THERE ARE TWO NEW INUTTITUT INSTRUCTORS running online courses through the Nunatsiavut Government Department of Language, Culture and Tourism—and they’re brother and sister. Nicholas and Vanessa Flowers of Hopedale instruct across computer screens, using colour‐coded slides Their students, myself included, are primarily adult second‐language learners who either attended or whose relatives attended residential boarding schools, and subsequently lost their language. From Nunatsiavut, the the Flowers siblings are focusing their course on Inuttitut. So far I’ve taken two online Inuttitut courses run by them.
SAALI KUATA IS A MONTREAL-BASED multidisciplinary artist who works in circus, photography, and soapstone carving. He also takes roles on creative projects that teach Montrealers about Inuit history through art. Saali’s introduction to circus took place 10 years ago. After graduating high school in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, he went off to study psychology and theatre in Montreal and found his way to becoming a full‐time artist who works closely with the Inuit community in Montreal. He lives on the island with his partner and their baby son.
POETRY HAS BEEN A LONG JOURNEY FOR ME. I started writing poetry when I realized I did not have to wait for the poetry unit each year in class. I first started writing my new book Elements in 2015 as a way to let my emotions have their say and be able to better understand them. To have your thoughts and emotions acknowledged without judgment is a peaceful feeling. You are okay, flaws and all.
IN INUTTITUT the Labrador community of Hopedale is called Arvertok. It means the place of whales. As she sang her original work titled Song of the Whale beneath Memorial University’s blue whale skeleton in the spring of 2023, Canada’s only professional Inuk opera singer Deantha Edmunds was filled with a sense of connection to her Nunatsiavut heritage and her father’s community of Hopedale.
