The small hostels
The program of small hostels was intended to offer Inuit families a less disruptive kind of boarding experience than the large hostels. By 1960 the federal government had come close to establishing school facilities in all Northwest Territories and Nunavik (Arctic Québec) communities with large enough school-age populations to justify a day school. However, approximately 1,100 children were without access to schools. Their parents lived in small camps and spent much of the year on the land, hunting and fishing. Some of these children were already being boarded in homes in communities with day schools. Where local boarding facilities were either not available or inadequate, the plan was to board the children in “small family type hostels” in communities with day schools. According to one 1960 planning document,
As far as possible these hostels are to [simulate] family units with the normal home atmosphere. Standards are to be as close as possible to those prevailing in the area and supervision, including cooking, laundry, and so on is to be carried out under contract by an older Eskimo couple or widow who might otherwise require some form of Government assistance. Local food resources are to be utilized to the greatest extent possible.
Payment to these “hostel parents,” as they came to be called, was to “be kept to an absolute minimum.”
Rather than having the government fly the children to the community, the expectation was that parents would bring them to the hostel. “In so doing they will see where their children are going to live and become acquainted with their supervisor, thus satisfying themselves as to the child’s care and safety.”1 Children were to come from an area within a radius of eighty kilometres from the hostel. Half of the students admitted were to be male, half female, with priority given to students between the ages of six and ten. Priority was to be given to those who would otherwise be unable to attend school. Medical examinations were a prerequisite to admission. Finally, “the consent of one or both parents must be obtained before admission.” Child welfare cases could also be placed in the hostels with the permission of the Northern Affairs superintendent of schools. Food rations were to be provided at the rate of “half an adult ration for each child.” An additional $200 was provided for every eight students for “fresh food.”2
In many ways, these small hostels were a more permanent version of the “tent hostel” experiment run by the Anglican Church at Coppermine in the 1950s. In 1952 the federal Sub-Committee on Eskimo Education had recommended that consideration be given to establishing summer tent hostels at Coppermine and Chesterfield Inlet to work in conjunction with the federal schools in those locations. The Coppermine hostel would be Anglican and have an enrolment of fifty, and the Chesterfield Inlet school would be Catholic. However, the Catholics, after an initial experiment with the tent hostel model, decided instead to establish a permanent hostel.3
The Anglicans pursued the tent hostel approach more vigorously. Bishop Donald Marsh proposed that children be left at this temporary hostel in the spring until August, “when their parents leave for their winter camps.” The hostel would consist of canvas tents fitted over wooden walls and floors. Under these conditions, Marsh believed, the children could “retain as much of their native life as is possible and as is moreover desirable.”4
Starting in 1955, students were housed four to a tent, and the school ran for six months a year. The number of students in residence ranged from thirty to forty-five in any given year.5 The tents were heated by kerosene and propane stoves.6 Difficulties in recruiting locally meant that students came from more distant communities including Uluqsaqtuua (Holman Island) and Read Island.7
There were ongoing complaints about the quality of the federal government supplies: the tents were drafty, the heaters created a fire hazard, and Bishop Marsh termed the staff housing to be inadequate.8 In 1956 Marsh reported, “The children are sleeping in the Dining Room Tent as the wooden doors which were promised for the sleeping tents were not put on. As a result the tents fill with snow in a wind and the oil stoves keep going out because of the cold.”9 The tent hostel’s closing in 1959 coincided with the opening of the large Anglican-run hostel in Inuvik.10
There were at least fourteen small hostels in the Northwest Territories and four in Québec (hostels also operated at Fort George and Mistassini, Québec, in the 1970s, but they were not part of the original program and did not operate in the same fashion). The majority of the hostels drew their students from Inuit communities.11
The hostels were built by southern construction crews, who were often working on a tight timeline. At Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), construction of the hostel was completed only three days before the first students arrived, leaving little time for the training of hostel staff.12 The quality of the hostels varied from community to community. Principal Ann Emmett said that in the fall of 1965, the hostels in Igloolik looked like “slum dwellings.… The roofs had leaked badly, encrusting here and there the ceilings and some of the walls with a white, salt-like deposit.”13 David Davies, the principal at Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), was proud of the hostel in his community, writing, “These beautiful buildings each have three four-bed dormitories, a playroom, a large dining room, a well equipped kitchen and two bathrooms.”14 P. B. Gorlick, the regional superintendent of welfare, reported in 1965 that Dr. J. P. Harvey was “quite disturbed” to discover that the hostels in Arviat (Eskimo Point) lacked bathtubs or shower stalls. Harvey said that “proper bathroom facilities are essential for the health of the children maintained in these small hostels.”15
Maintenance was an ongoing problem. In 1970 the water lines for the bathtubs and one of the showers at one hostel at Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay) froze. Since they were made of plastic, it was not possible to use heat to thaw them. Nor was there any construction blueprint to show where the lines ran under the floor. At the same hostel, lack of fittings made it difficult to pump out sewage tanks. The fact that the hostels had been built without porches left them vulnerable to cold weather and strong winds. According to Principal F. S. Ellis, “During a storm two weeks ago the north door of Annie’s hostel blew off taking one boy with it.”16
The administration of the hostels could be chaotic. Northern Affairs had prepared a manual describing the training that hostel mothers were to be given. Although the manual was supposedly sent out in late 1960, school staff in Qamani’tuaq and Kuujjuaraapik (Great Whale River) said in 1962 that they had never seen it.17
The first hostels were constructed to house eight students, but by 1970 Northern Affairs indicated they were capable of housing twelve students. In addition to these twelve students, the hostel parents’ children also lived in the hostels, usually in a single 3-by-3.6-metre room.18
From the outset there were concerns that rather than allowing parents to continue to live on the land while their children attended school, the small hostels might actually lead more Inuit to settle in communities year-round. In 1957, a Northern Affairs official recommended a cautious approach to the establishment of a hostel in Qamani’tuaq, stating, “We should seek to avoid placing in the traditional communities institutions which contribute to congregation and which may work to the detriment of hunting and trapping on the land. Baker Lake is one of the traditional communities.”19
Karl Kristensen, a local teacher, opposed boarding students at the hostel in Kimmirut (Lake Harbour) on Baffin Island. It was, he wrote, “better to bring the school environment directly into their camps (homes) where the children can share both their every day, native environment and the school environment than to alienate the children from their native environment in order to bring them into a school environment (which we are doing to an extent when we bring them into hostels).” He feared that parents would migrate into Kimmirut to be with their children. This would put great pressure on the local hunting, trapping, and fishing resources and create an “unnecessary welfare problem.” The Inuit of the Kimmirut area were, he wrote, “a very proud, self-supporting group of people. It would be unwise and unfortunate to do something new which would tend to change this very desirable situation.”20 A Mounted Police report from Mittimatalik in 1965 warned:
The only foreseen problem in the immediate future ... will be the mass migration from the camps to the settlements. This has been quite noticeable this year in Pond Inlet.... This is brought about mainly by the parents wishing to be close to their children, when they leave the camps to attend school in the settlement. Because of the close knit Eskimo family, this will continue to be a problem, and in the future, I would imagine a very great one. This past year a whole camp moved into the settlement, the only reason given, to be close to their children attending school.21
According to the guidebook for the operation of the hostels, the small hostels were to “serve as an intermediate stage between the native home and the modern home of the white man to which it is hoped the indigent child will readily adjust.”22 A 1960 memorandum on the planning and operation of the small hostels noted that while there should be incentive for the students to speak English,
we do feel it would be a good thing to allow children to speak their native tongue in the hostel when they so desire. The Hostel may indeed be a vital part of the learning process but it should also be a symbol of security for the child, providing a familiar atmosphere, and we all know how much more at home we feel when we can communicate in our own language.23
In practice, school staff found it difficult to operate an institution that was meant to serve as an “intermediate stage.” In describing his “philosophy of education” for the Qamani’tuaq school, Principal Ivan Mouat wrote in 1962 that “Eskimo children are Canadian children first, then Eskimos. Canadian children go to school every day, they get there on time. We cannot spend hours out of the classroom for a hike or a game.” That, he said, was the line that he had taken at the school that year.24
In 1965 Orland Larson, principal at Qikiqtarjuaq (Broughton Island), wrote, “We consider the teaching of English as a second language as the key issue in the northern curriculum.” He said that he and another teacher had made considerable use of puppets in language lessons and had “written innumerable stories based on local happenings and myths and favorite children’s stories as supplementary reading material.” Larson was emphatic about the need to develop a northern-oriented curriculum, stating, “It is not enough to ape the southern curriculum with a few adaptions.”25
The decision to have the hostels operated by local Inuit rather than a white supervisor from the South was an important departure from past practice. According to the hostel guidebook, hostel parents were “to provide adequate meals, to see that the children’s bedding and clothing are clean and in good repair, to ensure that the hostel is kept clean and orderly, and to supervise and discipline the children as a wise and judicious parent would do.”26
The local federal day school principal was responsible for the hiring of the hostel staff. The principal was also instructed to “keep himself constantly aware of hostel operations and seek the co-operation of other community officials should problems occur.” Initially a hostel instructor, “perhaps the wife of a Government employee,” was to provide hostel parents with two weeks of instruction before the opening of the hostel. After that she was to inspect the hostel on a weekly basis.27
In his 1962 report, Qamani’tuaq principal Mouat wrote that the hostel mothers had done “an admirable job under trying conditions. They have no water pressure system, no hot water system, and no dryer yet they are expected to do all the washing for 8 children in addition to the extra chores around the hostel.”28 The following year Mouat wrote that while the work of one of the hostel mothers had “not been outstanding,” too much had been expected “of a neophyte” and he expected that she would improve with experience. The problems he had identified the year before remained unresolved.
They are expected to do all the washing of clothes, bed linen etc., for eight or more children, yet the equipment provided is most inadequate. They have no running water, no piped hot water, no water system, and no clothes dryer.29
M. P. Walsh, the principal of the Arviat school, raised concerns in 1960 about the government interest in hiring widows to serve as hostel mothers.
We should provide for training of the older boys in the skills of their own culture and should therefore set these hostels up with a ‘house father’ who can take them hunting, etc. and so provide training for the Eskimo way of life. If it is our intention to try to simulate the natural home environment and to allow these hostels to be operated as Eskimo homes we must face the fact that we plan to have them eat some Eskimo food. This must come from somewhere, and the best way is through the presence of a husband and ‘father’ in the home.30
Not all hirings were successful. At Kangirsuk (Payne Bay), a house mother was fired after three months because, according to the principal, Ann Meldrum, “she was unkind to the children, even her own relatives—which is unusual,—and as a result we had two bed wetters.” When the house mother was replaced by her sister, the atmosphere was reported to have improved “one hundred fold.”31 In 1963, Igloolik principal Ann Emmett reported that one hostel father, who was “mentally ill, with a tendency for violence,” was evacuated on an emergency flight.32 In 1967 there were complaints from parents in Sanikiluaq (Belcher Islands) that their children were not pleased with the hostel mothers or the general conditions of the hostels at the Kuujjuaraapik hostel in Québec. It was recommended that photographs of the residence, along with information “concerning the pupil activities, the quality of the food and supervision,” be presented to the parents so as to reassure them that their children were being properly cared for.33
While the hostel parents were supposed to be raising the children in a setting that reflected community practices, they were closely monitored by local school staff. In northern Québec, for instance, house parents were sent on a six-week course that taught them what was expected in housekeeping, cooking, and child care. These courses also included English-language training.34 In discussing the hostels at Mittimatalik in 1967, Principal David Davies wrote, “Suitable Eskimo couples are paid to run the hostels under the supervision of the School Principal, though my wife really looks after the hostels.” While local food was meant to be an important part of the diet, Davies reported, “Advice is given to the hostel mothers on the preparation of food and on the best system of household management.”35
A 1976 inspection of the hostels at Iqaluktuuttiaq concluded that in one hostel, “all the children appear to be getting tender, loving care.” The meals were described as “well prepared and tasty.” While operations at the other hostel needed improvement, the inspector felt that the hostel parents “both love kids and in my opinion are giving tender, loving care to their charges.”36 In 1989 Iqaluktuuttiaq principal Dawn Wilson gave a very positive assessment of one set of hostel parents. He noted “country foods are available at all times,” adding that the “hostel father hunts and fishes for the family.” In addition, the students were encouraged to make use of the kitchen for making bannock. In general, the meals were considered “well balanced and nutritious.” The hostel residents were always clean and well groomed and their clothing was well cared for. It was felt the hostel parents encouraged the students in both their studies and their recreational activities, scheduling study time and organizing dances and video nights for them.37
While there was an expectation that hostel parents would ensure a supply of local fish and meat, the hostels were supplied with canned food.38 In addition, food was purchased from local hunters. In 1968 the principal at Kuujjuaraapik was purchasing seal meat, ptarmigan, and geese from local Inuit and First Nations people for use in the hostels. At Igloolik the hostel parents supplied the bulk of the fish consumed, while at Mittimatalik local fish were being “used sparingly due to high price.”39
Initially Northern Affairs expected parents to provide clothing to the children who went to the small hostels.40 In 1963 W. C. Devitt, district superintendent of schools, reported that the pupils attending the small hostels usually had “only the bare necessities of clothing, often reaching the situation where when clothes are washed clean clothing is not available.” Rather than supply them with clothes, he recommended that commercial dryers be installed in all hostels to make it possible to wash and dry clothes at night when the children were sleeping.41 Igloolik principal Ann Emmett reported in 1963 that many children arrived at the hostel “in filth and rags.”42 The following year, when the parents of children in the Igloolik hostel came to the community to trade, the principal asked them to purchase any needed clothing for their children. Those who were on relief were given material from which to make the clothes.43
In 1965 the policy governing clothing at the large hostels was extended to the small hostels. Under this policy, clothing was to be provided to children entering small hostels. A. Stevenson, the administrator of the Arctic, wrote that supply was to be “based clearly on need and we must be careful to make a realistic assessment of how much responsibility we can take over from the parents for clothing their children.” Principals were authorized to spend up to $60 per student on clothing (compared with $100 per student at the Churchill school, which was attended by older students).44 While there was an effort to purchase parkas manufactured in the North, funding restrictions led to a decision to import parkas from southern Canada in 1968.45 It is not clear how well communicated these policies were. For example, in 1970, Iqaluktuuttiaq principal F. S. Ellis was asking if there was a clothing allowance for children whose parents could not afford to buy clothes for their children.46
Recruiting students and keeping them in the hostels was an ongoing problem. In 1961 C. M. Bolger, the administrator of the Arctic, wrote, “We are doing everything possible to recruit suitable teenage pupils to fill at least two” of the three hostels in Kuujjuaraapik. To this end, applications had been sent to all the communities in Nunavik.47 Recruiting efforts may have been coercive since the following year, a Northern Affairs memorandum stressed the need for field staff to obtain signed parental approval for the recruitment of children from Sanikiluaq to Kuujjuaraapik.48
By the fall of 1963, Northern Affairs had recognized that it was faced with a serious problem ensuring hostel occupancy. In November all three hostels at Qikiqtarjuaq were empty. In August all the school teachers had resigned, necessitating a reduction in enrolment and a decision not to take any students into the hostel. At Kinngait (Cape Dorset) only one of the three hostels was in use. At Kangirsuk, there were two hostels with no occupants. The one hostel at Arctic Bay was being used as a temporary classroom. Pangnirtung had three hostels, but since the local school had only two teachers, no more than one hostel was needed. At Arviat there were three hostels, only two of which were occupied. The third was being used as office space. At Sanikiluaq, Kuujjuaraapik, Kangirsuk, Qamani’tuaq, and Igloolik, all the constructed hostels were occupied.49
The issues at Kinngait illustrate some of the problems that were experienced in recruiting and keeping students in the hostels. In 1963 three of the eleven students initially admitted were discharged because their parents “felt the hostel staff was unsuitable.” In one case a father withdrew his son because he was being bullied. Another took his son out because he was homesick. In the third case a girl was withdrawn by her father because she was not happy with the treatment she received from other girls. Principal Brian Lewis concluded that the hostel father disliked his job intensely. Lewis wrote that community members had no confidence in the hostel father “as a supervisor of young boys.” The principal let parents withdraw their children because he felt that the hostel system had been imposed on the community. To prevent people from taking their children would, he felt, “cause irreparable damage.” He thought that it had been a mistake to try to fill all the hostels at once. “It would have been far better to try one hostel, and find some suitable people to live in it and to run it.”50
While the original plan had been to recruit only from camps that were within eighty kilometres of the settlement, the fact that the Kinngait hostels were half empty led to a recommendation from Northern Affairs official B. Shasstein that “children should be brought in from more distant camps, in fact from any place where they can be found.”51 By 1967 one hostel had been put to use as a classroom, and federal officials were planning to convert the remaining hostels to classrooms.52
W. Berry, Northern Affairs area administrator, took a hard line at Mittimatalik. In 1964 he refused to allow two sets of parents to remove their children from the hostel there. He said that in previous years he had been able to fill the two hostels in Mittimatalik through persuasion. But, he wrote, “the parents of the children still in the camps, and who will be required to send their children to school when the new 12 pupil hostels are built next year, are unconvinced of the benefits of schooling and dread the prospect of separation from their children. They are unaware that their little backwater world is inevitably changing, and wish only that their children be good hunters and sewers. They cannot be, or have no desire to be persuaded otherwise.”
Berry recommended that the government should “invoke the full provisions of the school ordinance which provides penalties for truancy.” If not, it should cancel the construction of the hostel. He asked, “Are we to adhere to the ordinance, or will the unsophisticated and backward parents be the arbiters of our policy?”53
Many of the hostels were never occupied. By 1965 there were three hostels in Qikiqtarjuaq, far more than were needed. As a result, students lived in two of the buildings, while the third hostel was used for a variety of purposes, including adult education. Principal Orland Larson wrote in 1965 that since there were not enough students to fill even two hostels,
it was decided to let all the school children in the settlement experience hostel living. Each week six new students go to live in the hostel for six days. Using a rotation basis it means that every school child can live in the hostels once every three weeks. Not only does this use up hostel rations [of which there was a surplus] it provides the children with well-balanced meals, adequate sleep and a chance to wash and bathe. Everyone goes home on the weekends to help their parents. Most of the permanent residents come from a nearby camp. We believe we have been able to eliminate any feelings of prejudice towards a few who might be in the hostels all the time.54
While many hostels sat empty, others were consistently overcrowded. In 1964 there were twenty-seven children living in the Igloolik hostels, which had been built to accommodate eighteen.55 Because of the fire risk created by this overcrowding, there was a ban on visitors, including visiting parents, spending the night in hostels.56 The following year, the Igloolik and Pangnirtung schools had to turn away students because of lack of space in their hostels.57
Most of the hostels had very short lifespans. A tent hostel was operated alongside a seasonal school for twenty-four students at Kangiqsualujjuaq (George River), Québec, in the summer of 1960.58 The Kangirsuk hostels were closed in February 1962 and all seven remaining students sent home.59 By the following year, all the families that had been using the hostel had settled in Kangirsuk.60 Federal officials hoped to fill the hostels with students from Koartak, but, according to a Northern Affairs official, in the fall of 1964 Koartak parents refused to even consider sending their children to Kangirsuk.61 The Sanikiluaq hostel opened in October 1963 with six student boarders.62 In the winter of 1964, the families of the children at the school decided to stay in the community for the winter. As a result, the students left the hostel and returned to their parents’ homes. Federal officials were able to convince the boys to return to the hostel. At the time, an official wrote, “The whole concept of the hostel operation is now well-known to the local people, and understood. In forthcoming years this will serve good purpose.”63 This was an overly optimistic assessment. In September 1964, after one year of operation, there were only two students living in the hostel.64 By November 1964, the Sanikiluaq hostel was empty.65 In 1968 four children from South Camp were being boarded with local communities so they could attend school in Sanikiluaq. Three of the children were reported to be living in “overcrowded and unhealthy conditions.” However, the fourth was boarding with the government interpreter, who was being allowed to rent the six-bed hostel building, which would otherwise have been unoccupied.66
Health services were limited. In 1962 Qamani’tuaq principal Ivan Mouat was critical of the federal health department’s slowness in providing treatment to persons diagnosed with tuberculosis.
There was a boy in my class (he has still not left the settlement) who is a suspected tb case. If he has tb, then he should be sent immediately for treatment. As it is, he has been left almost three months in a crowded house. Looking at this from a purely personal point of view, I object to being needlessly exposed to active tb germs in a crowded classroom. Taking the larger view, I certainly must protest the needless endangering of a whole class.67
The following year Mouat wrote, “Ever since I arrived here, evidence of visual defects have been observed. In spite of many memos on the subject no child has received an eye examination.”68 A 1962 influenza epidemic in Inukjuak (Port Harrison), Québec, so overtaxed local medical facilities that six children were cared for in one of the hostels.69 In 1967 there was an outbreak of meningitis in the Arctic, particularly in the Keewatin region. Two children died in Repulse Bay, two at Arviat, one at Rankin Inlet, and one at Qamani’tuaq. One of the teachers at Arviat was diagnosed with meningitis. He recovered, but the illness was judged to have “a demoralizing effect upon other married staff with children in that community.” While it was not clear at that time whether the meningitis was related to tuberculosis, the disease continued to be a serious problem in the communities. Arviat was hit by an outbreak of tuberculosis in the spring of 1963. The June class lists show that thirty-three of eighty-four students were in the Clearwater, Manitoba, sanatorium.70 Consideration was given that year to transforming hostels in Kinngait into facilities for sick children from that region.71 In 1964 fourteen Inuit children who had been treated at the hospital in Moose Factory, Ontario, were transferred to the Moose Factory school.72 Between September 1966 and March 1967, twenty-five people had to be evacuated from the community of Arviat for treatment. An additional fifty people had tested positive for tuberculosis. There had been a serious epidemic of the disease in the community just four years earlier.73
Some former students recall life in the small hostels as harsh and even abusive. One former student spoke of being sexually assaulted by the hostel father.74 Although not abused in the same way, Carolyne Nivixie explained how her hostel parents failed to provide proper care for children at a hostel in northern Québec. In Nivixie’s opinion, her hostel parents used their position to benefit their own family. For instance, instead of using the food supplies to feed hostel children, she remembered, her hostel parents sent away portions of the food rations to relatives in a nearby camp, leaving the hostel children without adequate supplies for their meals.75 Lack of food, and control of food, seemed to be a problem remembered by other Survivors of small hostels. Eric Anautalik remembered having to rely on local families for food after the hostel’s supplies ran out.76
Many Survivors remember feeling like “double outsiders” at the small hostels: not only were they outsiders to the hostel environment, they were also outsiders to the local community around the hostels and at the day schools. Several former students said they were bullied by local children and local hostel parents. Sarah Peryouar remembered that she was made to feel different: “We were treated differently because of who our parents were and who we were.”77 Although not a resident of a small hostel, Jimmy Itulu noticed how the children at the hostel in his settlement of Kimmirut were punished more severely by the teachers than were local children.78 Likewise, Annie Agligoetok, who was abused by her hostel parents, was also bullied by local children from Iqaluktuuttiaq during her years in the hostel there. She told of how her brand new parka, given to her by the hostel staff when she arrived at Iqaluktuuttiaq, was torn and ripped by other children after weeks of bullying.
I use to be afraid to go out for recess ... because kids would bully me. I use to be afraid to go home just from school to the hostel ’cause kids ... want to pick on me for no reason, I don’t know—I was just a different person from another community maybe.... They did that for one week.... It really bothered me.... My brand new parka, it was torn from those kids that were bullying me. I went home with my parka torn and I got scolding for that. I was grounded for three days just for my parka being torn, and it wasn’t my fault—it was the kids that were bullying me.79
Dora Fraser said that at hostels in the eastern Arctic, students were sometimes tied to their chairs as punishment. She also said that in some cases, the people who were supposed to be supervising the hostels were absent. When that happened, “some of the older kids used to take advantage of the younger ones for sexual purposes.” When a woman from her home community became the hostel mother, she thought conditions would improve. “She was the worst. She shamed us, like, shamed us to death. We were nothing to her. We were bad. We’re very negative. She was a very negative person.” She also recalled the teasing that children were subjected to.
We were in this strange land. We were terribly teased ’cause of our language. We had different dialect. We were called seal meat eaters, doggies, islanders. “You smell like seal.” That was our, my first experience, but as this time goes on ... We are islanders, we eat seafood, food, country food, but as soon as we got into this hostel, it changed.80
While envisioned as a way to create a less dislocating and alienating experience than the large hostels, in many ways these small hostels may have made it harder to build friendships with other children, and just as hard to retain contact with their own families. Inuktitut was allowed and, theoretically, a connection with Inuit culture was supported; however, without family or the opportunity to build friendships, the small hostel could well have been a more isolating and lonely experience than the larger hostels. Sarah Peryouar, for one, believed “more damage” was done to her at the small hostel in Qamani’tuaq than during her time at the large hostel at Churchill.81
Over time parents moved into the settlements, eliminating the need for such residences. In February 1969 the principal of the once crowded Igloolik hostel wrote, “As most of the outlying camps have now been abandoned and the families concerned being now housed within the settlement, only a small number of children now make use of the hostels. At this moment six children are in residence.”82 By July of that year it was reported to have closed.83 Most of the hostels in the eastern Arctic and Nunavik were closed by the end of the 1971. There was slight expansion of the system in 1985 when Kivalliq Hall opened in Rankin Inlet. It had an initial enrolment of thirty-two students—making it larger than most small hostels, but smaller than the large hostels.84 It closed in the mid-1990s.85 In the early 1990s the Samuel Angnetsiak hostel opened in Mittimatalik.86 It appears to have operated until at least 1995.87 Small hostels also continued to operate in the western and central Arctic. The eight-bed Fort Franklin hostel in what is now Deline opened in 1967. Demand declined rapidly in the coming years. It was not used at all during the 1972–73 school year, and had been used only slightly in the previous year. At that point it was recommended that it be converted to an adult education centre. A similar recommendation was made in regard to a twelve-bed hostel at Tulita (Fort Norman).88 In 1980, there were four small hostels in the western Arctic, in Iqaluktuuttiaq, Fort Liard, Fort Good Hope, and Fort McPherson.89 The number was down to two by 1985–86: the Iqaluktuuttiaq and Fort Good Hope hostels.90 The Iqaluktuuttiaq hostel continued to operate into the mid-1990s.91
The large and small hostel system had been designed by the federal government to impose its authority in the North and to bring the benefits of modernity to its residents. It was intended to replace the church-run mission school system. There is no doubt that the physical facilities represented a dramatic improvement over the old mission schools. The expansion of the number of day schools also made it possible for a significant number of children to receive schooling in their community. The system, however, was imposed with no meaningful consultation, taught a largely irrelevant curriculum, undermined family, community, and cultural bonds, and placed students at risk. In many ways it was simply an extension rather than a replacement of the southern residential school model, complete with extensive church involvement. Although the federal government and the churches reduced their responsibility for the administration of the schools in the years after 1969, the student experiences described above remained much the same before and after the transfer of responsibility. While the experience remained similar, the number of students undergoing that experience declined significantly, as the territorial governments moved, over time, to bring the hostel system to an end.