Looks Like Daylight by Deborah Ellis Page A

me because I’d be quiet and always did my chores.
    My younger siblings all got adopted together. I was too old to be adopted, but I’m glad they have a proper home now, with good people.
    Moving around so much is really hard. Every new foster home has rules you have to learn — both spoken and unspoken. I’d get very angry, but I’d try not to show it because I wouldn’t want the foster parents to get a bad impression of me. I’d often have to change to a new school when I got a new foster home. After a while I stopped even trying to make friends.
    My workers changed all the time too. I’d have to keep explaining my life to a new person, over and over.
    Every time I got taken away from my parents, or from one foster home to another, I’d leave empty-handed. Just the clothes on my back. I’d get these comfort bags from the Children’s Aid — a little bag with pajamas, a change of underwear, stuff like that.
    I don’t get attached to things. I don’t get attached to people either. My younger siblings can say I love you, but I can’t.
    But for all that, I’m doing okay. I’m in a First Nations high school, and I’ll be able to graduate. We learn traditional things as well as academic things. It helps me feel calm and grounded.
    My plan is to go into nursing and then earn enough money to go to med school. I like science and I like helping people.
    It’s my life now. Finally. My life is mine.

Abigail, 16

    Four percent of Canada’s Indigenous people identify themselves as Inuit, a word that means People. Inuit have lived in the high Arctic for more than four thousand years, creating their lives in harsh climates — hunting, fishing and building homes from materials they had on hand.
    Nunavut makes up one-fifth of the nation of Canada. It is home to 80 percent of Inuit. Many live in overcrowded, substandard conditions, with global warming and mineral exploration making their traditional hunting and fishing nearly impossible.
    There are also communities in the southern part of Canada, primarily in Winnipeg and Ottawa.
    I met with Abigail and her friends at the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre.
    My mother was born on the land in Pangnirtung, Nunavut. It’s on Baffin Island, north of Iqaluit. It’s almost 100 percent Inuit. Very few white people there. Inuit have lived there for more than a thousand years.
    My father was born in Orillia. His background is Scottish and Irish. I’ve always lived in Ottawa.
    My niece Thai comes to this center too. She’s my niece even though she’s only one year younger. Her father was born in China.
    Thai and two of her brothers live with me and my family now. She was put into a foster home when she was young, then went back to her parents, but it wasn’t safe for her there, so my parents took the three of them in. One of her other brothers and one of her sisters were adopted into Inuit families. Two of her sisters still live with her mom and stepfather in Pangnirtung.
    It sounds really confusing, but the bottom line is that Thai and her brothers live with me and my family. It’s by the grace of God, really. They could have been split up and sent to foster homes all around Canada.
    I visited Pangnirtung a few summers ago and had a bit of culture shock. I’m used to living in the big city with many things going on. Pangnirtung is very small — maybe 1,500 people — and at first I felt kind of stranded. Behind the town is the mountains and in front of the town is the bay that leads to the ocean. And that’s it. Once you’re there, you’re there. In Ottawa, if I feel like leaving the city, I know I can hop on a train or a bus and go to Kingston or Montreal or Toronto. But in Pangnirtung there are no roads out of town. You’re just there.
    But once I got over that feeling, I really loved it. You can’t believe how beautiful it is. The mountains are amazing.