In residential school, a nun made her wear red stockings that prompted the other schoolchildren to call her 'fatty legs,' but Pokiak-Fenton devised a way to dispose of the humiliating garb. One day while driving around town, Pokiak-Fenton told Jordan-Fenton a decades-old secret. Jordan-Fenton says she wanted her children to take pride in their Inuvialuit heritage, and begged their grandmother to open up about her upbringing, but Pokiak-Fenton was tight-lipped. John, B.C., where they raised several children.Īs her children grew up, got married and gave her grandchildren, Pokiak-Fenton tried to leave the trauma of residential school in the past, says Jordan-Fenton. In her early 20s, she met her husband-to-be, Lyle Fenton, and followed him to Fort St. She struggled to speak her native language, couldn't stomach the foods she was raised on, and eventually, dropped her traditional name, Olemaun, in favour of Margaret. Then, during a break from residential school, Pokiak-Fenton's half-sister shared excerpts from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.' Eight-year-old Pokiak-Fenton begged her father to let her go to the 'outsiders' school' too, so she could learn how to read the rest of the story.Īfter two years at the Catholic institution in Aklavik, a hamlet in the Inuvik Region, Pokiak-Fenton returned to a home that no longer felt familiar. She spent her early years traversing the High Arctic with her family, going on hunting trips by dogsled and sailing the ocean for supplies in a schooner. Pokiak-Fenton was born on June 7, 1936, on Baillie Island off the north coast of Cape Bathurst in the Northwest Territories. 'They were going to eventually see themselves as their own heroes.' 'She was always really moved that children who were still going through hard times could use her story to realize that there was going to be a next chapter,' says Jordan-Fenton, who is the mother of three of Pokiak-Fenton's grandchildren. 'Fatty Legs' co-author Christy Jordan-Fenton says Pokiak-Fenton's first-hand account of resisting mistreatment in residential school is as relevant as ever as parents look for age-appropriate ways to teach their children about the harms of the government-run system.

She will be laid to rest in Fairview, Alta., this month. John, B.C., on April 21 after suffering from lung disease and diabetes. The 84-year-old died in her apartment in Fort St. More than six decades later, sharing that story with young readers in 'Fatty Legs' helped Pokiak-Fenton heal from the trauma of her time there, says a relative and collaborator. Her desire to read a children's classic sent her on the path to residential school. Inuvialuk knowledge keeper Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton knew that children's books have the power to shape your life story.

Margaret pokiak fenton