Coopérative en vedette / ᑯᐊᐸ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᑕᐅᔪᖅ / Co-op Spotlight
Kangiqsualujjuaq
had indeed brought a freezer for us to fill it
with fish. I proceeded next to the river’s estuary to go net fishing, and we stayed up day
and night without stopping for sleep. Those
living at Kuururjuaq and Kangiqsualujjuaq
were sent fishing, using a couple of fishing
boats while I gutted, cleaned and placed the
fish into the freezer. The freezer filled up and
the fish was ready to go!
Afterwards that group of Inuit prepared
to winter at Akilisikallak by building themselves huts, parts of which they covered over
with the saw dust left by the sawmill. It was
during the second winter that I became ill
from tuberculosis and had to leave for hospital with my grandfather and uncle from my
father’s side. I was at hospital in Roberval for
two years, leaving behind my young wife and
first child. I had been newly married then,
and unfortunately had to be gone away from
them for such a long period of time. It was so
long that I eventually learned French! I was
often asked to help newcomers arriving from
the north to understand the things they were
being asked to do. Sometimes they would
arrive in the middle of the night refusing to
do what was being asked of them, like taking a bath on their arrival, because they did
not understand, so the nurses would call me.
Johnny, of Tasiujaq, and I would often do
that.
That is how we had laboured and how our
co-op first came to be! I later joined its board
of directors as well as the FCNQ board, and
was president at the time that George Filotas
was the General Manager.
Our co-op is truly a benefit to our community. When we had first established it,
there used to be a Hudson Bay Company
trading post; yet when the price of fur went
down the trading post disappeared for they
had not come for our interests. There were
many who worked to build up our co-ops
and Ilagiisaq (FCNQ), Paulusie Napartuk,
Paulusie Kasudluak; Peter Murdoch and
his wife Lucille never showed an ounce of
impatience, it seems, for they helped us to
organize our meals and our meetings. None
of them ever became reluctant and continued with the work that had to be done. We
worked to keep our identity visible.
Our cooperatives are growing today, and
I hope to see Inuit continue to speak up for
what they think is true. I will remain the
strong supporter that I am, of our cooperative movement, right up to my last breath.
This can be done not alone but in working
together, in cooperating. I speak to all of you,
to maintain the effort of keeping the cooperative movement strong. The words I speak,
I speak not from personal pride, I speak for
working together because it is only in working together that we can build something,
something that stands strong.
Bobby Baron
Bobby Baron was born by the lake that
flows to the Kuururjuaq in the month of
Des maisons à Kangiqsualujjuaq
22
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December 1946, near the Hudson Bay Company trading post at the time. He was but 12
years old, his father was a very good provider
and would find good hunting and fishing areas. He had a peterhead boat then, and he
would trade fox furs, and obtain the furs of
seals and caribou for clothing. I always remember the moment my mother made a
pair of waterproof sealskin boots and selling
them for five dollars! In those days we procured things like flour, baking powder, tea,
tobacco and lard with the trading items and
money.
A short while before the co-op was born
and the trading post had been present
for quite some time, families used to live
separately, on lands of their choosing. The
Emarlak (Emudluk) family was based at
Kangiqsualujjuaq and so were we. One day
an airplane arrived, at dusk. We discovered
that the passengers were coming to ask us
whether we wanted to start our own cooperative. In those days we lived in tents, and
the largest tent had been selected to conduct
a meeting and Aqiggiq (George Koneak) was
the translator. Those who were present at the
meeting agreed to have a cooperative, and so
our co-op was created on that day of April
25, 1959.
There was one factor for that to have come
about. There was very little economy for us
back then, and very little work that we could
do to earn a living. A study had been done
(by the government) on how we could pos-
ᑲᖏᕐᓱᐊᓗᔾᔪᐊᖅ Houses in Kangiqsualujjuaq