Over the years I would chat with the elder on the council about the way things were going. Once I asked if he was going to run in the next election. He just laughed lightly and told me that if I wanted to create any image for myself, I should know by now it was all an illusion. He said he ran in the elections for fun, something to do. He knew nothing was going to change. He told me that if things were going to change now, then it was in the works already; it would happen so fast that we young leaders wouldn’t be able to handle it. Looking back at it now, I realize he was right. When the federal government announced the relocation of Davis Inlet, all the things he told me were right there in front of our noses. We could not handle it.

The public meeting was held in the basement of the community bathhouse. The big question was: in what direction are we heading? We had a public forum on where we could have water and sewer, the topic on everybody’s mind. The engineer the band council had hired to do studies on where we could get water still had no answers. The drilling had lasted for three years and the engineers had drilled everywhere; the cost of the studies was sky-high. We were running out of ideas. The community joke was that we had so many drill holes in Davis Inlet, the whole island would sink soon. It was then that the elders spoke of the first resettlement from the mainland 25 years ago. Water and sewer had been promised then, but had never been delivered. The elders urged the young leaders to talk to the federal and provincial governments about the current conditions of the houses and the skin diseases of the Innu in Davis Inlet.