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Man offers to work for free in Nunavik

Wants Inuit daughters to learn their culture

JANE GEORGE

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE
Gilles Dubuc is willing to work for free so that his daughters, Emily and Julie, now 8 and 9, can have a chance to live in Nunavik and renew contact with their culture and language. (PHOTO COURTESY OF GILLES DUBUC)

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Wanted: a home for at least six months in Ivujivik or Salluit for a volunteer worker and his two Inuit daughters, aged 8 and 9.

That's what Gilles Dubuc is looking for.

He's never been to these two communities, although he worked in Nunavik 15 years ago, but Dubuc said he already knows many people in Ivujivik and Salluit.

"I will work for no pay in exchange for a place to live. I love to work," Dubuc said. "I would do volunteer work for them."

Dubuc, who is in his 50s, was reached at his present home in St-Hyacinthe, one hour east of Montreal.

He's ready and willing to pack up his belongings, so that his two daughters, Emily and Julie Fleming, will be able to renew their Inuttitut skills and get back in touch with Inuit culture.

Their mother, who no longer lives with them, is from Kuujjuaraapik.

"They're in French school now and their losing their Inuttitut language, but before their mother left, they heard it all the time," Dubuc said.

The girls' mother met Dubuc when she was receiving health treatment in Montreal, and she didn't want to return to Nunavik. So she stayed, Dubuc says, and sent for her two young sons to join them in the South.

But after the two boys went back to Nunavik to visit their father and never returned, Dubuc says she became increasingly homesick, despite her new family and the arrival of two children with Dubuc.

"We were living in the country, and she was the only Inuk woman in the town. She was very friendly and always smiling and in a good mood all the time, but there was something missing. I knew it was her people, so I started feeling guilty about what was happening," he said.

So, they moved to St-Hyacinthe where she attended a French-language immersion program that was offered by the Kativik School Board.

But this move didn't solve all the challenges at home. Faced with a growing drinking problem and homesickness, his girlfriend moved away, Dubuc tells.

"Since she left in 1998, I raised [the girls] up, look after their education and everything. I love them very much. I am proud of them," Dubuc said.

Until the KSB stopped offering its French-language program in St-Hyacinthe, Dubuc took in student boarders from Nunavik and kept up contact with the region.

Last year in Montreal, he met another Inuk woman who moved in with Dubuc and the girls in St-Hyacinthe, although she left in May to return to Nunavik. She was "a loveable person for my kids," Dubuc tells.

Two Inuit from Nunavik do live in St-Hyacinthe, but they work, so contact with Inuit and Inuttitut has now disappeared from the small family's life.

"I don't want them to lose their roots. I want them in their own culture," Dubuc said.

In exchange for housing, Dubuc, who holds a Class I drivers' license, says he's ready to be a short-order cook, cleaner, truck driver, maintenance worker or child care worker. He'd willingly work for free: for a Northern Village, store, child care centre, or school.

Dubuc speaks French, English and some Inuttitut.

Dubuc said he doesn't need a salary because he receives some money from a pension.

"Take me under your roof, and I will prove to your community that I am wanted," Dubuc said.

Dubuc invites anyone with lodging and a job for him to contact him at (450) 261-8312.

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