Thread by @IndigenousXca

Good evening folks!

First, thank you for all the RT, likes, and kind comments on my thread yesterday. It was a quick look at my life growing up.

For anyone curious, I reconnected with my bio family when I was 26. It was incredibly awkward at first.

I experienced huge culture shock. I grew up in Alberta and had never experienced the culture, climate or the traditional food.

I'll never forget my first meal at my Nanuk's. It was a caribou head. It was baked and served in front of me. I had no idea what to think.

I wasn't sure if this was a practicle joke, or if they were seriously wanting me to eat this. It wasn't until my 5 year old niece said "Oh! Caribou head!" and dug in without any qualms or questions. My pride took over. If a 5 year old girl could eat this, so could I.

Meeting my Mom for the first time.

Awkward. Confusing. Upsetting. It was that way for both of us. In fact, we didn't really like each other at first.

We were complete strangers to each other. Connected by biology, but complete strangers.

We stared at each other.

No hugs like you see on T.V.
No big cries of excitement.
Just a long, awkward silence as we sized each other up.

To be fair to her, I was a young little smart ass, who was an active addict and alcoholic. I was not making a very good first impression.

Her partner liked me. If it wasn't for him seeing something in me and telling her to give me a chance, we would never have connected like we did.

He was such a good man. He was taken from cancer.

I really hate that disease.

I'm a parent now. I've put myself in her shoes. I can't imagine meeting the child you lost for the first time, realizing that they were addicted to everything. It broke her heart. Again.

It was so hard for her that she asked me to leave. It was the flood of memories and emotions of finally meeting the child that was taken from her 26 years earlier. And I was a broken soul. It really broke her heart.

So after a negative encounter with my Mom, I managed to catch a ride from Whitehorse, where she lived, to Inuvik. I had no idea of the distance that I needed to travel from when I initially left Edmonton to Inuvik.

So after a very long drive, I ended up in Inuvik. I knew absolutely no one. I called my brother and asked what to do. He told me that "It was really starting to blow in Tuk". That means that a serious blizzard was coming in off the ocean.

So he said to stay in Inuvik. Told me to call my Aunt and stay with her until after the blizzard was over and then find a ride to Tuk.

After meeting my Mom, I wasn't sure this was a good idea, but I had come this far so, I went over to her house.

My Aunt and her daughter. She is the person who took me in. She is the one who explained my Mom's reaction. She is the one who first made me feel welcome. She is also gone now. Cancer.

She was able to look past the alcoholism. She had brothers who were in the same state. To her, I was another lost family member. She accepted me as I was.

So, the blizzard. It blew for 5 days. I mean zero visibility. You couldn't see past the front steps. I remember day 1 thinking ok, we had this in Southern Alberta. No big deal. Day 2. Wow, this is a good storm. Day 3. Looking at her and asking if this was normal.

Day 4. WTF. Where the hell did I end up. Day 5. I'm going to die up here.

She laughed. She loved the reactions I had. She reassured me that yes, it's a bad storm, but no, we will not die from it.

Creator is smart. And has a sense of humor.

Smart because for 5 days my Aunt and I had nothing better to do than talk. Get to know each other. We couldn't avoid it. We were stuck in her home.

Sense of humor cause my reactions to the storm made her laugh.

She asked about life for me growing up. What my parents were like. Asked about where I had lived. What I did for a living. Asked if I had liked being raised by another family. Asked what made me want to finally come home.

She told me about the Gruben side of the family.

She told me how big it was. Told me how many Uncles and Aunts I had. How many cousins I had.

She was warm, loving, patient, well educated, well spoken. She was the person that I ended up closest with in my family.

I remember meeting her and she broke a sterio type for me.

Here was a well educated, well spoken, first class lady. And she was Indigenous.

I grew up in a white home. I had learned that Indigenous were drunks. They were trouble makers. They were behind in education.

They were poor. They were unloving.

These were things people had told me as I was growing up. I had learned to fear Indigenous people. I had been colonized.

She broke that mold. I never feared or thought ill about Indigenous People after spending time with her. She taught me to look past color. To look past what others feared about them.

Another reason why I really loved that woman. She was a beautiful person.

So, after spending a week with her, it was time to finally travel to my birth place. Tuktoyaktuk.

I was dropped off at my Nanuk's. I didn't know at the time, but it had been decided by the family this was the best place for me to stay. The place where I could learn the most of my family history. The place where I would be most comfortable.

This sounds so good, but remember, these were strangers to me. I was a stranger to them. While I had been accepted by my Aunt, there were lots who were suspicious of me. There were lots of my family who felt I didn't belong there. More damage from the #60sScoop

They thought I wanted something from them. They thought I was there to take things from them.

All I wanted was to know where it was I came from. Who my bio family was. It was a struggle to be accepted.

So, life at Nanuk's. Serious culture shock for me. I was a city boy. I ended up on the edge of the Beaufort sea. In winter. 24 hour darkness. And cold. Life was about to get interesting.

My brother took me around and introduced me. Uncles, Aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews. Turns out that I was related to about 1/3 of the hamlet of Tuk. That's alot to take in when you grew up as a single child for 10 years and then 2 step siblings for 4 years.

Before I go further in my first experience meeting my family, I want to share something.

#ResidentialSchools took a horrible tole on my Inuvialuit family. My Mom is a survivor. My Dad was a survivor. My Aunts were survivors. My Uncles were survivors. My cousins.

All survivors of Grollier Hall. A horrible place they took my family when they were children and abused them. To this day, the damage has robbed some of them of a happy, healthy life. They continue to live in the hurt and abuse that was done to them as children.

Most people in Canada have no idea what they lived through. They have no appreciation of the resilience of people who endured harms done to them as children.

I come from a family of survivors.

My Mom got hit twice by the Gov't. Once as a #ResidentialSchool survivor and once as a mother of a #60sScoop survivor.

She has strength. She overcame everything that was done to her and lived a successful life.

She's my hero. Seriously.

I have Uncles that to this day can't eat fresh fruit.

The nuns and priests used to put a piece of fresh fruit on their pillow. This meant that it was time to be sexually abused. This was how they justified what they did. By a piece of fruit.

They all carry their scars. They all have their memories of harms done by a place that was to civilize the Indigenous People of Canada.

I hear people bitch about the payments. The apologies. Those who do that are wrapped up in a white privilege.

I don't say that lightly. They have no idea what it was like. They have no idea what it would feel like to be taken at age 5 or 6 and put in a place where abuse happened daily.

Survivors got a fraction of what they deserve. They had their whole life destroyed at an early age

Ok. Now you know that I came home to a damaged family.

Irony of it all was that I grew up in a white teachers home and had no idea what a residential school was. No one ever talked about it.

#60sScoop was not even heard of yet.

It was never taught to me in any school that I attended.

Canada has its secrets. Problem with secrets is that at some point they get told.

Now is that time. It has been for a few years now.

Ok. Back to life in Tuk. I suppose one of the reasons why my alcoholism was accepted so easily was because I had family who were alcoholics. I fit in, to a degree. We had that in common.

Not all drank to much. In fact most didn't. I just fit in with the ones who did.

People don't understand intergenerational trauma.

How I see it.

What you live with, you learn.

What you learn, you practice.

What you practice, you become.

Not all my family drank too much. Most did drink at times. And when they drank, they really drank. That's life. Live hard. Play harder.

I need to clarify. They are not drunks. They work hard. They earn a living. They don't sit at home a wait for a cheque.

Those are lies that were told by people who were jealous of success.

We are innovative. We are modern. We are tough enough to live in a harsh environment and thrive. That's who Inuvialuit are.

However, when they drank, the pain came out.

Alcohol takes away the pain you live with until at some point it causes pain. That's the nature of it when it's abused.

So in some ways, I fit in. What bothered them is that when it was time to quit drinking, I couldn't. Once I started, I didn't quit.

I forgot to mention. Tuk is a "dry" town. Alcohol is illegal. There are no liquor stores. All booze is bootlegged. At $150/40 oz bottle

If you smoked weed, $20/joint. Expensive bad habits.

So, I lived at Nanuk's. I met my family. I lived along side them.

As I said earlier, not all liked or accepted me. Something I've heard many times by #60sScoop survivors who have reconnected with their families.

Like many others I've talked to, I was told I was "too white" to be Inuvialuit. I was told to go back to where I came from. To never come back. This was not just by family, but others in the community. I didn't belong there.

After a bit of time, Nanuk was tired of my antics. She told my Uncles to take me out on the land. The land is where we heal. There is something that I can't describe about the connection felt when traveling out on the land. Living as we were meant to.
Magical.

That's why Indigenous people are so protective about it. It's a part of who we are. It's our medicine. It's kept us alive for over 10 000 years in the Arctic.

I experienced the caribou migration. The yearly spring goose hunts. I saw an Inukshuk that was built long before equipment made it there. I have no idea how they constructed it. The rocks used were thousands of pounds.

I stayed in Tuk for about 6-7 months. I earned acceptance. I showed people that I belonged. I earned back my family. They saw past my faults. I saw through their pain. We connected. It took time.

The Gov't had removed me. It was 26 years before I made it home. I couldn't expect to be accepted right away. No one knew who I was. I didn't know them. I had to show them that I belonged there. That Tuk was my roots.

Time the Gov't took away from all #60sScoop survivors

Over all I would say my first experience going home turned out ok. A few things helped that along. I was stubborn. I wouldn't give up. I had the acceptance of my Aunts, Uncles, and most importantly my Nanuk. They knew the whole story.

They shared history. They gave me their time. They were patient with me. They saw that I really wanted to learn my roots. They saw I had no hidden agenda.

My brother was a huge help. He was the one who took me to all my relatives for the initial visit.

He and I talked for hours. We bonded before we even met via phone calls. There were no secrets between us. We were able to open up and show each other who we really were.

Each of us had always wanted a brother when we were growing up. Now we had one.

I'll finish this thread. I ended up going back South. It was where I worked. It was where I grew up. It was my comfort zone. I knew how to live here. I knew the ins and outs of city life.
I went back to Tuk the following year. It was the last time I went home. 25 yrs.ago

We stay in touch. The magic of social media really helps. Facebook. We phone each other.

I'd like to share a few pics I have of Tuk.

This is one of some of my family.

My Mom. Not sure what year this was taken.

This is my Mom and I at my wedding 4 years ago. She and my adopted Dad met.

It was a good day!

I learned that they were very normal people. They have the same struggles in life as everyone else.

They love their children. They work hard. They experience loss like everyone else. Through all their adversity they kept a sense of humor.
They love to laugh, smile easily

They aren't the victims that society has made them out to be.

They are survivors.

They are normal.

In short, they are Canadian.

Inuvialuit Canadians.