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Let Ookpiks Fly: One Canadian's Experiences by Ken Crassweller 234 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1958; ISBN 1-4120-1581-2; US$20.50, C$24.33, EUR17.00, £12.00 An entertaining good read about late adolescent development, Indian residential school teaching. If you want to know about inuit art and crafts, arctic living- try this example of genuine Canadiana.
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About the Book
Working wih Canadian Indian and Inuit in the northern provinces and arctic resulted in the author's involvement and comment on some controversial issues. This led to accounts related to first hand experiences connected with native education on reserves. In teaching in residential schools, Inuit arts and crafts development is woven into accounts is social and religious justice issue comment.
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About the Author
Ken Crassweller was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He climbed poles for Sask Telephone Company, worked for the Hudson's Bay Co. Fur Trade in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, taught Indian and Inuit children in northern Manitoba, Northern Quebec and Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories.
He once operaed a HBC camp trade. Later he served with Industry and Development, of the Federal Government Northern Affairs in Fort Chimo, Quebec, Iqaluit (Frobisher Bay), NWT, and in Ottawa, and with the Gov't. of NWT, in Yellowknife.
Over those years he traveled the Arctic, sharing in providing of material, financial, and technical assistance to the Inuit (Eskimo) artists, carvers, and crafts people.
He earned a B.Ed at the University of British Columbia in Art Education, and an MA, in Community and Regional Planning with an emphasis on Arctic Settlements. He later earned a degree from St. Andrew's College in Saskatoon, Sask., was ordained in the United Church of Canada, and served in churches in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Alberta, Canada. Once, he served as principal of an Indian Band run-school in Northern Sask.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Heading North
2. Encounter with Art and Math
3. The Company of Adventurers (HBC)
4. Indian Residential Schools
5. College On Portage
6. Poplar River
7. God's Lake
8. The High Arctic
9. Inuit Arts and Crafts
10.The Old Stone House
11.The College On the Coast
12.Planning or Teaching?
References Cited
Place Names
Glossary
Bibliography
EXCERPTS
Preface
Thank God, a man can grow! He is not bound
With earthward gaze to creep along the ground:
Though his beginnings be but poor and low...
The fire upon his altars may grow dim,
The torch he lighted may in darkness fail,
And nothing to rekindle it avail-Yet high beyond
hisdull horizon's rim hope shines.
Florence E.Coates
Here find one Canadian's unique experiences that
began in the late nineteen fifties and reached into the
seventies.
As my years dropped away into the past, I
dismissed some myths and beliefs. Many of my
preconceived ideas shattered when I weathered the
cold winds of arctic isolation, breathed in classroom
chalk dust, and ingested living grit while sharing with
my family and others the struggle to find the meaning
of birth, death, and all that's sandwiched in between.
To put flesh on the bones of this one life, find here
glimpses of a prairie boy and young man struggling
and stumbling to come to terms with late adolescence
and work experiences. Gain a sense of what it was
like teaching Indian and Inuit children. Hear an
alternative view of Indian Residential Schools. Start to
refurbish an old stone house. Get an insider's look at
a federal government Inuit Arts and Crafts program.
Feel what it was like to go back to school in your
forties. Sense the struggle to study art and train as a
Community and Regional Planner.
Share this unique Canadian experience along with
some learnings.
Ken Crassweller,
Lethbridge, Alberta, 2003
CHAPTER ONE
Heading North
A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think
he does, and about two years after he thinks he does.
La Ronge
As I hitchhiked along, waiting for rides, I tried to
stay confident and brave. I had the small hunting axe
that part of the old gang had given me as a going
away present, and I recited the "If" poems, one by
Rudyard Kipling, and another that went,
If you think you are beaten you are, If you think you dare
not, you don't, If you'd like to win and think you can't, it's almost
a cinch you won't. Life's battles don't always go to the fastest or
the strongest man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the
man who thinks he can.
I also whistled while feeling lonely between rides
and hearing the gravel crunch under my running
shoes. Two rides got me to La Ronge, one with a
Mormon missionary, and another with a bird man
with the Audubon Society. Each talked. I listened. The
Audubon guy wondered if I'd be interested in helping
him, maybe join the society. I wasn't. Harry, the La
Ronge Hotel manager, said that I could clean fish
boxes, fill gas tanks and be a general "roustabout."
The deal was room and restaurant food. I met a nice
girl over the counter just like my dad did. I kind of
wondered about sleeping arrangements, found out
later, and was terrified. It seemed the clerk at the
desk must have had something to do with me being
hired. I didn't know about that until I went to sleep in
a cabin that I thought was vacant, only to be
awakened by someone climbing in bed with me and
putting his arms around me. My God, was I scared! I
jumped out of bed, and got the hell out of there fast.
Still shaking, I told a surprised Harry, who found me
a safer place to sleep.
I often saw the native restaurant waitress who was
really nice! One evening I got to borrow a hotel boat
and a twenty-five horse kicker. So proud of myself
with her sitting in the bow, I didn't pay much attention
to where I was going with my eyes only on her. The
kicker's skeg hit a rock and cracked, and the shear
pin on the prop broke. We paddled back to the hotel,
with my ego bruised, and Harry's temper aroused.
The Company of Adventurers
No matter how cynical you get, its impossible
to keep it up.
Despite the truths I was discovering in the world of
art, I longed again for the north and an escape from
Regina and home. I guess those feelings had been
sown way back in grade school when one teacher
inspired me and caught my imagination. She had us
kids build a full-sized teepee from poles and brown
paper and an igloo, right in our classroom. I had no
idea at the time that those projects would help instill
in my subconscious the need to live among Indian
and Inuit people, and that it would program me in a
way that led to that. I may have even soaked up that
urge to connect with native people far back, when as
a child, I walked with mom by Indians camped with
their tents, horses, and wagons by the cemetery.
During those exhibition times, Indian kids my own
age dressed in "traditional" costume fascinated me
when they rode by in the parades.
Those distant encounters remembered no doubt
influenced my next move. I answered an ad in the
Regina Leader Post headed,
"The Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trade Seeks
Apprentice Clerks."
Soon a letter arrived. The envelope was addressed
Kenneth Crassweller, "Esq." What about that "Esq."
Yet!
After a physical, I received train and plane tickets
to Patuanak, Saskatchewan. There I was to begin
working for "The Company of Adventurers Dealing in
the Hudson's Bay " at $150 a month less room and
board; vitamin pills, a medical plan, and use of the
post's library included.
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven, to belong
to a family of merchants that flew a flag where the
monogram HBC shared space with the Union Jack.
Catalogue Information
