Lessons from Nunavut

banner_nunavut April 1st. Twenty years ago, Nunavut was created as a separate territory from Canada’s NWT. flag_Nunavut
In the weekly Nunatsiaq News, there was a special 20th-anniversary supplement. It includes the following articles, in both Inuktitut and English.

Don’t forget Nunavut’s rural and remote regions
Has Nunavut’s economic boom left the small communities behind?
Learning our own language
Nunavut high performers: twenty years up on stage
The connected territory? Nunavut still waits (high-speed Internet)
After 165 years Inuit knowledge leads to Franklin’s wrecks
The big thaw: climate change
Nunavut’s protected areas for wilderness and wildlife

It would be interesting if our politicians in Nova Scotia could develop a relationship with Nunavut, and see how different jurisdictions address the same issues.

bookCover_2books This week, I visited one of the book/craft stores in Iqaluit and purchased two new books: True North Rising by Whit Fraser (book launch video) and The Right to be Cold by Sheila Watt Cloutier (presentation video). Both are biographical in nature. It was fun to read Whit’s book which starts with his employment at the CBC Northern Service in 1967, while I was looking out across the sea ice on Frobisher Bay. Both books provide a model for ‘life as an elder’.

There are also connections. Whit describes his association with Fred Roots, through Students on Ice. I recall Fred from the UNESCO MAB program. Heather and I were shepherding the nomination document for the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve through the bureaucratic process. Another connection, going back even further, was to Trevor and Hugh Lloyd, Geographers. I remember meeting them at the McGill SubArctic Research Lab in Schefferville, Quebec in 1964/65.

Whit is a keynote speaker at the EBLES event at the Temple on Queen Street, Bridgetown on June 29th. The other keynote is John Demont, who also comes from the reporting tradition, at the Chronicle Herald.

On Saturday night, we attended a concert at the Iqaluit High School. It was a high energy performance by the Jerry Cans. What was most surprising, was the audience demographic. Young Inuit families. Such a contrast to the Kings Theatre.

Another point of reference is the Iqaluit Centennial Library. This was a chance to catch up on lost gems. I found Robert McGhee’s book The Last Imaginary Place. A Human History of the Arctic World and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism.

sleemanLager A final note. There is now a beer store in Iqaluit. Twenty-four Sleeman Silver Creek lager cost me $86. BTW the new snow has created excellent conditions for cross country skiing.