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K'ATLODEECHE/HAY RIVER RESERVE
"I was tired of hurting other people, of the way I'm living. I'm tired of hurting myself. I got fed up and thought taking my own life would solve everyone else's problems..."

The road leading to the Hay River Reserve. The community has been under an alcohol prohibition for nearly 30 years, but families say it’s not being enforced. - Jesse Winter/NNSL photo

That’s how a young suicidal woman describes her memory of Friday night, Oct 12. on the Hay River Reserve. The survivor, a 20-year-old woman who asked that The Hub use a pseudonym – Amy – had been drinking with her family late into the night.

Amy said she doesn’t remember much from the evening. Her boyfriend described her as being “blackout drunk.” What she does remember is a fight with her mother, and a feeling of overwhelming frustration and despair.

At some point during the evening, RCMP officers were called to the family’s house. Amy’s mother – referred to here as Grace – said she pleaded with the officers to take Amy away, fearing she would hurt herself or someone else. The RCMP refused, she said.

After the police left, Amy locked herself in her bedroom. It was now early Saturday morning.

“I could hear her gagging,” Grace said. Terrified and intoxicated herself, Grace said she panicked and broke down the door to find her daughter bleeding from lacerations to her legs.

“She sliced herself up pretty badly, and took a bunch of pills,” Grace said.

The police were called again, and Amy was taken first to the H.H. Williams Memorial Hospital in Hay River and then medevaced to Yellowknife.

A week after the incident Amy and her family have come forward with their story because, they say, they have nowhere else to turn. They are not alone in their fears.

“We need help. Our young people are on their own,” said Georgina Fabian.

“I feel like I’m all alone. We feel like this has been pushed under the rug, and we’re not going to stay silent anymore,” Fabian said.

The RCMP would not comment on the specific incident, but Hay River detachment Sgt. Chad Orr said RCMP officers do have authority under the Health Act to detain anyone they feel might be a danger to themselves or others.

Grace admits she was drunk that night, and has struggled with alcoholism for most of her life. She said she knows it’s her responsibility to help care for her family, but feels like she can barely take care of herself.

The problem, she says, is rampant alcoholism in the community and that once someone is labeled a drunk they are ostracized and blamed for their own problems.

“We’re all labelled,” Grace said.

According to an NWT Department of Health and Social Services report released in September, suicide rates in the NWT are twice as high as the Canadian average, with 39 people taking their own lives between 2003 and 2007. The suicide rate in communities outside Yellowknife is reportedly double that of the capital.

Katlodeeche First Nation Chief Roy Fabian admits there is a problem, but he said he feels at a loss about what more could be done.

“The youth here have all the support they can get,” Fabian said, pointing to the treatment center, community healing programs and a youth strategy that the band is working on to bring young people out on the land and connect them with their traditional roots.

“I don’t know what the issue is. We’re doing everything we can to make things better,” Fabian said.

But as much as the community is doing, Amy said it isn’t working for her or the community’s youth.

Amy said she’s tried counselling on the reserve before, but she said she fears one of the counsellors gossiped about parts of her past that she had revealed in a private session, and she felt betrayed.

“It’s really stressful. All the youth drink, and it’s nothing but bad news. They don’t really accept who you are; you have to be better than someone else, have more money, or more alcohol, or more drugs just to be accepted,” Amy said.

Band member Elaine Lamalice agrees. She said she has tried to raise the issue with the KFN Council but is repeatedly ignored. She and Georgina Fabian organized a suicide awareness workshop earlier in the summer, but only one councilor attended – her husband, Robert.

“She’s right. She’s (Amy) telling the truth. You see it all over. Not only certain places, but all over. No body is enforcing it. I know that because I myself have been sober for 23 years. It’s getting worse, not better, especially the young generation,” Lamalice said.

According to Kristine Vannebo-Suwala, executive director of the Nats'ejée K'éh Treatment Center on the reserve, the issues of alcoholism, mental illness and suicide are often inextricably linked, and there is no one golden solution.

Aboriginal communities across the North are still dealing with the affects of colonization, of residential schools and decades of intergenerational trauma, Vannebo-Suwala said. But the biggest problem remains the shame and stigma associated with addiction and mental illness, she said.

“People forget that the alcohol and drug abuse problem should be separated from the person. When you take the shame and guilt out of the addiction, and talk about it freely and give people support, wonderful things happen. When services are there but not being utilized, we have to ask why not and understand what’s going on in the communities. It’s not an easy thing,” Vannebo-Suwala said.

The one problem that almost everyone agrees on is the need to talk about these issues.

“I know there’s a problem. I’m not going to pretend there’s no drugs in the community. We’ve been under prohibition since 1984 and we’re fighting a losing battle,” Chief Fabian said, “but no one is talking about it.”

Amy said that’s exactly why she and her family came forward, but she’s not shying away from the difficult road ahead.

“It’s going to be a real challenge for me. I do want to stay sober. I’m so young, that I should have graduated already and have a better life, but I’m stuck. For somebody who wants to stay sober and want to change their life, in our reserve environment the chances are pretty low,” Amy said.

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