They held the key to the greatest of the outsiders’ mysteries-reading. I was mesmerized on each trip by the spectacle of the strange dark-cloaked nuns, whose tongues flickered with French-Canadian accents, and the pale-skinned priests who had traveled across a different ocean from a far-off land called Belgium. Three times I had made the five-day journey to Aklavik with my father, across the open ocean, past Tuktoyaktuk, and through the tangled Mackenzie River delta, to buy supplies. They plucked us from our homes on the scattered islands of the Arctic Ocean and carried us back to the nests they called schools, in Aklavik. WHEN I WAS A YOUNG GIRL, outsiders came flitting about the North. How? Well, I am going to let you in on a secret that I have kept for more than 60 years: the secret of how I made those stockings disappear. MY NAME IS OLEMAUN POKIAK-that’s OO-lee-mawn-but some of my classmates used to call me “Fatty Legs.” They called me that because a wicked nun forced me to wear a pair of red stockings that made my legs look enormous. Here she stands (on the right) with two of her younger sisters, Elizabeth and Mabel. Olemaun, who was later called Margaret, at home on Banks Island. And, for our children, their husbands and wives, and our many grandchildren. Thank you for being brave enough to share your story.įOR MY LATE HUSBAND, LYLE, who helped me to work through the many fears I carried with me from residential school. And, for Margaret: you have given us a powerful gift. For Brad Hawranik, my first section commander: I still think of you as one of the finest role models I have ever known. For Penny Howe, my grade 7/8 teacher: thank you for sharing with a young girl that people as fantastic as you came from the same place as people like me.

None of this would have been possible without your patience. FOR MY THREE LITTLE INSPIRATIONS-Qugyuk, Aklak, and Paniktuaq-and their loving father, my husband, Garth.

Christy jordan fenton books