Looking away

In the archives of McMaster University's Health Sciences Library there is a photo of a woman, perhaps thirty years old, sitting up in a hospital bed. There is a gentle light on her face, coming from what seems to be a hospital window. She is wearing a printed nightgown done up right to her neck. Her straight black hair is parted on the right. Her lips are slightly open and it's hard to know whether she is smiling or not, but a kind of reserve, a holding back , is communicated. Behind her are the black rungs of a hospital bed, with a series of electrical plugs above it. The photo is labeled only “Eskimo 1955” and it is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of such photos of Inuit patients in the Mountain Sanatorium in Hamilton, Ontario where Inuit were being treated for tuberculosis. I later learn that the woman's name is Kautaq Joseph and she is the mother of the first female premiere of Nunavut, Eva Aariak. 1