the prospective salesperson had to demonstrate it

again in actual operation. That's what Nuka had done.

How It Happened 187

We required all our prospective graduates to figure out

an improvement to any process in Gas Town, document it,

and explain it to their classmates and to me. Then the

student had to demonstrate the improvement in actual

operation and update the relevant operations documenta-

tion.

We have done a lot during the past 20 years, but we still

have more to do.

We have to build a uranium mine. We have to build

plants to refine and process uranium ore. We have to

develop the world's safest nuclear reactors. We have to

develop a boat building industry. We have to develop

nuclear waste handling equipment and procedures. We have

to develop a long-term facility for storing nuclear waste and

items overly contaminated by nuclear processes. We have to

sell nuclear power to people around the world. And we

have to set up procedures to operate and maintain those

facilities, and their eventual replacements, indefinitely.

It will be a big job, but when I look back at how far we

have come, I'm sure we can do it.

I am looking forward to the next 20 years. I hope you

are, too. And I hope many of you will choose to join us on

our journey.

To all you who will graduate in the years to come, now

you know why things are as they are.

To all of you who are families of our graduates, and to

our many invited guests, welcome again to this, the

graduation of our first class of students from the Nunavut

Arctic College School of Engineering.

I want to thank our parents, who were always there for

us and who supported us in everything. I also want to

thank Paul, who, 25 years ago took the time to listen to a

How It Happened 188

bunch of kids with nothing but a dream, and who

encouraged them to make it happen. If we could do it, any

other Nunavummiut can make their dream come true, too.

Thank you for coming all this way and being with us to

celebrate this milestone.

You deserve to be pleased with the accomplishments of

our graduates, as are all of us who work here at the

School.

I ask you to join me now in congratulating them and

wishing them every success and happiness in their future

endeavors.

I was asked to explain how we got here. I know my

narrative today was long, but I feel every bit of it was

crucial to us being here.

And finally to those of you who are graduating today, all

50 of you, congratulations and best wishes for your future

success in whatever you choose to do.

Our graduation ceremony will proceed in order of age.

The first to graduate today will be our parents, who, five

years ago, decided they wanted to continue studying with

their youngest children, who in turn will be our last and

youngest graduates today.

Taima.

How It Happened 189

P.E.Z. Notes Abstract, 1967

That takes care of Finance. Let’s deal with Education and then break for lunch.

1. The purpose of education is to prepare children for adulthood within our society.

2. Generally, passing along Inuit Qaujimajatukangiit is best done by parents.

3. Generally, professional teachers will only be used where children need to learn things not already known by their parents or other close relatives.

4. It follows that curriculum structure and content will generally change from one generation to the next. 5. In the days of our grandparents the only standard was mastery of the material; in the future there will be 3 standards:

For critical things, mastery of the material; For other important things, being able to do what

needs doing without assistance, but needing more practice to achieve mastery; and

For everything else, knowing what is possible and where to learn more about it.

6. It has to at least look like schooling, up to and including high school, is available in each community.

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How It Happened 191