{"id":226170,"date":"2019-08-08T20:54:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T00:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=226170"},"modified":"2019-08-09T02:18:14","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T06:18:14","slug":"inuk-woman-bikes-across-canada-to-raise-awareness-about-indigenous-suicides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/08\/08\/inuk-woman-bikes-across-canada-to-raise-awareness-about-indigenous-suicides\/","title":{"rendered":"Inuk woman bikes across Canada to raise awareness about Indigenous suicides"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tooktoo, 24, started her journey in Victoria without knowing if she would be able to finish. Eight weeks later, she arrived in Montreal’s downtown Cabot Square square to cheers and applause from supporters. (File Photo<\/a>: Hannah’s Journey Across Canada\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL \u2014 Hannah Tooktoo, an Inuk mother from Nunavik, Que., descended from her bike Thursday, 55 days after pedalling across the country to raise awareness to the suicides that are ravaging her community.<\/p>\n

Tooktoo, 24, started her journey in Victoria without knowing if she would be able to finish. Eight weeks later, she arrived in Montreal’s downtown Cabot Square square to cheers and applause from supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been really good for me \u2014 for my body, for my soul,\u201d said the visual arts student from Montreal’s Dawson College. She called her tour, \u201cAnirnimi Kipisina,\u201d which means \u201cDo not cut your life short \u201c in Inuktitut.<\/p>\n

Tooktoo has so far raised $22,531 from online donors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m good, I’m very strong right now,\u201d she said. \u201cMy body feels good. My legs are good. I feel really good. In the last years, this is the best shape I’ve been in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three days before she arrived in Montreal, Sylvie D’Amours, Quebec’s minister for Indigenous affairs, said what’s happening in the province’s Far North is \u201cvery, very worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Nunavik alone, a massive territory home to 14 communities numbering about 13,000 people, 19 people \u2014 including five children \u2014 killed themselves during the first half of this year, according to a July report by Montreal La Presse.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the total number of suicides in Nunavik was 36, according to the news organization.<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada released a report in June that stated from 2011 to 2016, suicide rates among First Nations people were three times higher than among the non-Indigenous population.<\/p>\n

But among the Inuit, \u201cthe rate was approximately nine times higher than the non-Indigenous rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tooktoo said she travelled through cities and many Indigenous communities along her trip. She said she was surprised at first by the welcome she received.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don’t want to talk about suicide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a heavy subject, it’s personal. A lot of people have been affected by suicide, a lot of Indigenous and Inuit people especially, and I wanted to talk about that and they were very welcoming and very open, which was a beautiful surprise for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she first started, Tooktoo said she would walk into band council offices and had to explain her project. Officials would make time for her. Sometimes over lunch, other times \u201cright then and there we would talk about their community.\u201d<\/p>\n

But more towards the end of her trip, people were waiting for her to arrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey saw my tour and they’re like: ‘I’m here, let me make an event!’ And they made an event all on their own \u2014 no prompting from me. It’s been a privilege to be able to speak to them and to listen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tooktoo said she was at times discouraged when the terrain got tough. At one point she began crying in the mountains of British Columbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a point where I was going uphill in British Columbia and I was going like five kilometres per hour and looking at the beautiful view, I started crying from being thankful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And the tears came back when she arrived home, because she saw her three-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter’s been missing me a lot and I’ve been missing her too,\u201d Tooktoo said. \u201cSince we’ve been reunited, she’s been stuck to my side for the last few days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 Hannah Tooktoo, an Inuk mother from Nunavik, Que., descended from her bike Thursday, 55 days after pedalling across …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":226171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,54365,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-instagram","category-news","mauthors-pierre-saint-arnaud","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226173,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170\/revisions\/226173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}