Aglukark praises Children’s Treatment Centre at Celebrity Walk and Breakfast

Susan Aglukark performs during her presentation at the Children’s Treatment Centre’s Celebrity Walk and Breakfast kickoff on Monday September 11, 2023 in Cornwall, Ont. Hugo Rodrigues/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia Network PHOTO BY HUGO RODRIGUES /Hugo Rodrigues/Standard-Freeholder

Renowned artist Susan Aglukark was effusive in her praise for the Children’s Treatment Centre of Cornwall and Area on Monday morning, as she helped kick off the annual Celebrity Walk and Breakfast fundraising campaign.

Aglukark spoke to a packed room at the Best Western Parkway Inn, and shared some of the songs she’s performed throughout her career chosen because each of them marked a key point in her journey as she continues to heal from the trauma of an assault that happened when she was seven years old.

“What you are offering here (at the centre) is a safe place— and the most important thing a child needs is a safe space,” Aglukark said. “You are creating and allowing a space to just be… because you can’t rush healing.”

Aglukark spoke about her experiences after “the lights shut off and I got very, very confused” following her abuse, particularly when the first significant steps that happened in 1990-91 when she moved from Arviat, Nunavut, which was still part of the Northwest Territories at the time. She said she had to leave Arviat because that physical distance was the only way she wouldn’t keep seeing her abuser— a man who was released following his sentence for her abuse but continued to abuse other children in the community.

Susan Aglukark performs during her presentation at the Children’s Treatment Centre’s Celebrity Walk and Breakfast kickoff on Monday September 11, 2023 in Cornwall, Ont. Hugo Rodrigues/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia Network PHOTO BY HUGO RODRIGUES /Hugo Rodrigues/Standard-Freeholder

Working as a translator within the federal government led to an opportunity where she wanted to share some of the poems she’d written. A poem she wrote while attending high school in Yellowknife was recorded and went into heavy rotation on MuchMusic, which led to an inquiry from the CBC on whether she had more music to share.

“In that early writing, I now understand was expression,” Aglukark said. “Whatever was going on was really, really good for me.”

Those first forays into the music industry were happenstances, as she now describes them, that allowed her to connect with and be a part of a community of artists while she continued her healing journey. As she continued to write and record, she created other moments to exhale — as she described it — and find an ability to come to terms with the damage done to her by her abuser.

“It’s been a privilege to share one healed-enough story with you,” Aglukark said somewhat self-depricatingly, noting how since the early 1990s she’s been able to come to points where she could say she was fine, that she was doing well.

The fundraiser continues through the fall season. To join and support a Celebrity Walk and Breakfast team, or create your own team, contact the centre at 613-933-4400. This campaign is the centre’s largest fundraiser and has traditionally raised over $100,000 a year to support the centre’s services.

Founded in 1996, the centre has helped over 2,700 children who are victims of abuse by providing counselling and support at no cost to them or their families. The centre relies on the communities of Cornwall, SDG, and Akwesasne to support its work as it receives no government funding.