Why this Ontario resident wants to give away her Indigenous art


When Queen Elizabeth II died, messages of mourning flooded the news, but there were also calls from some citizens of former British colonies for the repatriation of treasure, the spoils of conquest by the Empire. It’s a clear-cut case of right and wrong for some; for others, it’s an uncomfortable and complex conversation, and it’s happening in places once subject to colonization, including Canada.

Author Marnie Hare Bickle of Port Hope is happy to discuss how she came to possess her collection of Inuit art and artifacts and why she wants to put it back into Inuit hands.

It was the spring of 2004, when Marnie and husband Bill Bickle found themselves tasked with clearing out an old house. The couple had purchased the 1947 home from Bill’s 91-year-old cousin, Ruth Winona Hawkins Ford, on the condition they deal with packing and disposing of the contents. It was a deal the couple happily accepted for the lovely seven-acre property in the hamlet of Canton, north of Port Hope.

Among the usual detritus of a lifetime — furniture, clothing, china and keepsakes — was a collection of Inuit art and artifacts: carvings, even a harpoon, casually displayed around the house. But it was after days of cleaning and packing when a small door leading to an attic crawl space was discovered. That’s when things got interesting.

“What writer doesn’t dream of finding a box of old letters, journals and manuscripts mouldering away in a dusty attic,” said Bickle. “I found over 300 letters, journals of growing up in the East Arctic from 1910 to about 1939, and a few manuscripts of novellas — all covered in dust and dead flies — probably written to stave off going stir crazy during the long, lonely nights at some godforsaken Hudson’s Bay Company trading post.” It was all written by David Ford, Ruth’s husband from 1946 until his death in 1989.

John Thomas David Ford was born in 1910, in Kuujjuaq, formerly known as Fort Chimo, in the Nunavik region of Quebec. He was descended from British fisherfolk and whalers who had immigrated to the area from Devon, England, in the late 1700s and, before long, his settler ancestors had intermarried with the Inuit. David lived, hunted and travelled with his extended Inuit family and friends, and although the Arctic was his true home he was forced to leave for five years as a teen to attend school in Newfoundland and, again later, when he enlisted and was shipped overseas to fight in the Second World War. Eventually, the end of the war and marrying Ruth would bring him south for good.

A walrus tusk carved by Kiugak Ashoona as a thank you gift to David Ford's wife, Ruth.

“Early in the war, David was assigned to the Cobourg Regiment,” explained Bickle. “The commanding officer wrote to his wife asking her to round up some single girls from Cobourg and Port Hope to write to the unmarried soldiers to help keep up their morale. Ruth pulled David’s name and wrote to him faithfully for nearly five years. At the end of the war, he asked Ruth, by letter, to marry him. His doctor advised him not to return to the lonely Arctic because of what they then called ‘shell shock’ or PTSD, so he travelled to Port Hope, married Ruth and built their home.”

After the attic discovery, Bickle first tackled a thick stack of journals, which she transcribed from faded pencil on yellowing newsprint scribblers into the book “Native Born Son; The Journals of J. David Ford” (Blue Denim Press, 2018). It’s on these riveting and sometimes challenging pages that we meet Ford and his Inuit family, and where we come to understand the depth of his connection to the North and to the original inhabitants of the land.

David was fluent in Inuktitut, which made him uniquely qualified to liaise for the Canadian government’s Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources and, in 1959, he was contracted to act as translator and host for two Inuit carvers, Kiugak Ashoona and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, who travelled from Kinngait, then known as Cape Dorset, Baffin Island, to demonstrate carving and etching at the Stratford Festival Exhibition. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip had embarked on a tour of Canada and stopped in Stratford to see a Shakespeare production at the then, only two-year-old Stratford Festival Theatre, and to meet and receive gifts from the two Inuit carvers; David translated between the royal couple and artists.

Swan caved by Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, circa 1959.

The pieces in Bickle’s collection are a product of the Stratford Exhibition. “I have the walrus tusk Kiugak Ashoona carved and etched for Ruth and the letter he wrote thanking Ruth for allowing her husband to look after them while they were in Stratford,” said Bickle. “And I have the swan Eegyvudluk Pootoogook carved while they waited in Stratford for a shipment of stone to arrive from the Arctic.”

Bickle started transcribing David’s copious notes, researching and cataloguing the collection in 2013 and, when she learned the walrus tusk was carved and etched by Ashoona, she emailed Darlene Wight, curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, who had prepared a solo exhibition, “Kiugak Ashoona: Stories and Imaginings from Cape Dorset in 2010, to let her know another piece was available. While she waited to hear back, Bickle finished publishing “Native Born Son.”

When she heard the Winnipeg gallery was building an Inuit art and culture centre — Qaumajuq — and Goota Ashoona, Kiugak Ashoona’s daughter and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook’s niece, had been commissioned to carve a sculpture to welcome visitors, Bickle turned her focus to the found collection. “I wanted to have David’s letters about his time with Ashoona and Pootoogook, pictures of their work and of them, ready and in book form for the opening of Qaumajuq, especially as Ashoona’s daughter, Goota Ashoona, had been commissioned to carve an impressive stone sculpture for the entryway.”

Located in downtown Winnipeg, Qaumajuq is home to the largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world. The centre is a gathering place for all, with a mandate to bridge the gap between Canada’s North and South through art and education, in the spirit of truth and reconciliation. The centre opened with a two-night virtual celebration at the end of March 2021.

Marnie Bickle at her Port Hope home with Inuit print, "Woman Harnessing Husky."

“I had hoped my contribution would be a tribute to the artistry of the Ashoona family, but the pandemic put everything on hold and, during that time, I began to wonder if perhaps the 1959 Festival Exhibition would be an uncomfortable remembrance for Inuit people, how they were put on display, exploited. We knew so little about the Arctic and its people at that time. Television was unsophisticated, we didn’t travel the way we would 50 years later; I wanted to have some conversations with the Inuit centre curators before I finished this project.”

In 2019, Bickle again wrote to Wight, to gauge the gallery’s level of interest in the collection, but COVID-19 got in the way.

Marnie and Bill Bickle don’t have children and, at 71, she’s thinking about the future of her collection — an intimate record of another time and place — and she would like to bequeath the collection, including personal letters between Ashoona and Ruth in Inuktitut syllabics, to an institution that would receive it with a homecoming. But, as special as Bickle’s keepsakes are, she is not alone.

“There are a lot of private collections now looking for placement, either at auction — First Arts — or donation,” said Wight in a call. “Many of the collections have interesting origins and stories, and Marnie’s appears to be very well documented, which does add to its value. I would be interested in a donation of the collection and archival materials.”

At last, after much back and forth, the news Bickle wanted to hear. “I want to personally deliver the items to the WAG,” said Bickle.

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