Darth Vader sports blue shades and a red floral shirt as he poses in front of a coconut tree in the Instagram square. In the caption beside the Dark Lord are the words: “Qikaqtuq / He or she stays home, is off work, staying still or on holiday” Inuktitut Ilinniaqta is an online Inuktitut language-learning […] More »
A disproportionate number of Inuit slip into homelessness after landing in Montreal
Samantha Scalise
At any given time there are 150 to 200 Nunavik Inuit in Montreal accompanying a loved one receiving medical care. The lack of basic services in their northern communities forces a vast number of Inuit to fly south to receive treatment in the city. Once they arrive, many Inuit opt to stay in Montreal in an […] More »
Lorraine Loranger has just 2,418 kilometres left to go in her trek
Samantha Scalise
Half of the children in Canada’s foster system are Indigenous. For Inuit children, government care often means being relocated hundreds of kilometres south in total isolation from their family and culture. Siblings are separated, and contact to their communities and families in the north is limited. Allies in the south can help magnify Inuit voices, […] More »
On the complex process of language reclamation among Canada's Inuit
Sarah Rogers
Alexia Galloway-Alainga pushes in a pair of earbuds to tune out the clatter of cutlery and coffee cups hitting cafeteria tables at Ottawa’s Carleton University. She looks straight into her smartphone camera, wearing a slight smile, and begins speaking: Sanngijuq, she says slowly, the last syllable coming from the back of her throat. The Inuktitut […] More »
Imagine a teenager, face smeared in soot and red and white paint, summoning the crowd to its feet. This was the breathtaking scene at Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory’s pep rally in the 1990s. Pep rallies, stirring and spirited as they are, don’t immediately evoke images of overtly political, much less radical, acts. But for Williamson Bathory, […] More »
Shirley Moorehouse’s Pure Energy. Photo courtesy of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. In The Hunter, a digital photograph by Michelle Baikie and part of Newfoundland and Labrador’s SakKijâjuk: Inuit Fine Art and Craft exhibit on Nunatsiavut art, Baikie uses the purple hues of thermal imaging to depict the central role of cold in her culture’s geography—bringing the landscape’s […] More »
When climate change first started showing up in the news, people feared Canada’s North would literally melt away. As scientists debate and differing opinions—and confusion—abound, that initial panic seems to have ebbed. Amongst nearly everybody, of course, but the Inuit. After a lifetime of observation and generations of knowledge, Inuit elders say the melt is […] More »
Whale hunting is a fundamental practice in the North and should be celebrated, not restricted… Gabriel Nirlungayuk can’t pinpoint when Inuit first began hunting bowheads. “Whaling, from an Inuit perspective, has been ongoing since time immemorial,” says the director of wildlife and environment for the land-claims group Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. But he knows one thing: […] More »
In today’s episode of Listen to This, associate editor Nick Taylor-Vaisey brings us the second in his three part series of interviews with Canada’s top aboriginal leaders. In Podcast #017, Nick talked with Clément Chartier, president of the Metis National Council. Today, Nick talks — by a crackly phone connection — with Mary Simon, leader […] More »
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on January 26 that he was going to use Canada’s Group of Eight presidency to push for an annual G8 summit agenda focused on women’s and children’s health. Former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis said it best when he called the announcement an act of “chutzpah.” […] More »
The winners of the 2010 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts were announced today in Montreal. The winners receive $25,000 to support their work and recognize their contributions to Canadian visual art. From the press release: Haida sculptor Robert Davidson, filmmaker André Forcier, painter Rita Letendre, video artist Tom Sherman, photographer Gabor Szilasi and painter Claude Tousignant won the awards […] More »