Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Mar 24/99) - Dr. Clair Schnupp and his wife Clara have been delivering courses and counselling services throughout the North for the past 32 years.

Hailing from Dryden, Ontario, the Schnupps made their first trip to Rankin Inlet in 1967 in a small "airplane on floats" to ascertain whether the challenges facing young people and families in the Arctic were similar to those facing Cree people in northwestern Ontario.

The Schnupps have more than 35 years of family counselling experience among First Nations people of Canada and the United States. Clair said he and his wife became aware of the problems facing aboriginal people while they were school teachers, prompting them to embark on a career of providing resource tools, information and direction to young aboriginal families.

While in Rankin earlier this month to deliver a Training in Biblical Counselling seminar, Clair told the Kivalliq News the Schnupp family returned to the Arctic in 1976, then with five daughters aged four to 14, and delivered their first youth seminar in Arviat. They have since spent time in every Keewatin community.

"At that time, Arviat was known as Eskimo Point and, while we were there, our daughters learned to do puppets and songs with the children while we worked with the older youth and adults," said Clair.

"From then on we travelled back and forth between First Nation and Inuit

communities delivering family and youth seminars and teachings.

"We've travelled from Nome, Alaska, to Nain, Labrador, as a travelling, singing and teaching family. We made several albums, of which we sold thousands, and, during our travels, all five of our daughters earned their pilot's licenses. They're all involved with people-orientated jobs and that's very meaningful to us as parents, that we passed on that concern for people."

Clair said he speaks for both he and his wife when he says wherever their family went, they always managed to have a mutual respect between themselves and the aboriginals they met.

"It's as though we've always had an appreciation for each other. Having our ministry for 25 years, there had to be some sort of bonding between our hearts and that's a mystery I can't explain.

"We were never seen or treated like outsiders. Maybe it has something to do with the joy and respect we've always found in each other."

Clair said while there are still many challenges facing Inuit youth and families, there has been positive progress made and one key to continued success is to encourage and train people to empower them to teach parenting skills in their own community.

"We still must work to improve parenting skills in the communities and there are encouraging signs. We see more parents, especially younger parents aged 35 and down, putting forth an effort to learn better parenting skills and if this can grow fast enough at the grassroots level, it's going to strike at the heart of many problems plaguing Northern communities.

"The strength, or heart, of the family is its parenting skills and we must work to continue improving those skills in the North."