Norma Dunning - Kinauvit?: Whats Your Name? the Eskimo Disc System and a Daughters Search for Her Grandmother

Kinauvit?

Whats Your Name?

The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughters Search for her Grandmother

Dr. Norma Dunning

Copyright 2022 Norma Dunning

1 2 3 4 5 26 25 24 23 22

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, .

Douglas and M c Intyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC , V 0 N 2 H 0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Edited by Peter Midgley

Indexed by Martin Gavin

Dust Jacket design by Dwayne Dobson

Text design by Libris Simas Ferraz / Ona Design

Printed and bound in Canada

Douglas and M c Intyre acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Kinauvit? = Whats your name? : the Eskimo disc system and a daughters search for her grandmother / Dr. Norma Dunning.

Other titles: Whats your name?

Names: Dunning, Norma, author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220241333 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220241341 | ISBN 9781771623391 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781771623407 ( EPUB )

Subjects: LCSH : InuitCanadaHistory. | LCSH : InuitCanadaGovernment relations. | LCSH : InuitLegal status, laws, etc.Canada.

Classification: LCC E 99. E 7 D 86 2022 | DDC 971.004/971dc23

This work is dedicated to all Inuit Canadians past, present, and future. Stand tall and always remember that we are more than a number.

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8

I would like to acknowledge all the Inuit who freely and openly interviewed for this work: Susan Aglukark, Lucie Idlout, Zebedee Nungak, Martha Hatkaitok, David Serkoak, and Alan Voisey. Your voices enriched and gave reality to my work. Mana.

I would like to thank Dr Nathalie Kermoal, Dr Brendan Hokowhitu and Dr Sourayan Mookerjea, who each supported the research and writing of this work as a Master of Arts thesis through the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

My thanks to my agent Stephanie Sinclair, who saw value in this work. Thank you to all the folks at D&M Anna and Claire, and early edits by Shari Narine. You each put hours into making things come together.

My special thanks to Peter Midgley, editor extraordinaire, who saw more than I could when transitioning a scholarly work into a personal story of searching and hoping and realizing some stones must remain unturned.

Mana to my dear, dear mom Theresa Dunningthis book exists because of you. Your voice kept this research going, even on the days when I didnt want to. I love you forever, Mom. XOXOXO

Mom, what are we?

I remember that Saturday afternoon when I walked into the kitchen of our military base duplex. It was the kind of Saturday that only the prairies can give. Not one bit of a breeze anywhere. The heat penetrating my eight-year-old body making me feel like I was a human magnifying glass. I was so loaded with the swelter of summer that I could have burned footprints into the well-worn path between the playground and my house.

The aroma of cooking oil was singing against the kitchen walls while the deep fryer bubbled a happy tune on the counter. Deep fryers can trigger the hunger inside of all of us. Mom had her back to me and was peeling potatoes. She was making home fries. A Saturday supper favourite.

I asked my question a second time and my mom spun around with a paring knife in one hand and a potato balanced in the palm of her other hand. She bent toward me and asked, Who wants to know?

I felt like I had said a bad word. I had said the wrong thing. I had done something that I would have to take into the church confessional tomorrow. She repeated her question one more time, Who wants to know?

I do, I said in an almost-whisper. I was confused. It was a simple question. I wasnt understanding why she had answered my question with a question.

You? Mom knew better. She had a way of seeing through my sweaty round self. She always knew when I was making things up.

All the kids at the playground were saying what they are and then they asked me, and I said, I dont know, and they all laughed at me.

And what are they?

Theyre Swedish and Italian and German and one boy has an uncle whos a real-life pirate!

She let loose a low giggle. Well Norma, you tell people this: Tell them youre French! You were born in Quebec and thats all they need to know!

Mom turned back to the counter and her skilled hands went back to slicing the potato. The paring knife looked like an extra finger. It was a part of her. Cutting and scraping, working with knives and blades was familiar. Something she was born into.

I grew up in a house with tight rules and strict ways of behaving. We were a family that never spoke of the past, only the present. Never yesterday. Our lives were precision-filled routines. I never once displayed any real emotions and always did as ordered. Never the unexpected.

The next time I was at the playground I proudly told the other little kids that I was French. It never once entered my head that I was anything else but French, even with the last name of Dunning.

When I said that I was French no one questioned my dark eyes or hair or high cheek bones. No one asked for any further details and because no one else asked, I didnt either. I went along well into my teens feeling fairly secure in telling other people that I was born in Quebec. My mom was fluent in French, and I took French classes, therefore I was definitely French. I could put all of that information out into the world but inside of me sat an unease.

It was the unease of knowing that there was a secret humming inside of my family. It was growing older and watching how my parents operated in the world. How our lives revolved around the seasons of each year. How fall was hunting and plucking geese and seeing hide-less moose meat dangling in cold garages. How winter was being outside and playing for hours and hours in the snow and never learning how to stop on my ice skates. I spent year after year crashing into outdoor rink boards. Spring bore summer and summer was camping and being barefoot and days when the tight restrictions of time would loosen.

Summer was riding in the old station wagon for hours and hours and finally stopping to camp and build a fire and run with the feeling of a freed stallion. Summer was playing Indian rubber with a bat and a small hard black ball that left bruises everywhere on our bodies because each of my brothers and sisters wanted to win at a game that was without rules.

Summer was when our lives were released from the routine of Dads drinking and beating Mom and the fear of Friday nights. Summer brought a calmness over all of us, but that sense of unease lingered inside of me. Not knowing what we were mixed itself up with trying to understand the small things that happened. I was always trying to understand why we were treated the way we were by some relatives. The secret inside of my family hummed and grew taller with me as things happened with Dads family that I never understood.