Review Of Mini Aodla Freeman's Life Among The Qallunaat

In Life Among the Qallunaat, Mini Aodla Freeman writes about the controversial topic of residential schools. At the time of the novel’s first publication, public awareness and concern about Indigenous rights were growing. However, Aodla Freeman’s description of residential schools is surprisingly mild, especially compared with the stories of injustice that are associated with the system. At school, Mini was required to attend church services and do chores like all the other students. There is little to indicate that Mini suffered due to the residential school system, though we learn from her interview that she wishes she had written badly about the system. Instead, she focuses on her homesickness and her peer relationships: “I was so alone – so many lonely moments when chores and classes were slack.” She describes prolonging her chores so “I could be me, the girl me parents had

Aodla Freeman’s treatment of the residential school system is especially interesting due to the book’s distribution history and modern perception of residential schools.

Aodla Freeman often describes her experiences without mentioning some of the powerful forces that affected the Inuit in the twentieth century such as government intervention or health crises. This memoir doesn’t act as a commentary on the changes affect Inuit communities in the twentieth century but this can cause some confusion as to what created the circumstances for some of these experiences. At some point during