Joseph Bernier students in Iqaluit form own group

IQALUIT — A group of former Joseph Bernier residential school students in Iqaluit are organizing to help themselves in the spirit of Kaugjagjuk, the abused orphan boy of Inuit legend.

But while Kaugjagjuk eventually took revenge on the people who mistreated him, these former students plan to heal and help each other through therapy and legal means.

On September 7, a small group of these former students met in Iqaluit to talk about how to deal with the trauma they suffered while at residential school in Chesterfield Inlet.

The Joseph Bernier School, run by Roman Catholic Oblate priests and Grey Nuns, operated from the late 1940s through to the 1960s. During that time, many young Inuit were plucked from their families to endure years of physical and sexual abuse while living at the Turquetil Hall residence in Chesterfield Inlet.

A small group of these former students are now living in Iqaluit. At their meeting last week they formed the Kaugjaqjuk Society, a group aimed at providing support for healing workshops and legal action.

The group’s board includes former students Anthony Ullikatar as president, vice-president Paul Quassa and secretary-treasurer Simona Arnatsiaq.

Former students had recognized the need for such support groups during their1993 reunion in Chesterfield Inlet.

“But it has been difficult to get it started on the grass-roots level,” Arnatsiaq said.

Arnatsiaq said that many of the well-educated former students have been too busy to organize because of the demands of their jobs, jobs that have now drawn more of them to Iqaluit. Their numbers have jumped from six to 17 during the course of 1999, Arnatsiaq said.

According to a news release prepared by the group, the Kaugjagjuk Society plans to focus on the “regret for lives that could have been happier and easier.”

They cite numerous abuses suffered by the students, including separation from their families, child sexual abuse, physical abuse and “forced assimilation into the English language and culture through severe punishments.”

“As the victims go untreated and live in denial, we have created and generated intergenerational dysfunctional behaviours on to our society,” said the release. “We want to end this.”

The group will likely seek financial support for its activities, although Arnatsiaq said that obtaining money through the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, set up to aid former residential school students, is “really cumbersome.”

The group says that legal action may involve the use of alternate dispute mechanisms instead of court. This option could allow damages to be settled more quickly and less expensively than through lawsuits in court.