Melanie Florence - Jordin Tootoo: The Highs and Lows in the Journey of the First Inuk to Play in the NHL

Just below the Arctic Circle is a small Inuit community called Rankin Inlet. It lies on the western shore of Hudson Bay. With a population of just over 2,000 people, Rankin Inlet is one of the largest towns in Nunavut, Canadas biggest and newest territory. This is where the NHLs Jordin Tootoo calls home.

For 5,000 years the Inuit people have lived in the Far North. Their lifestyle has changed over the years, but some traditional ways remain. For them, home is a place where hunting caribou and whales, and fishing for arctic char take the place of shopping at local grocery stores.

At one time, the Inuit lived in temporary snow homes called igloos. Now they live in permanent wooden homes brought up from the south, where trees can grow. It was in an igloo in 1918 that Jordin Tootoos grandmother, Jenny Tootoo, was born. Jenny was raised on the land. With no gas or electricity for heat, and no supermarkets from which to buy food, Jenny learned to live as her ancestors had, by hunting the animals and fish the Arctic provided. Jenny raised her thirteen children to be survivors and to respect the land and what it had to offer them.

Nooh-na-voot

Nunavut was formed on April 1, 1999. It gave the Inuit control over their own government. Its name means our land in Inuktitut, the Inuit language. Its motto is Nunavut, our strength. Nunavut covers around two million square kilometres (800,000 square miles) but has a population of only about 28,000. This makes it one of the least densely populated places on Earth. Jennys son Barney Tootoo was born in Churchill, Manitoba. He was taught the traditional ways to provide for his family, just as his father was before him. Barney met and married Rose, a Canadian girl of Ukrainian descent.

Barney made his living as a miner. Later he became a plumber. He moved his family Rankin Inlet. Here, he and Rose would raise their two sons, Terence and Jordin, and their daughter, Corinne. Barney expected his boys to be survivors. He showed them how to hunt and fish, and taught them about the culture of their people.

Using a traditional fishing rod, a young Jordin enjoys ice fishing at home near Rankin Inlet.

Before most kids were old enough to have sleepovers, brothers Terence and Jordin were camping out by themselves. They were hunting game as big as beluga whales to bring home to their mothers table. Once, a blizzard caught Barney, Terence, and Jordin by surprise during a fishing trip. They were stranded out on the ice for four days. Barney stayed calm. He expected seven-year-old Jordin and ten-year-old Terence to do the same. The boys lived up to his hopes.

Jordin, Terence, and Barney bundled up against the cold.

When they did kill an animal, it was shared among family and friends. For many generations the Inuit have relied on each others generosity to survive. This was true when Jordin was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is still true today. If some-one in the family or community needs something, they are taken care of. In Rankin Inlet, everyone is either family or friend. Doors are left unlocked and people come and go freely between each others homes.

Jordins mother, Rose, was the back-bone of the Tootoo clan. But she was strict. This tended to scare other kids away when they visited Jordin and Terence. They used to complain that they didnt have any friends because they were all afraid of me, Rose says with a laugh.

But Rose loved her family more than anything in the world. Her husband agrees. She roars like a lion but is a kitty inside, he says. Widely known in the community, Rose was a good friend, a loving wife, and, to her three children, the best mother in the world.

You know with my mom, shes one of those kind of ladies that are in your face, says Jordin with a laugh. Thats probably where I get most of my toughness, from my mother. She likes the roughness.

Everyone has to be tough in Rankin Inlet. It is a place so remote that it cant be reached by car. A couple of times a year a barge comes by to bring supplies. But even staple foods are hard to come by and the prices make it nearly impossible to survive on store-bought items alone. So children learn to hunt at a very young age. They can handle quads, boats, and rifles with ease. Jordin shot his first wolf at the age of twelve.

Some non-Inuit people have argued that the Inuit shouldnt have special rights to hunt and harvest Arctic animals. But with store-bought food so expensive, hunting and fishing are still the most common and easiest way to get food to eat.

The Tootoo children show off after a successful hunt.

Many of Rankin Inlets inhabitants will never leave their home. They will visit with friends, they will go to work, they will access the outside world through the Internet. They will travel around the towns rocky terrain on four-wheelers called quads, past hotels, cafes, and restaurants. But there are still some modern conveniences missing like fast food. For us, fast food is when you shoot an animal and eat it right there, Jordin jokes.

Terence and Jordin: best friends.