> MONEY STORIES

In the context of our focus on the introduction of capitalism into the Canadian Arctic, one of our first initiatives was to ask Inuit members of the community to respond to the question, "Do you remember the first time you earned money?" Ruby Arngna'naaq suggested that the five members of the project Collective should also address that question, so as part of our daily work in the drop-in centre in Baker Lake, we each wrote short texts recounting our first memories of earning money.

RUBY ARNGNA'NAAQ  |  JACK BUTLER  |  SHEILA BUTLER  |  PATRICK MAHON  |  WILLIAM NOAH

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!!! Inuktitut translations of Jack Butler's, Sheila Bulter's and Patrick Mahon's are stories are also available online. Please click the corresponding link to access the images of the text written in Inuktatuk. Please give the pages time to load (each page approx. 500K). Page will load in a separate window.

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FIRST MEMORIES OF “COLD CASH”
Ruby Arngna'naaq

Shiny coin
My first memory of coin /money and what it can achieve was confusing. Enroute to my home from passing awake hours of the day I found a metal object which was of value to “white” people. It was close to The Hudson’s Bay Company’s building, therefore I decided to show it to the clerk who might know who owned it. When I shoed it to him, I also told him that I found it just outside and asked him to return it. I knew no English and his Inuktitut was limited, he misunderstood and directed me to what I would like to have. I shook my head and attempted once more to tell him that this thing was not mine and that I was just returning it. He was beginning to be amused, I became shy and just decided that I would take a candy. Whether it was gum, candy and or chocolate I don’t remember but I do remember telling my mother what happened. My mother heard my story and started to light up the primus stove and I noticed that we were running out of matches. As a result I said to my mother: “Oh, I should have asked for matches instead eh.” My mother smiled which meant to me that we could just enjoy my reward – sweet and delicious candy. One bubblegum.

Us children were enjoying helping our families move, walking back and forth from old to new campsite carrying personal and other’s tents belongings. A cousin and I were picking up the last few items when I hear her scream with delight. I ran over to her as she screamed: “I found one bubble gum!” I knew I would have a share in her treasure. She held up a copper coin which at the time would buy 2 bubblegum! We both squealed in delight. Even now I relish the joy that we had shared and even the beautiful day and sigh.

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SELLING FLOWER SEEDS DOOR-TO-DOOR: MY EARLIEST MEMORY OF MONEY
Jack Butler

!!! Inuktitut translation !!!

I must have been seven or eight years old in the spring of the year I first attempted to pass the second grade. My Irish parental grandfather, Jack Butler, after whom I was named, had taught me how to plant a garden the summer before. The smell of the newly turned over sod in a corner of the back yard and the feel of hot concrete as I sat on the garage steps is alive in me still. I remember our preparing the soil and planting rows of seeds - radishes, carrots, and a row of flowers called Four O’Clocks that I especially loved because their blossoms opened mysteriously every afternoon about four o’clock and closed again at about eight o’clock in the evening. By the next morning the little pink, yellow and sometimes striped inverted umbrella-like flowers had fallen off their stalks, leaving behind a large globe-shaped green seed that soon dried to a shiny black. These seeds were easy to collect. I saved them by the dozens to plant the following March.

I must have gone to a lot of houses because I remember being many blocks away from home. At first I said almost nothing when neighbours opened their doors. I just stood there holding up my envelope of seeds. But by the second spring I became a good talker and sold my entire collection of seeds for a total revenue of about two dollars. I don’t remember exactly what I did with the money. I think my grandfather saved it for me until I had an idea of what I wanted to buy; something that he thought was worth all the effort I had put into the project. If I recall correctly, the first year I bought a season pass to the local swimming pool and the second year I bought red, white and blue crêpe paper to decorate my scooter for the Memorial Day parade.

When all was said and done, I believe my grandfather taught me several good lessons in economics: gardening for profit, how to talk to potential clients, sales, saving and the value of money.These lessons about money affected me deeply, I am sure, because they are so richly flavoured by the love I felt for my grandfather, the special time he spent with me teaching me how to plant a garden and about the mysterious ways of the Four O'Clock flowers.

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MY FIRST MEMORIES OF MONEY
Sheila Butler

!!! Inuktitut translation !!!

When I was about seven years old, my father gave me twenty-five cents and told me that he was giving it to me as my allowance for the week. I was surprised and pleased and I felt important. I went to the corner store and spent my whole allowance on a Wonder Woman comic book and some candy. Soon my father found out that my allowance lasted only one day; he told me that he was disappointed in me. I felt especially bad since I was close to my father from the time I was a child. Both my brothers had blue eyes like my mother's family, but I had brown eyes like my father and this always seemed like a special bond. I felt ashamed and I realized that I didn’t really know what an “allowance” meant. No-one explained this word to me, but judging from what my father said, I figured out that a person who had an allowance of money was supposed to spend the money slowly over a certain period of time. At that time, when I was only seven years old, I also didn’t understand the concept of a “week” very well either. I couldn’t remember when a “week” started and ended.

Even earlier, when I was five years old, I started school in grade one since there was no kindergarden at that time. This was 1943 when World War II was happening in Europe and people were encouraged by the government to contribute money toward government war bonds to help with the expenses required to fight the war. Even though we little children didn’t understand what this was about, we were supposed to bring money to school once a week to contribute to the government war effort. My mother gave me twenty-five cents each week to take to school. Each student was given a little blank book and every time you donated money the teacher gave you a small stamp to paste into your book, until every page was covered with stamps. Some children brought more money than I did. What I remember most about war bond money is my constant fear that I would lose my money on the way to school.

While I was in grades one and two, my mother suffered greatly from emotional anxiety. Many times she was even afraid to leave the house. I was the oldest child so my mother often sent me to the corner store to buy things like bread or milk. She wrote a note saying what she wanted so that I wouldn’t have to remember, but I worried about losing the money or losing the change on the way back home. Sometimes my mother said that I could buy myself a piece of candy too.

When I was eleven years old I began my first job to earn money. I worked as a regular baby sitter for two families. I took care of the children in the evenings when the parents went out for social occasions. These people were friends of my mother’s and she arranged the babysitting employment for me. I read stories to the children and played games and helped them to make drawings until it was time to put them to bed. I enjoyed this and really came to love the children I cared for. I also liked the independence of having my own spending money and not having to ask my parents for money all the time.

This is the history of my early employment, and from the time of the drugstore job I have almost always earned money at various jobs. It took me a long time to learn how to make my pay last for a whole month without running out of money but now I’m pretty good at it.

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PATRICK'S MONEY STORY
Patrick Mahon

!!! Inuktitut translation !!!

My recollections of early experiences with money are probably like those of many middle class people born in the late 1950’s in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As a young child, my “allowance” was earned by performing various household chores such as cleaning my room or cutting the grass once a week. I remember being rewarded with a dime each Saturday, which I would quickly spend on penny candy or a chocolate bar, (valued at exactly 10 cents around 1964 when I was seven), at the local drugstore.

Several of my earliest experiences with money involved earning it in the cold. Because a well-shoveled sidewalk was an important requirement of homeowners in suburban Winnipeg at the time, at nine years old I secured “contracts” to keep the snow cleared from the walkways in front of the homes of some of our older neighbours. On a given morning following a particularly heavy snowfall, I could be found pushing the white stuff off the pavement in front of one house and then another -- and perhaps another -- before heading to school. I do not recall being particularly affected by these jobs, except in one instance. A doctor who lived on our street (I believe he was the health inspector for the city, who had the wonderful name of “Dr. Roper Cadham”) had asked that I “check on the house” when I came to do the walk during a period when he and his wife were away. Although I was unsure what “checking on the house” really meant or what I would do if I found anything amiss, I nevertheless set about using my key for the doctor’s house to let myself into that warm quiet place to do what at eleven years old I thought I was being paid to do. Once inside, I would pass through the darkened rooms, scan the walls lined with family photos, and peer into the shadowy recesses of the bedrooms. I was a paid detective on a reconnaissance mission filled with the potential for excitement and that provided a few moments of respite from heaving shovelfulls of dry white snow onto the ever-growing mounds that lined the Winnipeg streets.