The word “community” is one that might bring several different meanings and/or examples of societal construction to your mind. To me it means a group of people who have common interests. However, it isn’t just the existence of these common interests that binds people into a community; it’s their REALIZATION that they share these interests and their ATTEMPT to communicate and cooperate with one another. And when I think about this, I wonder if the feeling of real community in contemporary North American society isn’t in danger of becoming a thing of the past. I mean, these days it seems that we communicate better with one another over email or the Internet around the world about various common interests, yet can’t talk with people in our neighbourhoods about things that concern us. Do you find?

Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that a place with a sense of community is not only desirable to all of us, but something that we can all intuit when we are new to a town. For this reason, I think that hamlets, cities, towns, etc. that give a feeling of community are sacred. And therefore there is something here worth examining in the context of the Searching for Dragons project.

In the project, if we’re looking at the way the humans relate to nature and place, then we must not only look at the places where humans connect spiritually with the land, but also why our spirits come to be so connected with any place, whether it be a mountain range or a city block.

But what is the magic formula by which we can create a good community? Part of it has to be infrastructure, planning, and design – especially for larger communities; yet, the existence of these things does not guarantee instant community. I would go so far as to say that those things are just the window dressings of healthy communities, and that without the existence of certain intangible and qualitative variables the community is doomed. What are the variables? People who care about the wellbeing of the people they live with. Sometimes they are in positions of influence, and other times they are simply those who command respect because of their experience or wisdom.

Again, perhaps what I’m saying here is intuitive to us, but I honestly never gave the issue of community much thought until our second visit to Aklavik. It was then that we had the chance to have extended and meaningful chats with two people who make Aklavik a strong community: school principle Velma Illasiak and elder Mary Kendi.

We can all understand that education of the next generation is so important, yet often many of the educational systems in place have a way of perpetuating certain problems among students as well as sucking the spirits of its teachers and administrators. As the principle of Moose Kerr School, Velma strives not only to make the environment for learning at school the best it can be (even as that ideal continually evolves), but also is not afraid to challenge the system to achieve that. By doing this she creates dynamic conditions that benefit the 151 K to12 students, the staff, and herself as well.

(photo: Here Velma is seen seated in her office. Behind her is a photo of former school principle "Moose" Kerr and his wife. Moose was a visionary for his time, and Velma is his heir. In a telephone conversation Moose, now retired and living in Ottawa, asked Velma "Where were you 30 years ago?")

What makes me say this? Many native communities have social problems, and many of those problems stem from the loss of their traditional culture – this doesn’t necessarily mean their traditional way of life (though that is a factor) but just knowledge of their culture before satellite TV, before snowmobiles, before residential schools, etc… Velma is trying to help her students bridge the gap between the realities of contemporary native culture and its history. Velma also wants to make every student buy into the kind of responsibilities and duties that transcend the school walls into the community. To do this she establishes goals and explains to the older students (grades 7-12) how those goals impact them. Making education more like a partnership between staff, students, parents, and the community. It also gives students the respect that they deserve, but which few of us ever learn to do.

Another initiative undertaken by Velma several years ago to strengthen the bond between the students and the community around them was to ask a council of elders from the town’s three native cultures (Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, and Métis) to established values to be instilled in the students. The council agreed upon seven principle values that help to create a positive social environment at the school: caring and humility, friendliness and kindness, respect, honesty and integrity, love and regard for your fellow man, sharing, and self-responsibility. These values and their purpose were then engraved in plaques and mounted at the main entrance where they are impossible not to glance at. And, would you believe? The students listened!

Velma is what all community leaders should be and what all members of any community should try to emulate: not just a manager of the present, but a steward of the future.

Another key element of a strong community is the visibility of its elders. You don’t have to be a genius to see that a connection to and an understanding of the past is essential to the success of the future. For the younger generation, that connection comes through our grandparents.

Many native communities face an upward battle when trying to preserve oral traditions mostly because of the impact of TV. Their battle is one that we all need to be fighting. In much of Western culture we often shunt the old into homes, bringing them out at opportune times like war memorial days, Christmas or similar big holidays. Furthermore our culture is now rife with a fear of aging; we are not allowed to grow old, but must fight against its physical and mental effects to make sure that we are taken seriously and not like doddering old fools. In some ways I think part of the problem is also that many of our elders, after so much experience, can become jaded or unmotivated to stand up and command the attention they deserve. Mary Kendi does NOT fall into this category.

(photo: Mary Kendi told Dan and I to call her je-joo (not so sure about spelling) which means grandmother in Gwich'in. Here we are with our je-joo.)

Despite her lack of mobility, at 91 years old Mary is still fully involved in her local community, as well as the larger community of the Gwich’in people. I cannot fully convey how it blows me away that outsiders like Dan and me could simply go and talk with her on camera for three hours, as we did, and have her not so much answer specific questions, but just tell us about her experiences. (And believe me! Three hours could have just as easily turned into 4 or 5 days!).

What did she talk about? For example, the first time she set a rabbit snare. She was about 12 and didn’t really have a clue, but her mother told her too. So she went obeyed, but ended up just playing. She lied to her mother, that she had set one trap. Giggles erupt from Mary at the memory.

Another topic was her arranged marriage to her husband. She didn’t really even know anything about the man, except that he was a hard worker - a very important trait when living in the bush. How did she know this? Why, because he had creased and wrinkled pants! A bushman with pressed pants was obviously not a hard worker! Ladies please take note: Dan and I both have wrinkled pants.

Mary talked about her husband’s death and raising her 7 children alone. She talked about how she would take her youngest children into the bush with her hunting and fishing and teach them by example. She talked about residential schools. She talked about close calls on thin ice. She talked about youth losing their connection to the land.

The most amusing anecdote she gave was about the first time she saw and heard a radio. She was in the bush, and a trapper brought a radio and a battery by dog sled. He set it up in their tent and placed the aerial in a tree, and then turned it on. When she heard the voices coming through she said that she thought it was people coming from Fairbanks (Alaska), and she tried to get the trapper to turn it off so that they wouldn't find them. However, when she understood how it worked she split her sides laughing. And again, the memory of this made her laugh again.

Finally, Mary told us a story about a time she went hunting caribou with no bullets. Most of the story we couldn’t understand because she told it to us in Gwich’in, but just to hear her speak those foreign words to us purposefully and without interruption, seemed like a tremendous privilege. When we are able to learn this way from our elders our lives are enriched beyond measurement.

These two amazing women are part of the reason that Aklavik just feels like a solid community. Not a place that is free of problems, but rather a place where the wisdom and leadership exist to deal with and solve problems. We all need to hold people like Velma and Mary in our minds as we go about our day wherever we live. We need to pay attention to, support, and emulate them if we want to have a healthy community.