Kusugak, Michael Arvaarluk

Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak grew up in Repulse Bay, a small village in the Northwest Territories. His family followed the traditional Inuit life-style, traveling by dogteam, living in igloos in the winter and tents in the summer. He had no access to books as a child, and didn't speak a word of English until he was seven years old. "Every night my grandma would tell us a story to put us to sleep."

In 1955, a floatplane whisked Kusugak off to a residential school in Chesterfield Inlet. "When you're seven years old and hauled away from your parents, it's very hard. I cried the whole year I was