THINK OF THE MOUNTAINS WHEN YOU TELL THIS STORY. A voice over the phone instructs me to remember my first time visiting the hamlet of Ausuittuq. I see immense mountain ranges all around, cloaked in a permanent blanket of snow and the Arctic Ocean at the hems of its shores. At the base of the mountains
LIKE MOST OF MY UPBRINGING, it was a challenge for me to place myself in spaces I was not invited. Speaking from when I was not particularly aware of my own presence, I would feel that sometimes my mere existence was welcomed. It was the way someone would look at me with frowned eyebrows, glances or the movement in their lips. The unspoken awkward silence, the idea that perhaps not saying anything is the only way of saying something. There are often no words required to know if you are welcomed or not.
A LONG TIME AGO WHEN THE WORLD WAS OLD, but Inuit were new, there were lots of different Inuit around the Western Arctic. There were the Qiqiktarmiut from Herschel Island, the Kuupukmiut from the Mackenzie River, the Kittirgaryamiut from Kittigariut, and there were the Anderson River Inuit whose name we don’t remember. Or at least I don’t.
TENT RINGS, ARTIFACTS AND REMNANTS of rusted barrels can be seen as you travel the islands and shores along the Coronation Gulf of Western Nunavut. Copper Inuit hunters and gatherers have crossed these shores since time immemorial, travelling by seasons, following migrations paths, and charting the land and rivers for food and skins.
IN THE SUMMER OF 2019, I flew with my three daughters to my hometown of Tuktoyaktuk, from Yellowknife, to practice the sustainable, age‐old tradition of beluga harvesting. Watching my girls, aged 10, 8, and 1, participate in a harvest at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, where generations of our family have survived for centuries, was a highlight for me as a mother. The beluga harvest is one of many Inuvialuit traditions passed down from our Inuvialuit forefathers, and it continues to teach lessons and build connections to our heritage.
I’VE HOPPED ON AND OFF over 50 airplanes in the past two years. Northern travel always leads to adventures — and, often,misadventures. Last year, for example, I flew to Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, where I was swallowed whole by snow.
JEANNIE ARREAK-KULLUALIK knows the pain of not knowing. Her grandmother and grandfather boarded the C.D. Howe medical ship in 1950s in Pond Inlet, and travelled south for tuber culosis treatment. They never came back.
I LOVE SEAL MEAT when it’s still warm. Red so deep, my eyes feel it. Delicious. Last fall, I shot a seal near Arctic Bay, Nunavut, and my first reaction was “wow! — I got it.” My second thought was the seal’s liver, and how it makes my mouth water. And then a little disappointment comes over me when I realize that I shot the seal through one of its eyes. I wanted to eat it.
INUIT RCMP SPECIAL CONSTABLES are unsung heroes, but let us acknowledge the partners of these special constables who helped support their husbands’ work, which has largely gone unrecognized. Prior to 1983, when Mary Hunt became the first Inuk woman officially hired as a special constable in what is now Nunavut, Inuit women, and sometimes even children, assisted with various duties, but were never designated as special constables. Here are a few examples of how the families of special constables assisted the RCMP in Inuit Nunangat in earlier years.
It was told to me thusly: A powerful angakok wanted the beauty of the northern lights all to himself, so he stole them from the sky and trapped them within the rocks at his home along the coast of Northern Labrador. A group of people living nearby suffered in despair during the sudden darkness.
The Ahiarmiut were relocated over and over again. In 1949 the Government of Canada bulldozed their camp at Ennadai Lake, southwest Nunavut, and began a devastating decade-long relocation process. David Serkoak lived through the relocations as a child. The retired teacher and principal in Nunavut now lives in Ottawa. Last January, in Arviat, the 21 remaining Ahiarmiut relocation survivors finally heard the Canadian government apologize.
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN BORDERS the Labrador coastline from the northern end of the Big Land, where it meets Davis Strait to the southern end, which runs into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Storms have shaped the landscape as well as the People living on the coast. Conditions all along the coastline are harsh, but the northern climes are the hardest areas for people to adapt to.
