Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Cambridge Bay (Oct 28/05) - There is more to Eddie Amagonalok than meets the eye.

He is a hunter, a fisherman, a father, an adoptive father, a residential school student, a recovering alcoholic and a man focused on continuing his education.

The 51-year-old has lived in Cambridge Bay since the 1960s, after living in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, during his youth. His father was a worker on the DEW line and that led to Amagonalok having his first problem with the education system.

He was carted off to residential school, going to Inuvik until the end of Grade 8 and attending Sir John Franklin high school in Yellowknife for Grades 9-11.

"It was hard. When you are that young you don't know what is going on," said Amagonalok.

Being sent away from home to figure things out for himself left him full of rage. "At a young age I was quite an angry person. Once I became old enough to understand what had happened, I became very angry," said Amagonalok.

Upon leaving school, his life was troubled by his battle with alcohol. He received treatment for his addiction and went back to school soon after. On Dec. 25, Amagonalok will have been sober for 32 years.

"I got my diploma in social work, but you run into all sorts of walls," Amagonalok explained.

He is back in school now, taking office administration. That credit will go toward a management skills course that he wants to take. His English scores were high enough, but his math needs to be a score of 140. He almost got it, with a score of 120, but this course will help him toward that goal.

Amagonalok and his wife Irene have six children of their own, three adopted ones. "It's just caring. A community needs to take care of their kids. We couldn't say no," he said.