Margaret Pokiak-Fenton - Fatty Legs (10th Anniversary Edition)

2020 Christy Jordan-Fenton (text) 2020 Liz Amini-Holmes (illustrations) 2020 Debbie Reese (foreword)

Page 107 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

Original publication:

2010 Christy Jordan-Fenton (text)

2010 Liz Amini-Holmes (illustrations)

Edited by Maggie DeVries Copyedited by Pam Robertson Proofread by Laura Edlund Cover and interior design for original edition by Lisa Hemingway Updated cover and interior design for 2020 edition by Paul Covello Cover art by Liz Amini-Holmes

Annick Press Ltd.All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanicalwithout the prior written permission of the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. Annick Press ebooks are distributed through major retailers. We appreciate your support of our authors rights.

This edition published in 2020 by
Annick Press Ltd.
388 Carlaw Avenue, Suite 200
Toronto, ON M4M 2T4

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, and the participation of the Government of Canada/la participation du gouvernement du Canada for our publishing activities.

Published in the U.S.A. by Annick Press (U.S.) Ltd.
Distributed in Canada by University of Toronto Press.
Distributed in the U.S.A. by Publishers Group West.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Fatty legs : a true story / Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton ; artwork by Liz Amini-Holmes.Names: Jordan-Fenton, Christy, author. | Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936- author. | Amini-Holmes, Liz, artist.Description: 10th anniversary edition.Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190167440 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190167890 | ISBN 9781773213507 (softcover) | ISBN 9781773213514 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781773213521 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936-Childhood and youthJuvenile literature. | LCSH: InuitBiographyJuvenile literature. | CSH: InuitCanadaResidential schoolsJuvenile literature. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.Classification: LCC E96.5 J65 2020 | DDC j371.829/9712071dc23

annickpress.com

for my three inspirations Qugyuk, Aklak, and Paniktuaq. I wrote this for you to be proud of who you are and where you come froma long line of brave, resilient survivors and thrivers. For Olemaun: your courage is unparalleled. Thank you for sharing this journey with me and with the world, and for being your grandchildrens greatest hero. For my Morris Crow/Yellow Thunder family, and for all the survivors and spiritual mentors past and present who have guided me to my own healing and taught me how to carry these stories in a good way. Ni-Kso-Ko-Wa All My Relations.

Christy

for my late husband, lyle , who helped me to work through the many fears I carried with me from residential school. Your love gave me courage. And, for our children, their husbands and wives, and our many grandchildren.

Margaret-Olemaun

M y name is olemaun pokiak thats OO-lee-mawnbut 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. But I put an end to it. 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.

W hen i was a young girl, outsiders came flitting about the North. 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.

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. 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. They held the key to the greatest of the outsiders mysteriesreading.

My older half-sister, Ayouniq, had been plucked before I was born, but we called her Rosie after her return. She would tell me nothing about the school tucked away in the maze of the delta, where she had gone for four years, but when I was seven she did read to me from a collection of beautifully colored books my father had given her for Christmas. The stories were precious treasures to be enjoyed in the well-lit, toasty warmth of our smoke-scented tent, as the darkness of winter was constant, and the temperatures outside were cold enough to freeze bare skin in seconds. The books were written in English, so I understood very little of them. I was always left with many unanswered questions.

Whats a rabbit? I asked Rosie in our language, Inuvialuktun.

Its like a hare, she told me, lifting her eyes from Alices Adventures in Wonderland.

Oh. Well, why did Alice follow it down the hole? To hunt it?

Rosie gave me a funny look. No, Olemaun. She followed it because she was curious.

I tried to imagine being Alice, as the large cookstove crackled behind me. She was brave to go into that long, dark tunnel, all for curiosity.

What was it like?

Rosie looked up from the book again. What was what like?

The outsiders school.

I dont know. You ask too many questions, she said. Her face grew dark in the light of the coal oil lamp. She closed the book and looked away.

Inuvialuktun: the language of the Inuvialuit, who are Aboriginal people of the western Arctic.

It must have been exciting to live with the outsiders.

She shrugged her shoulders and dropped the book on the table.

But they taught you how to read...

Rosie was silent.

Please, I begged, tugging at her leg as she got up from the table and slipped on her Mother Hubbard parka.

They cut our hair because our mothers werent there to braid it for us.

I dont need my mother to braid my hair. I can do it myself.

Theyd cut it anyway. They always cut the little ones hair.

Im not that little.

They dont care. They dont have the patience to wait for you to braid your hair. They want all of your time for chores and for kneeling on your knees to ask forgiveness.

Oh, well. Its only hair.