Son of Alec: A Sequel to Alec’S Journey

By J. C. Wesley

This is a work of fiction grounded in fact. Like his father, Atungalik, Alec exists only in the authors imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543411072

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by J. C. Wesley.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017904601

ISBN:   Hardcover         978-1-5434-1109-6

             Softcover           978-1-5434-1108-9

             eBook                978-1-5434-1107-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/24/2017

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Contents

Acknowledgment

One Alec’s Problems With Pierre

Two Alec Gets To Know Angie

Three Going For Green

Four The Cote Gang

Five Let’s Have A Fun-Raiser!

Six It’s December!

Seven Christmas In Winnipeg

Eight Alec Thinks About His Future

Nine Alec’s Resolutions

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This is a work of fiction grounded in fact. Like his father, Atungalik, Alec exists only in the authors’ imagination.

We are greatly indebted to the following authors’ works for specific details: James Houston’s Confessions of an Igloo Dweller and Farley Mowat’s The Desperate People.

In remembrance of a dedicated, inspiring teacher,

Professor John Robert Gorry

ONE

Alec’s Problems with Pierre

Alec Junior’s Inuit name is Atungalik, but his friends at Montcalm High School call him Alec. Alec Junior is of medium height, sturdy, and strong, like his father, Atungalik. He has thick black hair, which is cut short, and alert black eyes. He’s a serious teenager. He doesn’t talk much; however, when he speaks, he speaks with authority, and his peers listen to him. Alec is very proud of his Inuit background. He is aware that he’s the only Inuit in his Ottawa high school, but that doesn’t bother him because he’s spent most of his life in Ottawa.

Alec spent last summer visiting his parents: his father, also called Atungalik, and his mother, Ootna, who now live permanently in Winnipeg. Atungalik, Alec Junior’s father, spent his teen years in Ottawa, where he lived with the Hanson family, and later lived in Britannia, a few miles west of Ottawa. Atungalik is now a well-known Inuit sculptor, and Alec’s adopted Aunt Mary Chalutalik is a well-known painter. In fact, she is recognized as the Painter of the North. Alec’s parents and Aunt Mary own Inukshuk Gallery, located in Winnipeg. They sell sculptures and pictures and appliquéd skin clothing. Atungalik’s adopted cousins, Tom and Annie, who used to live in Elk Lake, Ontario, help Alec’s mother manage the gallery when Atungalik and Mary are absent on their frequent trips up north, seeking out and encouraging local artists.

When Alec Junior was fifteen, he had a great summer, traveling with Aunt Mary, visiting Churchill and Eskimo Point. They were lucky enough to watch many athletes already practicing for the March 1996 Arctic Winter Games to be held in Eagle River, Alaska. Alec took pictures of people high-kicking, sled-jumping, triple-jumping, and blanket-tossing, while his aunt recorded throat-singing and drumming. Then she interviewed many of the Inuit performers while Alec acted as interpreter. They did that kind of thing for many summers.

The AWG, started in 1970 in Yellowknife, are held every two years in different northern locations. Alec’s father and aunt went to the ’94 AWG in Slave Lake, Alberta. They told Alec that it was very exciting and competitors came from as far away as Greenland, Northern Scandinavia, and Russia. Now that he’s fifteen, Alec has decided to work even harder in school because he wants to persuade his father to take him when Atungalik and Aunt Mary visit Alaska next March.

During the school year, Alec Junior lives at Chateau Farm in Orleans, outside Ottawa. It’s a working stable run by the Hall and Hanson families. When Atungalik, Alec’s father, came to Ottawa in the 1950s, he was adopted by the Hanson parents, and his best friend was their son, John. The Hall family—Len and Pat and Belinda—all loved horse riding, so they bought the large farmhouse and gradually added more land. Eventually, John married Belinda Hall, by then a very successful rider, and they also moved into Chateau Farm.

When Mr. Hanson retired from teaching, he had a house built close to Chateau Farm. So the Hall and Hanson clans are like one big family. And Alec Junior is part of it because, when his parents decided to move to Manitoba in 1990, Mrs. Hall offered to look after him so that he could finish his schooling in Ottawa. Atungalik’s mother had always wanted her son to have a good education, and Atungalik felt the same about Alec.

Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Hanson had baked a cake and organized a big party outside on the veranda to celebrate Alec’s return from Winnipeg. After they’d eaten, Alec brought out two gifts from his Winnipeg family. Atungalik had sent a soap-stone carving of a shiny large dark-gray musk ox. Aunt Mary had sent an original painting of an Inuit hunter sitting upright in his canoe as he paddled across an immense, emerald-green lake. Alec explained that his aunt was finding that posters of this painting were proving very successful. Everyone thought the gifts were just great. Pat and Len said they would phone Inukshuk Gallery straightaway to thank the artists.

Labor Day was always busy around the stables because extra students came for riding lessons with Belinda and John. Alec was kept busy in the paddock giving rides to small children on the two donkeys while happy parents snapped pictures. After all the visitors had gone, twelve of them sat down to a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings. For dessert, Mrs. Hanson had made peach pie and an almond tart and a lemon meringue tart. Like his father, Alec loved desserts.

Afterward they played Monopoly, an old-style English version, but Alec was totally at home with London hotel names like Park Lane and Mayfair. Later Alec packed his schoolbag ready for the next morning. The school bus would pick him up at 8:00 a.m. at the end of the lane. He was really looking forward to going back to Montcalm High. He’d aced most of his grade 9 subjects and hoped to do the same in grade 10.

Unfortunately, Alec Junior had a surprise when he strolled into the school lobby. Vice Principal Birch was standing, seemingly looking for somebody. It turned out to be Alec!

You need to see Principal Strong immediately, Alec, he said quietly. Come this way. And off they went. As soon as the VP and Alec were seated, Principal Strong accused him of hacking into the school computer and changing the marks to the last June exams. Alec just stared at him. He was too surprised to speak.

I waited until you returned from your parents’ home in Winnipeg, Mr. Strong continued, although Pierre Cote supplied the evidence last July. Right now, I’m going to suspend you from school. Go home and seek advice from Mr. Hall or Mr. Hanson. I shall be phoning one of them in exactly half an hour. You just have time to walk home and tell them that you have a major problem!

VP Birch ushered Alec to the door. Lots of students were piling into the hall by now, ready for homeroom. They stared at Alec as they went by. He noticed one boy smirking and wondered if it was Pierre Cote.

Sorry about this, Alec, muttered VP Birch. I hope we can get this mess cleared up quickly. Now go straight home.

So Alec did just that. He didn’t notice any of the traffic that was starting to build up as the commuters headed for Ottawa. He just trudged along, thinking how he’d let everybody down and