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COPYRIGHT 2003 Canadian Geographic Enterprises
MARIE GEORGETTE MISTINAPEAU works hard to keep her graffiti-scarred home tidy. Plastic bags filled with clothing hang in an orderly row from nails along the bedroom wall, and the living room and kitchen, though sparsely furnished, are swept and clean. The only source of heat is a small wood stove that must battle winter temperatures of -35[degrees]C. And like most houses in this community. there is no running water or sewer--no sink, bathtub or toilet--only a honey bucket in a closet-sized room. Water for drinking and washing must be fetched daily in pails from a well at the opposite side of town. Marie Georgette's husband Edward tosses the grey contents of the honey bucket outside, where it joins a sluggish stream already choked with broken toys, human feces and rotting fish as it trickles across one of two main roads that run the length of Davis Inlet in northern Labrador.
In her 60 years, Marie Georgetre has seen much tragedy. Three of her eight children have died--one committed suicide in the house--and she has watched her proud hunter-gatherer people, the Mushuau Innu (pronounced MOO-shwa IN-noo), descend into despair and poverty. In her uninsulated shanty in the shadow of "Sniffer Hill," where youngsters go to inhale gas fumes from plastic bags, she still cares for some of the 19 foster children she has raised, youngsters abandoned by troubled parents. But sitting on a sagging bed, smoothing the faded quilt with worn hands, she sways with happiness. "Our new home will be in a better place," she says. "We will have water coming right into the house. And it will be warm there for my children."
Most Canadians first heard of Davis Inlet in 1992, when six children died in a house fire while their parents were drinking with neighbours. The following year, a group of gas-sniffing youngsters who had barricaded themselves into a shack to commit suicide were discovered just in time. The shocking video taken by a local Innu police officer that shows them screaming, "Leave me alone, I want to die!" reached into living rooms across the country on the evening news. "Davis" became a heart-rending symbol of aboriginal degradation and a national embarrassment. But for the 550 or so Innu residents of this isolated island halfway up the Labrador coast, this was nothing new; for three decades, they had been beset by family violence, sexual and substance abuse and one of the world's highest suicide rates.
In September, however, there was an excited buzz throughout the squalid town. Everyone was talking about the new community. "We're seeing less sniffing going on, less crime than usual," noted RCMP Corporal Frank Gallagher. "People are definitely feeling upbeat." Fifteen kilometres west, on the mainland, a state-of-the-art community was sprouting in the wilderness for the residents of Davis Inlet. The Innu say the new town was a promise made long ago that is finally being honoured.
Natuashish (NAH-TWA-sheesh) was still a construction site four months ago, and most residents without boats had yet to see the school, nursing station, community police building or their own new homes. They would descend on the waterfront to grill returning visitors: "Did you see my house?" "Is the school done?" and always, "Do you think they'll finish everything in time?"
Moving was scheduled for December 14, a...
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