Review Of Mini Aodla Freeman's Life Among The Qallunaat

In Life Among the Qallunaat, Mini Aodla Freeman writes about the controversial topic of residential schools. At the time of the novel’s first publication, public awareness and concern about Indigenous rights were growing. However, Aodla Freeman’s description of residential schools is surprisingly mild, especially compared with the stories of injustice that are associated with the system. At school, Mini was required to attend church services and do chores like all the other students. There is little to indicate that Mini suffered due to the residential school system, though we learn from her interview that she wishes she had written badly about the system. Instead, she focuses on her homesickness and her peer relationships: “I was so alone – so many lonely moments when chores and classes were slack.” She describes prolonging her chores so “I could be me, the girl me parents had

brought my up to be: happy, enjoying chores and most of all, free from fear and pain.” Diverting the focus of her time in school this way normalizes the experience and demonstrates Mini’s way of dealing with difficulty.

Aodla Freeman’s treatment of the residential school system is especially interesting due to the book’s distribution history and modern perception of residential schools.

Aodla Freeman often describes her experiences without mentioning some of the powerful forces that affected the Inuit in the twentieth century such as government intervention or health crises. This memoir doesn’t act as a commentary on the changes affect Inuit communities in the twentieth century but this can cause some confusion as to what created the circumstances for some of these experiences. At some point during

her work as at translator, Mini travels to hospitals to visit Inuit patients. In the mid-twentieth century, Inuit communities were struggling with a tuberculosis epidemic and many Inuit were sent to hospitals in the south. The epidemic is never explicitly mentioned but Aodla Freeman notes the conditions for patients in some of the hospitals: “I learned from talking to some of them that some had been in hospital for two years, some for one year and others for six months. Some had not heard anything about their relatives for a long time.” She also writes about the conditions of hostels for those who were waiting to return home after being discharged from hospitals, describing them as worse than the hospital: “It would be no wonder if they went right back to the hospital.” Aodla Freeman never explains why so many Inuit are hospitalized. It is only in the afterword that I learned that tuberculosis was the cause of many hospitalizations. Mini’s experiences are all taking place in a time of great change for the James Bay Inuit. Historical context makes a dramatic difference in interpretation of the text. Ultimately, Life Among the Qallunaat is about Mini, but the lack of historical context in some cases makes it difficult to understand the significance of her experiences.