Famed storyteller brings Inuit stories to children
Print Edition
STORYTELLER and children’s author Michael Kusugak has built his writing career on the Inuit stories and legends he learned growing up in the rugged and harsh Canadian Arctic.
Kusugak and his wife, Geraldine Pflueger, an educator and retired nurse, stopped in Shanghai last week as part of their Asian tour to tell Inuit legends and demonstrate how Inuit clothing was made.
“It’s our first tour in Asia, and it’s been very hot. When I go to the schools, I introduce myself saying my name means icicle,” Kusugak giggles. “And I’ve been melting all over Asia.”
The story of his name is worthy of a book in its own right. Kusugak was his father’s name, but it later became the family name when they needed one for legal reasons.
In Inuit culture, people traditionally have only one name. His birth name is Arvaaluk, which means baby whale in Inuktitut. His parents named him after a respected old man in the community. In Inuit culture they believe in a different type of reincarnation — where if one is named after another person, he becomes that person.
Kusugak, who was born in 1948 in Chesterfield Inlet, says he was among the first generation of Inuit children who went to school, where he was given the name Michael.
He recalls his youth and witnessing how people and culture from the south continued to change and influence the Inuit circle, how traditional lifestyles were altered by modern technologies, and how Inuit languages and traditions continue into the modern age.
“We still teach our kids how to make snow knives, which you can’t buy in a store,” says Kusugak, who now lives in Rankin Inlet on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay. “We teach them how to make igloos because you don’t know when you may need them. We go hunting and fishing whenever possible, and we teach morals to our children through Inuit stories that have been told for thousands of years.”
His career as a writer didn’t begin until he had children.
“When I had my own boys, they asked me to read stories for them,” he says. “At first, I did. Then I realized I have all these Inuit legends passed on to me from my grandma. They loved the stories and told me I should write them out.”
In 1989, “A Promise is a Promise,” co-authored by Robert Munsch, was published. This story, like all his books, are about Inuit life.
In the book, a young girl Allashua ignores her mother’s warnings about the sea ice and is taken by creatures who live under it. The clever girl makes a bargain with the creatures, promising to bring them more children if they let her go. After returning home, Allashua tells her parents about the promise she made. Together they plot to outwit the creatures and protect all the children.
Other books include “Hide and Sneak,” “Who Wants Rocks?” “The Curse of the Shaman, A Marble Island Story” and “The Littlest Sled Dog.”
He won the Ruth Schwartz Award for Children’s Literature for “Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails” in 1994. In 2008, he won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature.
Kusugak says he started writing when he was sent to school in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories; Churchill, Manitoba; and later Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His stories about growing up in the Arctic amazed his teacher and classmates.
“When I was little, we traveled on dog’s sled,” he says. “I slept in an igloo. We had no radios and we had no books. So every night, I asked my grandma to tell me some stories.”
One of his favorite stories is about a hero named Kiviuq, who was the very first person born on earth and is still alive today. He is so old that some body parts have turned into stone. It is said the day when Kiviug’s whole body becomes stone, the universe will end.
Kusugak says life is very different now for Inuit people compared to when he way a boy.
“Now we hunt using modern tools,” he says. “We have television and all the young people speak English, and a lot of them don’t speak Inuktitut, so they can’t talk to the old people. We have to have money. We have to fight for the land. It’s all very strange.”
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