I’m dedicating this column to my late brother Philip Kataquapit, who passed away on Christmas Day in 1990 at the age of 16.
Philip was a very charismatic character. Everyone loved him and wanted to be around him. I always felt that he was a great combination of so many characters in our family all rolled up in one person. He was handsome, slender and tall like the men on mom’s side of the family. He was exciting, quick witted, funny and ready to laugh like dad’s side of the family. Guys wanted to be his friend. Girls hovered around him because he was a handsome, confident young man. He was well connected with our traditional culture as dad had often taken him out hunting, trapping and fishing from the time he was very young.
Philip was the youngest of my four older brothers with Lawrence being the eldest, then Mario, Anthony and lastly Philip. I and my younger brothers Joseph and Paul always looked up to our older siblings as real traditional hunters who knew how to survive on the land. Philip was theatrical and sensitive and could easily send my mom Susan and sisters Jackie and Janie into fits of laughter. He was the type of guy who lit up the room when he walked in.
Whenever I think of him, I see him in so many different ways. He will always be my older brother, so I always see him as wiser and smarter than me. Now 34 years later, I think of him as a young 16-year-old who was getting ready for the world.
Like all our Christmases when I was growing up, 1990 was a chaotic mess of activity. Philip took part in it all as a teenager and like many of us, impervious to the dangers surrounding us in the middle of the wilderness during freezing weather. In the midst of Christmas party culture, Philip innocently grabbed a snowmachine on Christmas Eve to visit his friends in Kashechewan, 90 kilometres to the south. The winter road was still a very rough road back then, but it was a path that he had gone on with our dad several times.
He left the community on his own with the confidence he had been taught about living on the land, but he was unprepared and ill equipped for this freezing ride. He ran out of fuel a third of the way and ended up near the Kapiskau River which dad had taken him and my brothers hunting to years before. He knew there were hunting cabins nearby, so he made his way there to shelter himself from the cold. He arrived at the cabins with nothing and no way to keep warm.
Christmas Day arrived without Philip. My parents and family were worried, but they thought he must be overnighting at a friend’s home in town. It didn’t take long for everyone to sound the alarm that he was missing. Search parties started wandering the community and then fanned out further. They found his abandoned snowmachine a day later and soon after discovered his final resting place at the hunting camp.
I was only 14 and suddenly my life had taken a dark turn, and everything was just a blur in time. I was numbed to the point that all I could do was carry on but with a sadness and guilt that tore at me. My entire family changed that day. But thankfully my parents were soon comforted because our family was growing with dozens of grandchildren. This made things easier although Christmas had become a bizarre mix of joy and deep sadness.
My siblings and I will never forget our brother Philip. So many of our relatives and friends all along the James Bay coast will never forget him. He was loved by so many in the short time he was with us. My brother’s memory and so many other tragedies that my family and others had to endure this time of year is the reason why I am always adamant about reminding everyone of the dangers of addictions, alcoholism or abuse and taking risks in the freezing cold. What seems like casual partying can take tragic turns. These days I worry about all those teens as I realize the risk that one little pill laced with a tiny amount of fentanyl can easily kill.
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas but with the memory of my amazing brother Philip, I urge everyone to be easy with each other and watch out for one another during this festive but chaotic time of the year.