- That night, I realized that trying to control everything with my lofty principles from university was pointless. Faced with a dead end, accepting that I could no longer control everything made way for the magic of the unexpected.
- This experience forced me to set aside my “expert” stance. In Kangiqsualujjuaq, the solution didn’t come from my theoretical knowledge, but from the village itself—from its young people, its family ties, and a healthy dose of humility.
- Before that hare, I was a nervous young counselor who feared the unknown. Afterward, I became a professional capable of trusting the process, knowing full well that a solution always eventually presents itself, even in the most absurd way.
I receive a call on the emergency cell phone from a mother who is worried about her 10-year-old child, who still hasn’t come home. It’s around 10 p.m., and I’m the on-call social worker in a village in Nunavik, in the far north of Quebec.
At the time, I had just graduated from university and was working in youth protection in a postcolonial context with the Inuit people. The mother in question was one of the clients I was assigned to, and our relationship of trust was still tenuous. It’s also worth noting that I had only been in that village for five months.
I get out of bed, get ready quickly, and start up the red nursing Jeep, known in the community as “the social services van.” I make a turn or two and spot the young child in front of a four-unit apartment building with a few people of various ages. I pull over, and before I even have time to get out of the car, he takes off, darting between the houses. He might have been only 10 years old, but he had the intuition of someone much older with a lot of life experience!
I quietly get out of the car and lean against the curb: “What am I doing here? How am I going to take this child to his mother?”
Barely a few minutes pass before a group of young men—probably teenagers—heads in my direction. I remind myself: it’s late at night, I haven’t met many people since I arrived in the village, and I brace myself for the worst.
“Are you looking for Johnny?” one of them asks me in English.
I don't answer in the affirmative, trying to uphold professional secrecy and confidentiality. But in a small village like Kangiqsualujjuaq, word gets around despite our best efforts.
That said, these young men set out to find the boy, and all I could tell them was to avoid physically restraining him, scaring him, or threatening him until I arrived.
About fifteen minutes later, there I was with young Johnny, along with five or six teenagers who had come to my rescue. I tried my best to convince him to come with me back to his mother's house… do you think he complied?
Not at all! He walks away, realizing that I won’t physically stop him. So I walk alongside him and try to reason with him. I told you it was a small village, right? Well, we run into another young boy, about twelve years old, who tells me he’s Johnny’s uncle and tries to help me convince his nephew to go back to his mother.
Despite the unexpected help I received that evening, despair crept in slowly but surely, and all I could think about was that I would have to spend the night on my feet with this young man, since there was no other option…
Suddenly, a little fur ball—quite round, actually—dashed off in front of us and disappeared between the houses.
They immediately chase after the animal, which I quickly realized was a Arctic hare. Since the village is in the mountains, we end up on our stomachs, crawling toward a slope where the hare had stopped. One of the boys throws a rock at it, causing it to run off again, and we lose sight of it.
We get up, and I ask him if he’s ready to go back to his mother’s house, which he agrees to. I end up in my bed around midnight, staring blankly at the ceiling, wondering what just happened.
To this day, this story never ceases to amaze me. Every time I tell it, I have a hard time believing it myself, since it still seems unreal to me even today.
You know what? That event was the first in a series of events that taught me to let go: it’s not worth panicking when a situation seems hopeless, because a way out will inevitably present itself.
**The name “Johnny” is fictitious to protect privacy.**