For decades, Inuit were sent to Quebec City for tuberculosis treatment. Many never came home

WARNING: This article contains details of abuse.

With a suppressed sob, Mary Tuktudjuk says she has thought about her father all her life.

Decades ago, he was among a number of Inuit patients who were brought south to be treated for tuberculosis at Parc Savard Hospital, a former sanatorium in Quebec City, and never returned home.

Standing in the gardens outside the National Assembly, Tuktudjuk’s daughter Rebecca put her arm around her mother and said she hoped this trip would help.

Tuktudjuk is part of a delegation of community members, half from Nunavik and half from Nunavut, who traveled to Quebec City for a memorial visit organized by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and Makivvik Corporation – the legal representatives of the Inuit in the two regions.

Coinciding with National Indigenous Peoples Day, the delegation visited the cemetery where some Inuit were buried, the location of the former sanatorium and the port where Inuit were brought in by boat.

Luisa Taqulik wiped tears from her eyes as they drove past the grounds of the former sanatorium.

Decades ago, they were forced to leave their home in Kangirsuk, Nunavik, and taken south to recover from a bacterial infection.

But they never came back.

“They died alone. I have so many mixed feelings. I never met them, but I’m so happy I came here,” Taqulik said, choking up.

“At least I saw where they went.”

LOOK | How the visit helps an elderly person understand what happened to her father:

Inuit elder couldn’t stop thinking about her late father after he was sent south for tuberculosis treatment

Mary Tuktudjuk was part of a delegation from Nunavik and Nunavut that visited Quebec City to honor those who died after traveling south for tuberculosis treatment over three decades.

‘Horrible, traumatic history’

The visit was intended to provide closure for families, Naomi Tatty said.

On Thursday, Tatty gave a presentation to the senior group about tuberculosis awareness as part of the SeeChange Initiative.

When the sanitarium facilities for the Inuit first opened, she notes that there was very little understanding of what was happening in the hospitals that were there. throughout Canada.

She says patients were often stripped of their culture, abused and some children were even chained to the walls to prevent them from running around.

“It’s just a horrific, traumatic history that’s been passed down from generation to generation,” Tatty says.

“These stories are finally being heard after all these years. At least it starts somewhere.”

She says the Quebec City sanitarium hosted Inuit patients for nearly three decades, from the 1940s to the 1970s. While they are still searching the archives to find out how many people were sent to the facility, she says it could be in the thousands.

‘Made me feel like I never belonged’

Annie Augiak and her brother were among them.

She was just a toddler when she was transported on the CD Howe – a medical ship docked in Quebec City.

When she finally returned home four years later, she said she did not speak Inuktitut and, along with her family, needed an interpreter.

“I had no connection with my parents. I only spoke English and it made me feel like I had to relearn the whole Inuktitut, my culture and my tradition,” Augiak said.

“It made me feel like I never belonged.”

Augiak joined the delegation this week to pay respects to her brother, who is buried in Quebec City.

52 Inuit buried in Quebec City cemetery

Upon arrival in Quebec City, the Inuit were given numbers, says Joanasie Akumalik.

“We were given E numbers because we had no identification,” Akumalik said.

He says people from the High Arctic were given the number E5 and people in Nunavik were identified as E8 or E9.

As a project manager at Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Akumalik works for the Nanilavut Initiative, which aims to find the graves of Inuit who never returned home after traveling south for tuberculosis treatment.

He has searched databases to identify people and help answer families’ questions

About six months ago, Makivvik called him and said they had found Inuit buried in Mount Hermon Cemetery in Quebec City. A total of 52 Inuit are buried there, in largely unmarked graves, he says.

“About 99 percent of the time when we go to the cemeteries where Inuit are buried, there are no markers. Because we don’t have markers for Inuit who are buried, it’s very difficult,” Akumalik said.

“We also found that sometimes there were two or three coffins in one capsule when they were buried, and that’s not right.”

He says some people don’t learn what happened to their family until decades later.

“My wife told me, ‘Joanasie, when you go to the cemetery, when you find Inuit graves, you are releasing the soul of these Inuit.’ [who is] buried in the south to heaven,” he said.

“We are making sure that the family members know and that the souls of these individuals are visited.”

One woman was only three or four years old when her mother left and she never knew why, Akumalik said.

“This is the actual cemetery where she is. So we brought that daughter here and she’s about 70 years old,” Akumalik said.

Monument unveiled in honor of those buried in unmarked graves

On Friday, Adamie Veevee was among delegates who unveiled a monument engraved with the names of Inuit buried in the cemetery.

Veevee’s mother has one of the few marked Inuit graves in the area. It is located right next to the new monument and was decorated with white roses.

The 73-year-old traveled all the way from Pangnirtung, Nunavut, for the visit and leaned over the white cross and marveled at a moth resting on its edge.

He still remembers the day his 24-year-old mother, Mary, was forced to record the Howe CD on her way to Quebec City.

When he was just six years old, he says he grabbed her.

‘He cried so much that he…[was] I’m going to miss his mother,” said Adamie Veevee’s wife, Candance, who translated his story into English.

“He was all alone.”

Nearly seventy years later, as community members mourned similar losses, Veevee held back tears as she sang along to a hymn – finally able to honor those who never received a proper burial.

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