Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 22/99) - Spending a quick lunch hour with the very busy, Inuvik-born Eddie Kolausok is an inspiring experience. The man is a whirlwind of activity and enterprise.

We're here, over bowls of soup, to discuss a new book coming out on Kolausok's imprint, Kolausok Ublaaq Enterprises. Unlike the first book on the imprint released in 1998, Call me Ishmael: Memories of an Inuvialuk Elder by Ishmael Alunik, this one is all Kolausok.

Aurora Shining, a collection of short stories and poems by Kolausok, brings together only a fraction of the writing he has stashed over the years.

The selection in Aurora Shining is deeply felt, often witty and humourous, always honest and definitely optimistic about life.

Kolausok has been writing since he was a child in the Western Arctic.

"Since Grade 3 or 5, I was very young," he says.

"I used to write in journals. At that age, I really enjoyed writing fiction and writing about what I wished to do."

Kolausok also remembers his first dramatic efforts.

"When I was in school in Aklavik we wrote a small play, in Grade 5. We put it on. I was hooked," he says.

It wasn't just the act of writing that captured Kolausok forever, but also the need to express himself.

"I always turned to writing as a form of catharsis and release."

Kolausok's life is a study in tragedy. At the age of five he was removed from his home and sent to residential school.

"A lot of experiences were horrible, brutal," he says, remembering feelings of sadness, loneliness, abandonment and hunger.

"Even today I have nightmares of the past and those experiences."

His years growing up were filled with residential hostels, group homes and reform schools. When he was in his teens, his mother was murdered.

Asked why he doesn't seem bitter, why his writing doesn't court anger, why he seems so optimistic and positive, he replies that for his own health he's learned to deal with things.

"And I treasure the relationships I've developed with elders and friends who provide guidance and encouragement. When I go through periods of nightmares and depression, I talk through it."

His relationships, including the one with partner Karen, encourage him to move forward.

"Otherwise life could easily move to escapism, alcoholism..."

Kolausok has been a single father since his 14-year-old son was three. Together they moved from the North to Edmonton, where he acquired a university degree. In 1994, the little family returned to Inuvik.

That's where he started Kolausok Ublaaq Enterprises. And though it's a one-man operation, entirely subsidized by Kolausok, he says that he is nevertheless a team player who doesn't believe in doing something alone.

That's why, with Aurora Shining for example, two artists and a layout artist were also involved in the project. Well-known carver Eli Nasogaluak of Tuktoyaktuk did the cover art and the work of Holman's Mary Okheema is interspersed throughout the text.

"It's been a lot of work, a lot of late nights," says the writer, who started all this as a hobby.

Since moving to Yellowknife, by day Kosaulok works as executive advisor to the regional director general of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He is also the chairperson of the Native Communication Society, a director with the John Howard Society, a founding member and volunteer director of the Self-Esteem Institute of Canada and a soccer coach with Aurora Minor Soccer.

Yes, he does sleep, Kolausok insists.

Aurora Shining will be out on the market before Christmas this year.