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.
I REMEMBER WELL the feeling the rugged land of home evoked in me at a young age. I had no tools then to convey this feeling, other than the word “cool.” In retrospect, I know that the warm greens of grass and lichen contrasted with the brilliant blues of sea ice just under the snowy top layer in a way that created a sense of forceful beauty. I’ve since fallen in love with being able to communicate those kinds of experiences, a passion that has led me to study English literature in university. I love how language, whether Inuktut, English, or any other, might capture what goes on in one’s head, when core memories are made, or remembered.
Indigenous leaders call on Ottawa to clean up procurement system
The Canadian government awarded billions of dollars in contracts earmarked for Indigenous enterprises without always requiring bidders to prove that they were First Nations, Métis, or Inuit, a Global News investigation has found.
AS A DRUM DANCER LIVING IN IQALUIT, with family roots in Iglulik, I am most familiar with traditional drum practice of the Nunavut area, which usually entails a man composing his own song, and his wife and family singing while he drums. One song many Nunavummiut may be familiar with, Anirausilirlanga, is about when two specific stars become visible again, signifying the imminent return of the sun after the season of 24‐hour darkness.
.The ship was named after a respected Inuk Elder from Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, a village of 800 along the northernmost tip of Quebec.
WHEN NOEL COCKNEY heard the news of wildfire evacuations in the Northwest Territories last summer, he went straight to the Inuvik wildfire office to see how he could help. A volunteer firefighter of four years, Cockney was already trained in fighting wildland fires. Here he two-week deployment combatting one of many fires that devastated the western Canadian territory over the summer of 2023.
Decades after being forced to leave, these Labrador Inuit got to return home
THIS SUMMER ISSUE of Inuktitut magazine travels across Inuit Nunangat. In our cover feature you’ll find a success story that merges Inuit self‐determination with food security, thanks to an Inuvik‐based country food processing plant. Also from the West, we’ll hear the firsthand account of an Inuvialuit wildfire fighter who battled one of the many blazes that raged through the Northwest Territories in 2023.
Indigenous leaders will attend a meeting with Canada’s premiers on Monday, with health care on the agenda
This Infrastructure Midterm Review discusses the experiences of the four Inuit Land Claim Organizations in accessing the federal Indigenous Community Infrastructure Fund.
