DNA test introduces Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., man to half-cousin and part of his family history

A man from Tuktoyaktuk says it means a lot to have found a half-cousin he didn't know he had — and to learn more about his family history — after submitting a DNA test to an ancestry website. 

The test results first told Mervin Chicksi about distant fourth and fifth cousins. 

It wasn't what he'd been hoping for. 

"I wanted to find out if my dad had any brothers and sisters, and I wanted somebody closer to reach out to me," he said. 

Little did he realize Brenda Schofield, in Edmonton, would later do a DNA test as well — trying to figure out the same thing: if her dad had any more brothers and sisters. In the spring of 2023 Chicksi and Schofield would piece together they had the same grandfather. Their fathers were half-siblings, which meant they were half-cousins. 

The pair met for the first time at the Inuvik airport when Schofield traveled north for a visit that summer.

"The first time I met her in the airport, when I hugged her, it was like somebody I've known for a long time but just never saw. That's how much we connected," said Chicksi. 

Schofield visited for a second time to surprise Chicksi for his birthday in late March, and the pair of them spoke to Wanda McLeod, the host of CBC's Northwind, about how they found each other. 

Schofield said she'd always wanted to go to Tuktoyaktuk, so the realization she had family there was exciting and that first week-long visit was "fulfilling a lifetime dream." 

"When I left, I definitely left a part of my heart here in Tuk and was anxious to come back again," she said. 

Learning his grandfather's story

Discovering Schofield has helped Chicksi address some questions about his family's history. 

"My mom was the one that told me that my dad's dad was a white man and he was with the RCMP," he said. Chicksi has a photo of his grandparents together in his home, but the couple split up — and he didn't know his grandfather's name. 

"Every once and awhile I'd look at it and wondering 'what was his name' and 'did he have any other kids?" 

Schofield put a name to that man in the photo — William Sharples Carter — and shared some of his story with her new-found relative. Notably, she said, he'd been called in to help in the manhunt for the Mad Trapper, also known as Albert Johnson, after Johnson killed an RCMP officer. 

Schofield said that story is a part of her family's story, and that's why she and Chicksi headed to Aklavik, stopped by the RCMP detachment and visited Johnson's grave.

She said it was "really kind of neat" to walk there, in her grandfather's footsteps.

"To be able to come up here and be around places that were significant in, not only in his life but in history, Canadian history, was very exciting for me and I still get emotional about it." 

Chicksi has headed south to visit his extended family living there, and Schofield says she hopes to come back to the North once a year. Her next visit, she said, might be in the fall of 2026 or 2027.  

"I feel like my life is complete now," she said. "I never knew my life was incomplete, but my life is … definitely complete with my Arctic family."