Mick Mallon (1933–2023)

Well-known Northerner, teacher, scholar, and linguist Mick Mallon died peacefully on Monday, September 18, 2023, aged 90, at The Gardens Care Home in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, BC. His daughter Clare was at his bedside. Mick had suffered from vascular dementia in his final years. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March 14, 1933, his parents, Austin and Jean Tate Mallon, named him Sydney Tate Mallon, but from the time he was at university, he was called Mick because of his Irish heritage—and Mick was the name he preferred. Mick attended Campbell College School in Belfast, earning a scholarship to Queen’s College, Cambridge University, where he earned an honours degree in English in 1954. After graduation from Cambridge, he emigrated to Canada to begin his teaching career at Lakefield College School, Ontario. A student who attended the school while Mick was teaching there recalls him as “a very social person with a great sense of humour and joy.” Back in Belfast, after graduating from Cambridge and before leaving for Canada, Mick met Cynthia Marigold Caughey. He was very impressed with Cynthia and applied his charms, initially to little avail. However, a year later, Cynthia agreed to emigrate to Canada and married Mick in Lakefield on December 21, 1955. After his marriage to Cynthia, Mick taught high school in Ottawa for three years, also teaching English as a second language to new immigrants, many of whom were from Hungary at that time. Their neighbours in Ottawa had been working in the Arctic. From them, Mick and Cynthia got the idea of going north for a few years. This was a decision that—to quote Mick—“changed their entire lives.” So, in 1959, Mick, Cynthia and their young daughters, Amanda and Clare, moved north to Puvirnituq, a small Inuit community in Northern Québec. There, Mick studied and practised Inuktitut, the language of the community and his students, developing an interest that would become the focus for the rest of his teaching career. Mick also pursued his passions for walking in the outdoors, sailing and rowing—even starting a Sea Cadet unit in the community. Inuit activist and politician Zebedee Nungak fondly recalls being a Sea Cadet under Mick’s command, where he and the other Inuit boys received training in handling a 30-foot sailboat Mick had somehow requisitioned for his unit. Inuit often give non-Inuit who live in their communities a name based on their character, habits, or other attributes. The Inuit of Puvirnituq named Mick Pisusuuq – the one who habitually walks, because of the countless hours he spent walking on the tundra around the community. Mick’s enthusiasm for walking in the outdoors and sailing remained with him for the rest of his active life. From 1963–68, Mick taught at the Batu Lintang Teacher Training College in Kuching, Sarawak on Borneo in a program sponsored by the Canadian government. Mick and Cynthia’s son Matthew was born in Kuching. While teaching in Borneo, Mick began to learn Malay. After returning to Canada in 1968, Mick and Cynthia settled in Rankin Inlet, an Inuit community in the Northwest Territories (NWT), where Mick established the Eskimo Language School and was the principal teacher. This school was funded by the Government of the NWT in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan. Whenever Mick was teaching Inuktitut, he worked in collaboration with Inuit colleagues who were fluent speakers of the language, often unilingual Inuit Elders. The success of the Eskimo Language School was due to the crucial partnership between Mick and these Inuit informants, including Jose Kusugak, Basil Kiblakoot, Annie Tattuinee Ford, and Elders Tautungie Kabluittuq, Arnarjuaq, Atanngak, and …