Juno-winner Susan Aglukark shares the healing power of art with Indigenous youth

Susan Aglukark knows the healing power of the arts. 

But Aglukark didn't always consider herself an artist — not even in 1995 when she became the first Inuk singer-songwriter to earn a Juno Award and her hit song O Siem was topping the Canadian Music Charts.

She says she was working through "emotional fear," or Ilirasuk in Inuktitut. It took the better part of a decade working with expressive arts like music and poetry for her to overcome that fear. Making art has become part of a lifelong healing journey for Aglukark and prompted her to create Indigenous-led arts programs for youth in the North. 

This weekend, Music Canada will recognize Aglukark for a fourth time at the Junos. She will receive the 2022 Humanitarian Award for her steadfast commitment to improving the lives of Indigenous youth in the North through her organization, The Wild Rose Foundation.

Aglukark spoke to Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild about why that work is so important to her and how music has been healing in her own life. Here is part of their conversation.

You are a big winner Juno-wise; you've won three in your music career. How does this new award compare to those wins?

Well, this one is very, very special. The early years of my career were really about me trying to figure out where I fit in. Not just in my music career or as an artist, just my life. I'd left home to leave. I hadn't left home to pursue a public life, much less a celebrity life. I wasn't an artist. I wasn't a singer-songwriter. I'd never written songs. So those early awards were kind of like a head-scratcher. With this one I knew I was right where I belong. 

Now this year, you're being honoured for your dedication to improving the lives of children in the north. Why did you start getting involved with this type of work?

I've always been from the very beginning. As far back as I can remember, I worked with youth groups. I always knew that in some capacity somehow, something was going to go beyond the songwriting and the public life and kind of spill over into healing through other work. As it turns out, it's expressive arts, but it's always been there.

Tell us what kind of work the Arctic Rose Foundation does in these communities with these young people.

The work we do is an after-school expressive arts program we call Messy Book. It is expressive arts, but also very basic mental health support through art. We are active in Rankin Inlet and Arctic Bay, [Nunavut]. We are hoping to cover all northern children — Inuit, First Nations, Métis. That's the goal. 

Let's go back to the very beginning of your singing career. You mentioned that you really weren't a singer, you weren't a songwriter, you weren't a musician. So how did you start making music?

I left home in 1990. I got offered a really decent job with Indian Affairs, and it was a one-year contract as communications coordinator. Before that, there was no singing, there was no songwriting.

But when I first moved to Ottawa, I had a wonderful boss and I was talking with him about living between two worlds to finish high school. I had to finish high school in Yellowknife because that was the only school that went up to Grade 12. I started writing poetry there and I wrote a poem called Qiniqpunga, "searching" in Inuktitut. And we got to talking about what we could do with this. We hired a videographer to shoot some footage of students living between two worlds finishing high school and we ended up with a music video. I don't know if they still have it today, but Indian Affairs had a really decent recording studio in their building. So we hired a musician to put music to this poem and we ended up with a song.

At the same time, CBC Radio was doing their annual recording projects and I got this call [asking], "Could you submit a demo?" I was like, "Whoa, I'd love to. What's a demo? I write poetry. I'm not a singer-songwriter but I know guitar; let me see what I can do."

I was still doing my day job with Indian Affairs and then Searching comes out on MuchMusic. And this cassette tape comes out, and I started songwriting with the producer of that CBC project, Randall Prescott. And that's where Arctic Rose, the album, came out. But even then, I would say, right up until about 1998, after the big hit album, after all of this, I didn't consider myself an artist.

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There was, there was a lot of what I call emotional fear or Ilirasuk in Inuktitut. And this is the basis of the work I've developed through the foundation. There's a paper called The Post-Colonization Syndrome Theory. The emotion of fear, which is one of those final stakes in being institutionalized. We defer to the ones who know better or more than us, which is never us. And that's who I was when I first moved to Ottawa.

The idea of singing, songwriting, and being part of this incredible group was very scary to me. I had too much to learn and catch up, until about 1998. And that's when I would say, expression turned into a healing journey.

You had mentioned that it was healing for you to do this music. How did it help you with your healing and move through your life?

[Back] then, I thought if I put it in writing, I'm going to be better, right? Well, actually, healing was good one day, back to square one the next day. It was really high energy and, "I've got this!" one day, and "I want to kill you" the next day.

In those early years, healing meant something is changing. And to me, it was something that was waking up that had gone stagnant, deep inside of me, and it was kind of, I want to say, hope. We move forward, because we have to, whether or not we still have that bit of hope in us, but something wants to keep living. Those were the early stages of what I now know; [it] was me recovering or healing myself from that lost sense of hope. 

You recently released a new album, [but] you're busy doing humanitarian work, and that's clearly very important to you. Why continue making music?

I am a singer-songwriter, and I will do that until I can't do it anymore. And it's a place and a platform…. It's my most powerful tool to keep myself on that healing journey. 

What is your greatest wish for the youth living in the Arctic?

They are so amazing. And they have so much potential. My greatest wish for all of our Indigenous youth is that they meet that potential. I'm just one story. I was given an opportunity. I didn't see beyond a week, beyond a month, beyond a year in those early years. But just to have that chance and then 30 years later, this is what happens. We have to invest in that. 

Written by Shyloe Fagan. Interview produced by Jasmine Kabatay. Q&A edited for length and clarity.