Inuit story telling with Michael Kusugak transcript

I grew up in a place called repulse Bay and repul Bay is right up at the very North End of Hutson Bay right on the Arctic Circle and when I was a little boy early early in the morning my father would get up he would go outside he would look at the weather and then he would take our sled and he would turn it over on his back we used these huge sleds with two Runners and cross pieces that are all tied together and before we had plastic runners on our sleds we used to have frozen mud all along the bottoms of our sled Runners so my father would take the sled he would turn it over he would take a piece of polar bear skin and a kettle of water he would pour the water on the polar bear skin and he would rub it along the bottoms of the sled Runners he would let the water freeze so we ended up with this nice layer of ice all along the bottoms of our sled Runners and that's what we traveled on and when my father was all finished icing the sled he would roll it back up we would take all our stuff out from inside our eagloo we would put them on a sled we would roll them up in hued skins and tie them all down and then we would hitch our dogs to our sled and we would go traveling all day long well where we come from there are no trees there is not one single tree that grows where we come from and because we have no trees to get in the way we hitch our dogs all on separate lines so every dog has his very own line we might have 8 9 10 11 12 13 dogs they all had their own lines the dogs that like to run get the longest lines and the lazy ones get the short ones and when we were going along the dogs would jump over each other over and over and over and over until their lines were so tangled up that they couldn't run anymore we would stop my father would take all the lines off the docks he would untangle them all my mother would make us lunch and after lunch we go traveling all the rest of the day and you know sometimes you get just a little cool the coldest day I remember in Ranken Inlet was 52 below Celsius which works out to 61 below Fahrenheit and it was before we started measuring temperature with windchill and it was really really windy that day so with the windchill it was probably somewhere closer to 75 or 80 below and if you're going to be outside all day long you have to wear some really really warm clothes and we wore the warmest clothing in the world I had a caribou skin coat which was like a sweatshirt with a hood and it had fur on the inside so I had Caribou fur right up against my skin on top of that I had another Caribou skin coat and it had the fur on the outside and even then when I was sitting on a sled for a long time I would start to get cold and when I got cold I would jump off the sled I would run along beside the sled until I got all warmed up then I would sit back down again and sometimes I didn't even have to jump off because we would hit a bump and I would fall off and then I'd have to run to catch up so we traveled like that all day long and at night when we stopped my father would build an igloo when the eagloo was already we'd go inside we'd bring all our stuff inside my mother and my grandmother would light a big Stone seal oil lamp called a they would start to cook us something to eat they would heat up the inside of the eagloo a little bit because sometimes it was really quite cold and then they would make up a bed a nice big bed with lots of warm Furs and every night after I finished eating I go to bed and when I went to bed I would say to my grandmother and she would say [Music] grandmother please tell me a story but I have no story to tell grandmother please tell me a story but I have no story to tell and after I asked her many many times she would finally say Okay settle down and I'll tell you a story and my grandmother told me some of the most wonderful stories I have ever heard my most favorite story in the whole world was the the one that goes like [Music] this you like that story it's a story about a little girl and her grandmother and they get left behind all by themselves in their igloo and then a little bird came and it broke the window and it said that you can flew away and that was the story and I read L that story and I would ask my grand mother tell it to me over and over and over again until she got tired it was like a little nursery rhyme you know until she got tired of it and then she wouldn't want to tell it to me anymore so I would ask her again and she would say grandmother please tell me another story but I have no story to tell but of course my grandmother always had lots and lots of stories to tell well the most famous person in our stories is a man called Kio my grandmother said Kio was born a long long long long time ago so long ago that he was the very first person on Earth and I used to have this little argument with my grandmother I said Grandmother if Kio was the first person on Earth how come he had a mother and she said don't argue with old people okay well anyway uh my grandmother also said Kio is still alive today but he is so old his body is turning to Stone and someday when his heart turns completely to Stone and stops that will be the end of the world and there are many many many stories about this man well a long time ago there was a little boy and this little boy loved to go out to play but there were mean boys who lived in this Camp they would run after him they would fight him they would make him cry they would rip up all his clothes and the poor boy would go home to his grandmother because he was an orphan he had no mother and no father so he lived with his grandmother and his poor old grandmother would take her needle and thread and she would sew his clothes all back together again and the little boy would put on his clothes he would go off to play the mean boys would run after him they would fight him they would make him cry and they would rip up all his clothes and this happened every every every day and one day his grandmother got so tired of sewing his clothes back together one day when the little boy came home there was a little seal that somebody had caught for them and it was lying on the floor and his grandmother said I would like you to skin that seal so the little boy took a knife and and he started to skin the seal and his grandmother said be careful be careful don't put any holes in the skin so very very carefully the little boy skin the seal and when he was all finished that's my cell phone uh so very very oh just ignore it it'll quit um you know who that might be though the Norwegian Embassy they think I'm going to answer it though anyway yeah I'm going to go have dinner with uh the Norwegian Ambassador on Thursday so anyway um so the little boy skin the seal and when he was all finished his grandmother said I would like you to take the seal skin and pull it over your head and I would like you to put your head in that pale of water there was a great big pale of water on the floor so the little boy took a knife or he he put the seal skin over his head so that fit nicely and he looked like a little seal and then he took a deep breath and he stuck his head in his pill of water and he kept his head underwater as long as he could and when his lungs hurt he lifted up his head and he went and his grandmother said do it again so we took another deep breath and he stuck his head back in this pale of water and he kept his head underwater as long as he could and when his lungs were just about to break he lifted up his said and he went and his grandmother said do it again so he took another deep breath and he stuck his head back in this pale of water and he kept his head underwater as long as he could going like this and when he was just about to drown he lifted up his head and he went and his grandmother said do it again every time he lifted up his head his grandmother would say do it again he would take a deep breath and he would stick his head back in this pale of water and after a while he could keep his head under water for a long long long long time because after a while when he had his head underwater the sun would move and finally his grandmother was satisfied that he could keep his head underwater long enough and she said I would like you to go down to the beach and when you're walking to the beach make sure nobody sees you and when you get to the water's edge I would like you to take the seal skin and pull it over your head jump into the water and go for a swim and come up right in front of all your mean friends who are playing on the beach and sure enough all the mean boys were playing on the beach so the little boy took the seal skin he walked down to the beach he made sure nobody saw him and when he got to the water's edge Edge he took the seal skin he pulled it over his head so that it fit nicely and he looked like a little seal and then he took a deep breath and he jumped into the water and he went for a swim underwater and he came up right in front of all the mean boys who were playing on the beach and they looked at him and they said hey there's a little seal they thought he was the little seal and they all ran up they grabbed their kayaks you know their long skinny skin boats they put their kayaks in the water they hopped in they took their long paddles and they started paddling following the little seal and the Little Seal go down under waterer and he would swim a little bit farther out and then he would come up again and then he would go down and he would swim a little bit farther out and then he would come up again and the mean boys who fought him and made him cry and ripped all his clothes they were paddling near kayak following along behind him and it was a beautiful beautiful day and after a while they were way up out at Sea and when they were way out at Sea when the little seal came up he would lift up his arm and his leg and he would [Music] sing and then he go down again and he would swim a little bit farther out and when he came up he would lift up his arm and his leg and he would [Music] sing and then he go down again and he would swim a little bit with Father out and when he came up he would lift up his arm and his leg and he would sing where is my wind I want my wind and he'd make crying sound like a little [Music] baby people say the weather that was on the day you were born is your very own weather and that is why if you were born on a sunny day usually the sunshines on your birthday if you were born on a rainy day usually it rains on your birthday and this little boy was born on a very very windy day and he was calling the weather that was on the day he was born where is my wind I want my wind and he made a crying sound like a little baby W the wind heard him and it started to come and it got windier and windier and windier and before long there were huge huge waves in the water and The Kayaks with all the mean boys were going up and down up and down in the big waves and every now and then a giant wave would come and it would flip the kak over and the mean boys who fought him and made him cry and ripped all his clothes they were sinking to the Bottom of the Sea and after a while there was only one person left that person was Kio now Kio was really really good with his paddle and he padd kak on and on going up and down in the big waves and when a giant wave came and flipped his kayak over he would roll it back up using his paddle and he kept on going no matter how cold and wet and tired he got he never gave up and finally after a long time the wind stopped and the Sea became really really still again and kot was so tired he put his paddle on his lap he put his head on his chest and he fell asleep he slept for a long time when he woke up he sat up in his Kay he looked around he looked all around but there was nothing but water he was way out in the middle of the ocean and because he was way out in the middle of the ocean he couldn't see any land anywhere and because he couldn't see any land anywhere he didn't know which way to go and while he was sitting there he started to think about some strange and wonderful things one of the things he thought about was this little feather he had on the back of his coat you see ever since he was a tiny little boy his mother see I told you he had a mother his mother always swed this little feather on the back of his coat it was a feather from a little bird called a saak and a saak is a little brown bird that swims in tiny ponds and while it's swimming he goes around in circles all around and around and around and while it's going around in circles he goes like this they're funny little birds and I love to watch them and he had this little feather on the back of his coat and he always wondered what it was for and while he was sitting there a little bird came the little bird landed on his kayak it looked at kok and said do you know which way to go and kok said no I don't know which way to go because there's nothing but water and the little bird said well follow me so we start to follow the little bird and he pad on and on after a long time he saw this really thin line in the Horizon like a little piece of thread and he thought it was land so he pad his kayak toward it but after a while it disappeared and the little bird looked at him again and said do you know which way to go and Kio said no I don't know which way to go because there's nothing but water and the little bird said well follow me so we start to follow the little bird again and he pad kak on and on after a long time he saw this really thin land in the Horizon like a little piece of thread and he thought it was land so he pad his kayak toward it and this time it did not disappear it got thicker and thicker and thicker and Kio landed skak way over on the other side of the ocean in the strange place and when I was a little boy and my grandmother told me that story for the longest time I didn't know the story had an ending because I always fell asleep