At the end of last week’s historic visit by Inuit elders from Nunavut, there was a lucky turn of events
When Taqialuk Peter opens the box, she can hardly believe what’s inside: a small stone statue of a caribou and, she says through tears, an unexpected “miracle.”
Kathryn Dain brought the carving to the Art Gallery of Hamilton last Tuesday evening. The two women had never met, but they didn’t know it, but their late fathers may have known each other.
The Brantford artist told me that Dain’s father was the head teacher at Hamilton’s Sanatorium on the Mountain in the 1950s. He ordered soapstone for the Inuit patients there to carve.The Current’s producer, Julie Crysler.
One patient made the lifelike caribou that lived in Dain’s house for years. Its one remaining antler was delicately curved and gave off what Dain called “beauty and something close to anger.”
Now that it is in Peter’s hands, she looks at the bottom, where the patient had written his first name and government-issued ID number: “Peter E-712.”
Peter says, “That was my father,” and her voice shakes with emotion.”Oh, God!”
On the last night of their historic trip from Nunavut to Hamilton, 14 Inuit elders had a lucky chance meeting. They went to the place where they were sent as children to get treatment for tuberculosis, the cemetery where patients who didn’t make it were buried, and the art gallery.
The trip was made to “get well.
Some of the people who planned the trip, like Peter, who works for Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, had parents or grandparents who had spent years at the sanatorium, away from their family, language, and culture.
Peter said that her father never talked about his time at the sanatorium, but he had a long scar on his back from a surgery there. As a child, she used to wonder what that scar was for.
“I’d play with my finger and move it up and down, then ask, ‘Did it hurt?'” Peter told us. “And he really didn’t answer.”
Even though her mother stayed at the sanatorium, she didn’t say much about it. Residential schools were also hard on her parents’ generation.sled-dog slaughtersAlong with other forms of colonial control, and they didn’t talk much about it, Peter said.
But Peter carries that intergenerational trauma, the fear, anger, and anxiety, and he used this trip to “claim the healing my parents didn’t get,” she said.
Dain said that her father, Norm, loved his job at the sanatorium and helped the patients pass the time by encouraging them to do art. Their house was full of different things, but the caribou was the one Dain kept for years.
When she heard that the Inuit were coming, she decided it was time to return it.
“There’s been too much abuse,” said Dain. “Someone has to do the right thing.”
Peter carefully wrapped the caribou in tissue paper and put it in a small box. He took it home with him to Iqaluit.
Groups try to get back art, records, and photos
The art gallery showed off more than 100 pieces of art last week. The Inuit people said they wanted to get back the statues, fabrics, and dolls that show northern life, animals, and stories.
Since 2015, the art gallery has been proud to keep the “magical” pieces, but its CEO and president, Shelley Falconer, admits that they may belong somewhere else.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s their collection,” said Falconer. “Wherever they want the collection to go is where it will go.”
Since the event, the art gallery has gotten two more small carvings and two dolls that the donor said were bought at a sanatorium gift shop, according to Christine Braun, who is in charge of the collections.
Vanessa Watts, an assistant professor of sociology and Indigenous studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, said that along with the art, a lot of photos and records should also be given back to Inuit communities. She is from the Six Nations of the Grand River and is Mohawk and Anishnaabe.
The university holds thousands of sanatorium records and photos for Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS). Residents have also given the university hundreds of photos over the years.
Watts said, “I think this visit shows that there is a clear interest and that these records don’t belong in a temperature-controlled room far, far away.”
“People should be able to find out what happened to themselves and their family members when they were away from these communities.”
She is looking into ways that the materials could be given to Inuit groups, or at least digital access to them.
Thomas Perry, a spokesperson for HHS, said that the agency is figuring out what to do next.
“Based on our legal responsibilities and our work with Indigenous people, the hospital is looking into the best ways to make sure that the right records are kept and handled in a way that respects the privacy and dignity of the people and their families,” he said.