Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I wish to make a statement on literacy and the need to be able to communicate properly in any language. In days gone by, many people were not given the opportunity to learn to read and write and therefore had to make do with whatever means were available at the time to get their message across. This applied to whatever form of business you were in, be it a trapper or a trader.
Let me give you an example in story form. In the last century, 1920 to 1940, when trapping was in its full glory, you could get $60 for a white fox and up to $2,000 for a silver fox. There were many traders operating in the western and central Arctic, including what were known as free traders.
The free traders operated as agents for the larger companies such as The Bay and CanAlaska Trading Company. Some were full-blood Inuit, others were of mixed blood. One such aboriginal free trader operated a store with the help of a white trapper. Although the white trapper was literate, the Inuit was not. Therefore, it fell on the white trapper to place the annual sealift order for more supplies.
One year, the trapper was not available to do this, but he left instructions with the Inuit as to how to place the order. His advice was to simply copy the writing off the boxes of goods and write down the quantity needed. When the order was received by the supplier, in this case CanAlaska Trading Company, among other things ordered were:
- • Four "keep lid down while playing";
- • Forty-eight cases, "this side up"; and
- • Twenty cases of "handle with care".
Mr. Speaker, one might well ask if the supplier was ever able to fill the order. I am told the supplier, who was based in San Francisco, was able to determine the order for the four items labelled "keep lid down while playing" were, in fact, four RCA hand-wound gramophones. This order was a sure sign that the local economy was booming, as these were high-tech electronic gadgets of the day that only the well-to-do could afford.
However, to this day...