Going Home in Spring

I only went home on dog team one year—1949, from Nain to Nutak, on dog team. That’s the only time I ever stayed in an igloo. We left around the 20th of April or something like that. It’d be too bad, see, if they waited till May, you know, the rivers be breaking out.

Mum and Dad and Henoch came to get us on dog team. I didn’t even know my parents were coming to get us. They had no way of communication them days. I can always remember, ’twas a Sunday evening. We were all over in the old anatalak where we used to sleep, and the boys from the village start knocking on the window and want to speak to me. And I said no, I’m not opening the window. And then they said okay, I’m not going to tell you the good news. So I had to

Reflections from Them Days

open it enough for David Harris, I think it was. And he said your mummy and them is come on dog team. I thought he was tricking me, you know. But it was true. We left the next day after they got everything ready for the trip.

It was two days travelling to Nutak. And then another day to go in to Okak Bay. Going from Nain to Nutak we had to work so hard. I don’t know if I looked around very much!

’Cause when we got on up, the brook was breaking out and we had to go up over the side of the hill and hoist the Kamutik down over. ’Twas awful. But there was a lot more people travelling. That was the year the Innu people moved from Davis Inlet north. So by the time we got to Udlik, all the Innu people were there too, a whole whack of us.

We stayed in a little small wooded place there in an igloo, just before we went up Kiglapaits. I been try to make igloos, me and Harold, but we never could get the top right. It’s the way you cut it—it turns, eh. And all we had inside the igloo was what they call a blow lamp. You puts the coal oil in it and then you pump it and the flame will come out, and you have a cup of tea, and then the igloo will get iced up inside. Oh my, I didn’t really like it at all. I think I was claustrophobic then, you know. I feel like I was going to smother when they put the door up. But they leaves a little hole, you know. The heat goes up through all right. It was all five of us in the igloo. It was like sardines lied down in there! We always had deerskins on the Kamutiks to sit on, to keep you warm, and we brought them in the igloo. No blankets. They used to make igloos a lot, my brothers. I never even wanted to sleep in one, I don’t think. Some likes it. A lot of people don’t like it.

But the next year then when we had to go back, we were still in class in the morning and someone came in, and he said yous got to get ready, the DC-3 or something or other that was

Reflections from Them Days

flying to Saglek was going to take all the Nutak children home. Oh, we landed on some rough ice, I tell you, in Nutak. Bumpy, oh my! Just like that, just got us ready and go. We didn’t have much to take, I tell you. We all sat on each side of the plane, looking at one another. First time ever on an airplane! We didn’t seem to be afraid; we didn’t even seem to care if they took us to Saglek. We didn’t seem to care. When we landed there in Nutak, no one knew. Someone came out to the plane when she landed and took us ashore. And then someone had to take us by dog team up in the bay. Our parents didn’t know we were handy, me and my brother Harold. They were used to Kamutik and dogs coming round the point, going up the bay, sometimes they go deer hunting through there, see. But they never knew we were handy. The first thing I did when I got home was I went partridge hunting. I loved going partridge hunting. I used to climb that hill there. There wasn’t so much trees there then.

Helping Dad with the wood, we loved going in the woods. Helping them make nets for the spring. I got back to doing all the things I loved to do.