John from John's Island asked me where I was taking you next. I told him , "Back to the same place."
For my newer readers a brief explanation on the background of these posts. I was a teacher and spent 1967-69 in the small Arctic community of Wakeham Bay, Quebec. There were 188 Inuit and 10 white guys. I was a teacher , principal and local administrator. They were all very interesting positions but very challenging and a lot of work and time. . The community was 1200 miles north of Montreal , Quebec. There were no roads to this community and no regular air schedules. We went 6 or 7 weeks at a time without mail.
I had a 14 year old boy as a regular paid interpreter. the Micro Manager was eager to do nursing there but there was no position. She got $50.00 per month to do health care and there really was full time work. She didn't have an interpreter but between her limited inuktitut and their limited English they got along. When there was a serious case she got Lukasi to be her interpreter.
This post is really about Lukasi. There was nobody finer that Lukasi. He was 18 years old at the time. I don't know where he picked up his English. In this video he is talking about petroglyphs which were found a few miles away. It's the only place in the north with petroglyphs.
While we were there a well known photographer came to photograph the petroglyphs. Fred Breummer came and stayed in my house for 8 days. Those 8 days should have counted for at least 5 university credits. We talked late into the night about his experiences. Fred had had a tremendous amount of northern experience. I think Fred wrote about 25 books. Most of them featuring his photography. Fred did a major article on the petrogyphs.
I found this video of Lukasi discussing the petroglyphs. youtube.com/watch?v=TJSolwDrxbo Sorry I can not the video link on the blog.
