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.

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.

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.

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.