Letters, like those from Rosie’s books, decorated the walls of the classroom. I stared at them, trying to decipher what they might mean. This photo shows a classroom in the school that Margaret attended.
The nuns starched the peaks and the place where they shaved their heads underneath was sometimes visible.
An Anglican school room in Hay River, in the Northwest Territories, similar to the one Margaret sat in.
Even an outing like a trip to pick berries was tied to some sort of work. Because Margaret came from a treeless area, the berry bushes scared her.
Here, three of Margaret’s sisters and her cousin play outside the hospital.
When the first boats began to appear, I could hardly believe the time had come. It would not be long before my parents arrived. In this photo, the community waits on the banks for the mail boats to arrive.
A nurse and patients in the Anglican hospital in Aklavik. This hospital was similar to the one where Margaret worked.
The Brothers at Margaret’s school dressed like the men in this photo.
A radio station similar to the one where Margaret refused to speak.
Margaret and other school kids hauling wood.
As soon as the Raven was gone, I pulled my favorite book from underneath my pillow and imagined the Raven in the role of the Queen of Hearts. Alice meets the Queen of Hearts.
The trip to Tuktoyaktuk aboard the Roman Catholic boat, the Immaculata, was crowded.
We made our way across the bay to Tuktoyaktuk, and
there was the North Star, anchored in the harbor.
Margaret’s brother Ernest, her father and mother,
and her sister Millie in front.
Here is a typical winter scene in Aklavik at the time Margaret was a child.
Many Aboriginal children were sent to church-run schools. The girls in this picture boarded at an Aklavik school in the 1940s, the same time that Margaret went to school.
Margaret at 16, in an outfit she made herself.
Acknowledgments
THE AUTHOR WISHES to thank everyone who helped to bring this story to print, including Robert N. Stephenson, Kate Messner, Judith Diehl, Stella Lisa Samuels, Maggie DeVries, Pam Robertson, and Laura Edlund. Thanks also to Annick Press.
Photo CREDITS
Note that the page numbers below refer to the print edition.
vi: (Olemaun and her sisters) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
2: basic map outlines by Map Resources. Additions by Lisa Hemingway.
88: (top, Pokiak family) Holman Photohist. and Oral History Research Cttee/NWT Archives/N-1990-004: 0068; (bottom, Rose Pokiak) M. Meikle, Library and Archives Canada/PA-101772
89: (top, snow tent) R. Knights/NWT Archives/N-1993-002-0158; (bottom, dog sled) Frank and Frances Carpenter collection, LC-USZ62-34903. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
90: (top and bottom, Margaret’s father and mother) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
91: (top, North Star schooner) Wilkinson/NWT Archives/N-1979-051-1178; (bottom, pingo) Hunt/NWT Archives/N-1979-062: 0008
92: (top, Reindeer Station) Canada. Affaires indiennes et du Nord/Library and Archives Canada/PA-203204; (bottom, Old Man Pokiak) Jackson/NWT Archives/N-1979-004-0261
93: (top, Hudson’s Bay store in Aklavik) K. Lang/NWT Archives/N-1979-007-0027; (bottom, school and hospital) Fleming/NWT Archives/N-1979-050: 0042
94: (top, George VI) G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, LC-DIG-MATPC-14736. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; (bottom, classroom interior) ECE/NWT Archives/G-1999-088:0142
95: (top, two nuns) Saich/NWT Archives/N-1990-003:0042; (bottom, school in Hay River) YK Museum Soc./NWT Archives/N-1979-056-0057
96: (top, students on barge) Wilkinson/NWT Archives/N-1979-051-1191; (bottom, Margaret’s sisters and cousin) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
97: (top, waiting for the mail boat) J.L. Robinson/Library and Archives Canada/PA-102235; (bottom, hospital) Fleming/NWT Archives/N-1979-050-0053
98: (top, brothers and boys) Sacred Heart Parish/NWT Archives/N-1992-255-0401; (bottom, radio station) Wilkinson/NWT Archives/N-1979-051-0465s
99: (top, hauling firewood) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton; (bottom, Alice and the Queen of Hearts) illustration by Sir John Tenniel, scan © istockphoto.com/Darren Hendley
100: (top, the Immaculata) Library and Archives Canada/PA-101292; (bottom, Tuktoyaktuk) Dept. of the Interior/NWT Archives/G-1989-006:0082
101: (top, Margaret’s parents, sisters, and brother) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton; (bottom, dog sled in Aklavik) Gar Lunney/National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque/ Library and Archives Canada/PA-163040
102: (top, school girls) Fleming/NWT Archives/N-1979-050-0954; (bottom, Margaret at 16) courtesy of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
105: (Christy Jordan-Fenton) courtesy of Allison Peck
Special thanks to the staff at NWT Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and the Brechin Group.
CHRISTY JORDAN-FENTON has been an infantry soldier, a pipeline laborer, a survival instructor, and a bareback bronco rider. Christy has also worked with street children. She was born just outside of Rimbey, Alberta, and has lived in Australia, South Africa, and the United States. Christy now lives on a farm near Fort St. John, British Columbia, where she and her husband are raising three small children, a few chickens, three dogs, a llama, two rabbits, and enough horses to outfit an entire town. Christy worked with her mother-in-law, Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, to write this story.
MARGARET POKIAK-FENTON was born on a tiny island far north of the Arctic Circle. She spent her early years on Banks Island; when she was eight years old she traveled to the mainland to attend the Catholic residential school in Aklavik, Northwest Territories. In her early twenties, while working for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Tuktoyaktuk, she met her husband-to-be, Lyle, who was working on the DEW Line project. She followed him south to Fort St. John. Together they raised eight children. Margaret can be found most Saturdays at the local farmers’ market, where she sells traditional Inuit crafts and the best bread and bannock in the North Peace.
LIZ AMINI-HOLMES spent her childhood daydreaming, drawing, reading, and writing in her family’s backyard tree house. As an adult, she graduated from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, California, with a BFA in Illustration. She now works as a freelance illustrator and her work has appeared in numerous publications, including children’s books, and has been exhibited widely. She now lives in her own tree house in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two children, and an ever-growing assortment of pets.
(text) © 2010 Christy Jordan-Fenton
(artwork) © 2010 Liz Amini-Holmes
Photography credits appear here.
Edited by Maggie DeVries
Copyedited by Pam Robertson
Proofread by Laura Edlund
Cover and interior design by Lisa Hemingway
Cover and interior illustrations by Liz Amini-Holmes
Annick Press Ltd.
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Cataloging in Publication
Jordan, Christy
Fatty legs / Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton ;
artwork by Liz Amini-Holmes.
I
SBN 978-1-55451-247-8 (bound).—ISBN 978-1-55451-246-1 (pbk.)
1. Fenton, Margaret Lucy—Childhood and youth—Juvenile literature. 2. Inuit—Canada—Residential schools—Juvenile literature. 3. Inuit women—Biography—Juvenile literature. I. Fenton, Margaret Lucy II. Amini-Holmes, Liz III. Title.
E96.5.J65 2010 J371.829‘9712071 C2010-901180-5
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