Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 23/98) - Northern children's author Michael Kusugak is working on his seventh book. And this is a man who hadn't ever planned on writing children's books.

The native of Rankin Inlet always told stories and, as fate would have it, Canadian children's author Robert Munsch was visiting in Rankin and heard one of Kusugak's stories.

"Michael, write it down!" said Munsch.

One evening, not long after, Kusugak was telling his son a bedtime story about sea creatures that lived under sea ice.

"Dad!" said his son, "Why don't you write it down?"

That first book, A Promise is a Promise, became a collaboration with Munsch, who was an old hand at the craft.

"We worked on it and worked on it," Kusugak says. "I think it's still the best- selling book I have."

There were other factors that prompted Kusugak to write.

"It was a combination of things that happened," says Kusugak. "Kids watch too much TV, especially Northern kids. Kiviuk is the most famous character in Inuit legend and kids had no idea who he was."

As Kusugak began to realize his own children didn't even know the ancestral stories, he got to work.

"I decided that I want to write stuff that is different than what other people write," says the now-popular author, who travels across North America reading his books and talking about them with schoolchildren. "I don't like to shy away from controversy."

Kusugak's most recent publication, Arctic Stories, exemplifies that philosophy.

Arctic Stories is really three stories about young Agatha, stories based in actual events from Kusugak's childhood. One story, Agatha Goes to School, is about the perils of residential school.

A project currently in the works has a Yukon setting.

"It's going to be a very different book than anything I've done," Kusugak says.

While Kusugak was visiting the Yukon, he spent some time with an Indian band who described to him how mining companies literally destroyed a mountain.

"These mining companies are crazy," Kusugak muses. "They tore a mountain down to rubble looking for gold. They found about $40 worth."

The desire to not skirt issues is not the author's sole subject matter. Listening to a radio program one day, he heard that the all-time favourite children's stories were the Narnia tales (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) by C.S. Lewis. For Kusugak, this was a clear indication that people love magic.

"Some of the most magical is Inuit magic and Inuit shamanism."

Another goal of Kusugak's is to write about this magic. His first project along these lines is tentatively titled Marble Island.