Meanwhile, Up Where There Ain’t No Trains …
In the midst of all the chest thumping (on all sides), here’s a great story out of Nunavut, with some resonance for both the Day of Action AND Canada Day.
A tiny Arctic village is rejoicing after a highly respected, 81-year-old elder was found safe after being missing on the tundra for nearly a month. Enoki Kunuk was discovered about 130 kilometres north of Igloolik, Nunavut, late Thursday – nearly two weeks after a military search for him was called off.
The area where he was found had been searched by air twice before, but community volunteers were told by local elders to check again. Kunuk went hunting June 1 and became stranded after his snow machine got stuck in soft spring snow. He lived on fish from a nearby river, supplies he brought with him and plants he found on the tundra.
One of the core arguments used by the New Conservatives to dismiss Land Claims, Treaties, and Canada’s constitutional obligations is the assertion that Aboriginal culture is dead – an argument that seems to convince the ideologically blind and the blinkered urbanite. They have no idea of the world that lies beyond the city limits, of the actual value of the traditional economies that sustain Aboriginal communities, and of the astonishing level of knowledge, skill and experience that keeps people like Enoki Kunuk alive weeks after being written off for dead by the RCMP.
Methuselah, glad your dad’s okay; Paul Quassa, hats off to you for fighting to keep the search going: and Igloolimiut, congratulations and best wishes for a very special Canada Day.
Whooee! That’s a good news story, fer sure. I’m happy as Larry about the old codger turnin’ up alive.
I’m left with a naggin’ suspicion that the demise of the polar bear mighta contributed to his survival. Or, maybe unusually warm temperatures. Hmmm… d’ya reckon he was saved by glowball warmin’?
JB
Oh, my eyes sprung a leak, there.
I remember being at UBC and my prof in Arts One suggesting that the core of a lot of organizational/systemic racisms are justified by what he called “The Pizza Test”. That white western people decide that when a particular group starts eating pizza or wearing blue jeans, they Have Been Assimilated. Didja eat pizza? Yes? Poof! Your land claim has been rendered invalid! I suppose that’s the ‘aboriginal culture is dead’ thing in a different disguise.
I hope it doesn’t really matter, one way or the other, if Enoki Kunuk and the Innu generally are different than they were 200 years ago. Or even if Enoki Kunuk’s grandkids would freeze out there like I would. If they wouldn’t, well – I want them on my team come the revolution – but if they would, that doesn’t render them non-Innu, right?
I’m certainly different than my Heinz 57 of European ancestors of 200 years ago: but the seed of those western viewpoints have situated me. Henry the frikkin’ 8th has situated me, for cryin’ out loud.
I would have no idea how to be the old-order mennonite farm wife that my great aunt is – and her knowledge of how life works is stunning. Throw me out into the woods, and I’d die trying: my great aunt would tell me to stop bleeding, and go kill something to eat. We’re of the same culture, still.
Of course, it seems to me that the core of the current neo-con free-market everyman for hisself thing is the idea that each person is self-made. Independent. Unique. Not standing on the shoulders of giants, but each a giant growing growing growing by force of ego. So they can’t see the culture around them as having part of what they’re doing; it’s just the laws of physics, and those MUST be universal. You can tell they’re operating with pizza, that’s it, no more. Pizza. And once there is pizza, then you’ve got the same conditions and should grow the same way. I’ve never heard a construction of self less grateful, less realistic, less thankful, less compassionate, or more egotistical.
Sorry, the Innu are in Labrador/Quebec, not in Nunavut, right?
Yup. Innu are a completely different group from the Inuit. They’re also called Montagnais in Quebec. It gets confusing in Labrador, where there are both Innu AND Inuit. The infamous settlement of Davis Inlet, an Innu community, was actually sited between two Inuit communities (Nain and Hopedale) on the north coast, causing no end of confusion for bureaucrats and journalists.
Enoki’s grandkids will probably never have their grampa’s ability to read weather patterns, or navigate across the land by memory, just as I will never forge a horseshoe. But cultures are living things, and adaptive, and change to reflect the economic, technical and physical environment. Did Inuit stop being Inuit when they adopted the rifle? If so, I guess Jews stopped being Jews when they abandoned nomadic desert life and Japanese culture ceased to exist when they entered into trade with the Portuguese.
Naw. What’s viable in a culture – the skills, knowledge, attitudes, traditions and intangibles that create and sustain a sense of communal self – remain. That which is no longer relevant is sluffed off. Those who argue that healthy adaptation equals assimilation don’t understand much about either process.