Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in 1983, I was elected as the president of the Dene Nation. That was in September of 1983. There was coverage of the election across Canada on CBC TV, radio and in some of the newspapers.
A few days after I took office, I was in the office of the Dene Nation. Two of the secretaries who worked in the Dene Nation office knocked on the door and asked, with a rather amused look on their face, if I knew a Ms. Victoria Douglas from Vancouver. They said she was on the phone and she says she knows you. I was surprised and excited about it. I said yes, I know her. She used to be my kindergarten teacher. I would like to talk to her. They said sure, as if they were rather amused at this explanation I gave for this call from a lady in Vancouver. Obviously, Victoria Douglas had read an article in the newspaper and decided to call me.
Mr. Speaker, we met in the summer of 1955. At the time, she was 33 years old and married with two children. I was four-and-a-half years old. She had come to teach in Fort Good Hope while her husband, Jim Douglas, worked at the radio station, or the communications station, with the army signal corps. Her youngest son, David, was three-and-a-half years old at the time. David and I became best friends during the years they were there, from 1955 until 1958. This was a time when my mother was hospitalized in Aklavik. It was those three years that Victoria Douglas and her family came to live in Fort Good Hope.
During many parts of those three years, I spent a lot of my time at the Douglas residence playing and visiting David after school until my father came to take me home after work. Victoria helped my family by taking care of me for parts of those days. The first year, 1955, both David and I, because there was no one to keep us either at his home or mine, literally just hung around the school while his mother taught and my father worked as a janitor in the school. Apparently, the second year that David was there, he and I were in something called kindergarten, whatever that meant back in Fort Good Hope in those days. It was non-existent, but this is what his mother had said.
The winters were bitter cold back then and our own little home was cozy when our woodstove was blazing, but the floor was always cold. My father worked all day at the school and cooked for us and made sure we had enough wood to keep warm. Someone had to haul and cut the wood, wash and mend the clothes, cook and clean the house. There was too much for my father to do by himself and many of our relatives and friends helped out, but I remember those years that everybody faced hardship. In fact, those were the years when there was no caribou to be found. The trapping industry had bottomed out.
As well, many of the families had mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles and grandparents away at distant hospitals being treated for tuberculosis, many of them for one to three years at a stretch. In the summer and fall, we would haul water by pail from the creek below our house. In the winter, we hauled snow and blocks of ice for a supply of water. Wood was always a problem. Even after my father bought a small oil-burning heater for our log home, we still needed wood for our wood-burning stove to do our cooking and to keep our house warm enough, especially during the cold months of the winter.
When my father was home, he would make sure the gasoline lanterns were full and lit so that our home would be bright. Otherwise, when we were alone, we lit candles until he came home.
During those dark, cold months of those winters, the school, as I remember it, where Victoria Douglas taught and where my father worked, was an exceptionally warm and brightly lit place, a great place to play where the floors were warm.
The house where Victoria Douglas lived, where I visited and played during those years with her son David, was also a warm, brightly lit place and a fun place to be. That house still stands today in Fort Good Hope on the hillside by the river facing south towards the ramparts. David and his older brother Bobby had toys, lots of toys, and comics. I remember there seemed to be toys and comics everywhere. Every room was an adventure. The school and Victoria's house were warm, safe and fun places to be.
My grandparents' log home was also a great place to visit. There was always a fire going, food cooking and the smell of pipe tobacco in the air. It was a great, safe place, but no toys and no comics.
My father's young sister, my Aunt Bella, worked for a while as a nanny and a housekeeper for the Douglas family, which gave me even more reason to hang around and spend time at the Douglas residence.
Victoria, her husband and her boys left Fort Good Hope in 1958. Bobby was born in 1946. David was born in Fort Smith in 1950. Mark was born in Aklavik while the family lived in Fort Good Hope in 1956. I often used to wonder where they went and what kind of people they turned out to be and if I would ever see them again. Were they the good people I remembered in my memories?
I always wanted to see Victoria again so I could tell her how special she was in my life and to thank her for her kindness at a time when I needed someone to be there. I wanted to see David again to tell him how many great memories I had of our friendship and our adventures together as young boys so long ago.
In March of 1998, I contacted a fellow who had retired from the armed forces, a Ken Slater from Edmonton, who had spoken on CBC Radio about his time during his service in the Northwest Territories in the late 1940s. Mr. Slater passed on photos to me at that time of his time in Fort Good Hope. As well, he helped me contact Victoria Douglas. I found her in June of that year, 40 years after she left Fort Good Hope. She was 76 and in the hospital, the George Pearson Hospital in Vancouver, with Lou Gehrig's disease. We had our first visit that month of June. She was quite ill, but still looked beautiful and more like 40, not 76.
We talked for about three hours and had enough time to tell each other our life stories. I visited as well with David and his younger brother, Mark. I met their wives, Judy and Karen, and I also met their children. They plan to visit Yellowknife and Fort Good Hope this summer, and they will be working with me on a project to present photos and home movies that would be converted to a VHS format to donate to the people of the Northwest Territories those things that they have collected in the form of pictures, photos, and film during the time they lived in the Northwest Territories.
I visited Victoria as often as I could over the next two-and-a-half years as she slowly lost her ability to speak and move. I saw her on June 24th last year for the last time as I went to Vancouver to say goodbye to her. I told her I would remember her and speak of her in this Assembly as the little boy from Fort Good Hope she had so positively influenced so many years ago, and to thank her, in front of all of you and everyone in the Northwest Territories.
She was my first teacher, a friend and a supporter, and the mother of my best friend. I promised her that I would make certain that this contribution that I felt she made would be made part of the permanent record of this Assembly. I wanted her to know she had made a difference, and to answer the question that was asked of me in 1983. Yes, I knew of Victoria Douglas, and it has made me a better person for that.
Mr. Speaker, earlier this week there was a commentary in a radio show by a teacher, Mike, who spoke about all of his ambitions and how much he wanted to make a difference in the lives of the students, in the families, and the community he was teaching in. It was a touching piece on the radio in the morning. He compelled me to finish writing this article, because I wanted to say to the teachers and social workers, the nurses, doctors, caregivers and all of the people out there who give so much of themselves daily and find something inside of themselves, being able to reach out to those in need.
To the people who find it in their hearts to show compassion for those in need, I thank you. You do make a difference. I hope all of the little people whose lives you touched have the same opportunity as I had, in my special way, to say thank you. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Thank you.
-- Applause
