above & beyond | canada's arctic journal 2015 | 02
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above&beyond Canada's Arctic JournalTRANSCRIPT
A B O V E & B E Y O N D – C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L
2015 | 02 • $5.95 What Happened to the Mary?A Historic Site
Printmaker Extraordinaire
Frozen Finds in the Alpine Artifacts of the Caribou Hunter
The Reindeer PhilosopherA Culture with Purpose
www.arcticjournal.ca
PM40050872 o
Andrew Qappik
Book online at firstair.ca or call 1 800 267 1247 /firstairLike us!
W7mEst5bK5 wvJ6gw•5 x7ml d/8N¨4 {tx srs6b6g3u4 czb˙oEp7mEst4vFs4.We value your support and thank you for making First Air The Airline of the North.
Nous apprécions votre soutien et vous remercions de votre appui à First Air la ligne aérienne du Nord.
Chers invités,First Air connaît un excellent début en 2015! Noussommes ravis des changements qui viendront s’y ajoutercette année, qu’il s’agisse de la nouvelle présentation decette publication vedette pour nos lecteurs, y comprisplus de nouvelles sur ce que First Air envisage de faire oudes partenariats qu’il continue d’établir.
Notre partenariat avec le transporteur Cargojet est unsuccès retentissant. À compter du 19 mars, nos vols cargoseront exploités cinq fois par semaine entre Thunder Bayet Winnipeg au moyen de l’aéronef tout-cargo ATR 42.
Un nouveau vol affrété Ottawa-Miami a lieu deux fois par semaine jusqu’au 19 avril par notre Boeing 737-400tout-passager, tandis que Summit Air s’occupe main -tenant des vols de First Air entre Edmonton et Yellowknifepar le jet moderne et efficace Avro RJ85 qui peut accueillir90 passagers.
Ces changements nous permettent d’introduire notreBoeing 737-400 mixte à Winnipeg et Rankin Inlet, et par lefait même de fournir un meilleur service, plus de sièges etde capacité de chargement à ces marchés et à l’ensemblede la région de Kivalliq. Notre B737-400 tout-passagerservira à exploiter le vol 860 le lundi et le vol 861 levendredi, doublant presque le nombre de sièges sur cesdeux vols de pointe où la demande est élevée.
Le renouvellement de la flotte est pour nous uneimportante priorité car il offre davantage de possibilitéstout en réduisant considérablement les coûts, grâce àl’amélioration de l’efficacité et de l’efficience. Nous avonsvendu l’un de nos avions-cargos Hercules et notrenouvelle génération de B737-400 a connu un grandsuccès. Nous avons presque terminé une étude appro -fondie sur le remplacement de la flotte à turbopropulseuren vue d’uniformiser nos aéronefs ATR avec une nouvellegénération d’aéronefs plus efficaces.
Nous espérons que l’année 2015 a bien débuté pour vousaussi. L’hiver finira bientôt et nous pourrons commencerà profiter du printemps. Nous avons bon espoir que 2015sera encore une autre année d’améliorations et que nouspoursuivrons activement d’autres possibilités d'affairespour accroître nos revenus et développer nos activités pardes vols supplémentaires tout en continuant de fournir ànos clients des services de haute qualité, sécuritaires etfiables pour lesquels nous sommes réputés.
Merci d’avoir choisi First Air, la Ligne aérienne du Nord!
Brock FriesenPrésident-directeur général de First Air
Dear Guest,First Air has had a great start to 2015! From giving our
readers a new look to this flagship publication including
more news about what First Air is up to and what
partnerships we continue to make, we’re excited about
the changes still to come your way this year.
Our partnership with carrier Cargojet is proving a
resounding success. Beginning March 19, we will operate
cargo flights with five weekly frequencies between
Thunder Bay and Winnipeg using a “full-freighter” ATR 42.
A new Ottawa-Miami charter is flying twice weekly using
our all-passenger Boeing 737-400 until April 19 and Summit
Air is now flying First Air’s Edmonton to Yellowknife
operations, using the modern and efficient 90-passenger
Avro RJ85 jet.
These changes allow us to introduce our Boeing 737-400
combi to Winnipeg and Rankin Inlet providing better
service, more seats and more cargo capacity to these
markets and the entire Kivalliq region. Our all-passenger
B737-400 will be operating Flight 860 on Mondays and
Flight 861 on Fridays, almost doubling the seating
capacity on these two peak flights where demand is high.
Fleet renewal is a significant priority for us and will allow
greater opportunities while significantly reducing costs
through increased efficiency and effectiveness. We have
sold one of our Hercules freighter aircraft and our newer
generation B737-400’s have been a great success. A
comprehensive turbo prop fleet replacement study is
nearing completion that will standardize our ATR aircraft
with newer generation, more efficient aircraft.
We hope 2015 has been a good start for you as well.
Winter will soon be over and we can start to enjoy spring.
We are optimistic that 2015 will be yet another year of
improvement and continue to actively pursue other
business opportunities to grow our revenue and expand
our business with additional flying while continuing to
provide top quality, safe and reliable service for our
customers that we are known for.
Thank you for flying with First Air, the Airline of the North!
Brock FriesenFirst Air President & CEO
ᑐᕌᖅᑐᑦ ᐃᑭᒪᔪᓄᑦ, ᕘᔅᑦ ᐃᐊᒃᑯᑦ 2015 ᐊᑐᕆᐊᓵᕐᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᓕᕆᔨᖏᑦ ᓈᒻᒪᑦ ᑎ ᐊᖅᑐᒥᒃᐱᓕᕆᐊᕆᕙᒃᑕᒥᓐᓂ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᑦᑎᐊᕐᓂᖃᓚᐅᖅᐳᑦ! ᑐᓴᖅᑎᑦᑎᓯ ᒪᓕᕐᓂᑦᑎᒍᑦᓄᑖᑎᒍᑦ ᐅᖃᓕᒫᒐᒃᓴᐃᑦ ᑕᐅᑦᑐᖃᓕᖅᑎᑦᑎᓚ ᐅᕐᓂᑦ ᑎᓐᓂᑦ ᐃᓚᖃᕐᑎ ᑕ -ᐅᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᐊᓯᒃᑲᓐᓂᖏᓂᒃ ᑐᓴᒐᒃᓴᖁᑎᒋᔭᖏᓂᒃ ᕘᔅᑦ ᐃᐊᒃᑯᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓲ -ᓕᕆᔨᖏᑦ ᓱᓕᕆᐊᖃᓕᕐᒪᖔᑕ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᓄᐃᑦᑐᓂᒃ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᖃᖃ ᑎᒋᓂ -ᐅᔪᓂᒃ ᐱᒋᐊᖅᑎᑦᑎᓯᒪᕙᓐᓂᕗᑦ ᑲᔪᓯᑎᑕᐅᓯᒪ ᑎᓪᓗᒋᑦ, ᖁᕕᐊᓱᓪᓚᕆᒃᑐᒍᑦᓱᓕᒃᑲᓐᓂᖅ ᐊᓯᔾᔩᓯᒪᕙᓪᓕᐊᓂᐊᕋᑦᑕ ᐊᕐᕌᒍᒋᔭᑦᑎᓐᓂ.
ᐃᑲᔪᖅᑎᒌᒃᖢᑕ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᖃᖃᑎᖃᕐᓂᕗᑦ ᐊᒃᔭᖅᑐᐃᔨᐅᓪᓗᓂ ᐱᖁᑎᓂᒃᑳᒃᑰᔨᐊᑦ ᖁᑦᑎᒃᑐᒻᒪᕆᖕᒥᒃ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᑦᑎᐊᕐᓂᖃᕐᐳᖅ. ᐱᒋᐊᕐᕕᖃᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᒫᔾᔨ19-ᒥ, ᐱᖁᑎᓂᒃ ᐊᒃᔭᖅᑐᐃᓗᑕ ᖃᖓᑕᖃᑦᑕᓕᕐᓂᐊᖅᐳᒍᑦ ᐱᓇᓱᐊᕈᓯᖅᑕᓪᓕᒪᐃᖅᑕᕐᓗᒍ ᓴᓐᑐᕐ ᐸᐃᒥᑦ ᒍᐃᓂᐲᒡᒧᑦ "ᑕᑕᖅᑑᓗᓂ ᐊᒃᔭᖅᑐᐃᔨᑦ"ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖓᓂᒃ XTR 42-ᒥᒃ.
ᓄᑖᖑᓪᓗᓂ ᐋᑐᕙᒥᑦ-ᒪᐃᐋᒥᒧᑦ ᓵᑕᒃᑯᑦ ᐱᓇᓱᐊᕈᓯᖅ ᒪᕐᕈᐃᖅᐸᒃᓗᒍᐃᓄᖕᓂᒃ ᐃᓯᕙᒃᑑᓪᓗᓂ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖁᑎᕗᑦ 737-400 ᖃᖓᑕᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐊᓕᕐᒥᔪᖅᑎᑭᓪᓗᒍ ᐊᐃᐱᕆ 19-ᒧᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖅ ᓴᒥᑦ ᐃᐊᕐ ᖃᖓᑕᖃᑦ -ᑕᓕᕆᓪᓗᓂ ᕘᔅᑦ ᐃᐊᒃᑯᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓂᕆᕙᒃᑕᖓᓂᒃ ᐃᐊᑦᒪᓐᑕᓐᒥᑦ ᔭᓗᓇᐃᒧᑦᖃᖓᑕᓂᕆᕙᒃᑕᖏᓂᒃ, ᐊᑐᕐᐸᒃᖢᑎᒃ ᓄᑖᖑᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᔪᖖᒋᑦᑎᐊᖅ -ᑑᓪᓗᓂ 90-ᓂᒃ ᐃᓄᖕᓂᒃ ᐅᓯᔪᖕᓇᖅᑐᖅ ᐋᕝᕉ RJ85 ᖃᖓᑕᓲᒥ ᐊᑐᕐᐸᒃᓗᑎᒃ.
ᑕᒪᒃᑯᑎᒎᓇᖅ ᐊᓯᔾᔩᓂᑦᑎᒍᑦ ᐱᒋᐊᖅᑎᑦᑎᔪᖕᓇᓚᐅᕋᑦᑕ ᓴᖅᑮᓯᒪᓕᕐᓂᒥᒃᐴᐃᖕ 737-400 ᖃᖓᑕᓲᑦ ᑲᑎᑕᐅᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᖃᖓᑕᕙᓕᕐᑎᑕᐅᓂᖏᓂᒃᒍᐃᓂᐲᒡᒧᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑲᖏᖅᖠᓂᕐᒧᑦ ᐱᐅᓂᖅᓴᐅᓪᓗᒍ ᐱᔨᑦᑎᕋᕈᖕ ᓇᓕᕈ ᑎ -ᒋᓪᓗᑎᒍᑦ, ᐊᒥᓲᓂᖅᓴᐅᓕᕐᖢᑎᒃ ᐃᑭᒪᕝᕕᐅᔪᖕᓇᖅᑐᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᓯᔭᐅᔪᖕᓇᖅᑐᑦᐃᓂᖃᕐᓂᖅᓴᐅᓕᕐᖢᑎᒃ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᓄᖓ ᓂᐅᕝᕈᑎᖃᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐅᔪᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗᑭᕙᓪᓕᐅᑉ ᐊᕕᒃᑐᖅᓯᒪᓂᓕᒫᖓᓄᑦ. ᐃᓄᖕᓂᒃ ᑭᓯᐊᓂ ᐅᓯᕙᒃᑑᓪᓗᓂᖃᖓᑕᓲᖅ B737-400 ᖃᖓᑕᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐊᓕᕐᑐᖅ ᐊᐅᓚᑕᐅᓂᖃᕐᓗᓂ ᖃᖓ -ᑕᓲᖅ 860 ᖃᖓᑕᓂᕆᕙᒃᑕᖓᓂᒃ ᓴᓇᑦᑕᐃᓕᐅᕌᓂᒃᑳᖓᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖅ861 ᖃᖓᑕᕙᖕᓂᐊᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᑕᓪᓕᒪᖓᐅᑎᓪᓗᒍ, ᒪᕐᕈᐃᕈᖕᓇᑲᓴᒻᒪᓕᕆᕐᖢᑎᒃᐃᓂᖃᕐᕕᐅᔪᖕᓇᓕᖅᑐᑦ ᑖᒃᑯᖕᓇᕐᓂ ᒪᕐᕉᐃᖕᓂᒃ ᖃᖓᑕᕙᓕᕐᓂᐅᔪᓂᒃᐃᑭᒪᕝᕕᐅᔪᒪᓂᖅᐸᐅᕙᒃᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᑖᒃᑯᖕᓇᖕᓂ ᐅᑉᓗᖕᓂ.
ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖁᑎᒋᔭᑦᑕ ᓄᑕᐅᓕᕆᐊᖅᑎᑕᐅᓂᒃᓴᖏᑦ ᐱᒻᒪᕆᐅᓗᐊᖅᑎᓪᖢᑎᒍᓯᕗᓪᓕᖅᐸᐅᑎᑕᒃᓴᖁᑎᒋᒐᑦᑎᒍ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᒃᓴᑦᑎᓐᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᖏᓂᖅᓴᐅᔪᒥᒃᐱᓕᕆᕝᕕᐅᓕᕈᖕᓇᕋᔭᕐᖢᓂ ᐃᓚᖃᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᐊᑭᒋᔭᐅᕙᒃᑐᓄᑦ ᒥᑭᓪᓕᒋᐊᕈ -ᑎᐅᓗᓂ ᐊᐅᓚᑦᓯᔾᔪᑎᒃᓴᕆᕙᒃᑕᑦᑎᓐᓄᑦ ᐊᖏᓪᓕᒋᐊᖅᑎᑕᐅᓂᖏᑎᒍᑦ ᐊᔪ -ᖖᒋᑦᑎᐊᖅᑑᔭᕆᐊᖃᕐᓂᖏᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᑐᕐᓂᖃᑦᑎᐊᖅᑑᓇᔭᕐᓂᖏᑦ. ᐃᓚᖓᓐᓂᒃᕼᐆᑯᓖᔅ ᐅᓯᑲᖃᕈᑎᐅᕙᒃᖢᓂ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᑦᑎᓐᓂᒃ ᓂᐅᕝᕈᑎᖃᓚᐅᕋᑦᑕ ᐊᒻᒪᓗᓄᑕᐅᓂᖅᓴᐅᔪᖅ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᕆᓕᖅᑕᕗᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖅ B737-400 ᐃᖏᕐᕋᑦᑎ -ᐊᕐᓂᖃᒻᒪᕆᓕᖅᓯᒪᓪᓗᓂ. ᓱᐴᔫᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖁᑎᑦᑕ ᐃᓇᖏᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᓕᕋᔭᖅᐸᑕᖃᐅᔨᓴᕐᓂᐅᔪᑦ ᐱᔭᕇᑲᐅᑎᒋᓂᐊᓕᕐᒪᑕ ᓄᑕᐅᓕᕆᐊᕈᑎᐅᓂᐊᕐᖢᑎᒃ ATRᓄᑦᖃᖓᑕᓲᒧᑦ ᓄᑖᖑᓂᖅᓴᓂᒃ, ᐊᑐᕐᓂᖃᕐᓂᖅᓴᐅᓗᑎᒃᓗ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖑᓕᕐ ᓂ -ᐊᖅᑐᒧᑦ.
2015 ᐅᑭᐅᖓ ᐃᓕᑦᓯᓐᓄᑦᑕᐅᖅ ᐊᑐᕆᐊᕐᓂᖃᑦᑎᐊᖅᑑᖁᒋᕙᖅᐳᑦ. ᐅᑭᐅ -ᖑᔪᖕᓃᑲᐅᑎᒋᓂᐊᓕᕐᒥᒻᒪᑦ ᐅᐱᕐᖓᒃᑖᖑᓕᕐᒥᓗᓂ. ᓂᕆᐅᖕᓂᖃᑦᑎᐊᖅᐳᒍᑦ2015 ᐅᑭᐅᖓᓂ ᐱᐅᓯᒋᐊᖅᑎᑦᑎᓯᒪᓕᕈᖕᓇᕐᓂᐊᕋᑦᑕ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑲᔪᓯᑎᓯ ᒪᔪᖕ -ᓇᕐᓗᑎᒍᑦ ᐊᓯᖏᑦ ᐱᓕᕆᓂᑦᑎᓐᓂ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᖑᓕᕈᖕᓇᖅᑐᑦ ᐱᕈᖅᓴᐃᔾᔪ -ᑕᐅᓕᕐᓗᑎᒃ ᐅᑎᖅᑐᒃᓴᖁᑎᒋᕙᒃᑕᑦᑎᓐᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᖏᒡᓕᒋᐊᖅᑎᓪᓗᑎᒍᐱᓕᕆᐊᖃᕐᓂᕆᔭᕗᑦ ᐊᒥᓱᖖᒍᕆᐊᖅᑎᓯᒪᓕᕐᓗᑎᒍ ᖃᖓᑕᕙᖕᓂᕗᑦ ᐊᑕᐅᑦ -ᑎᒃᑰᕐᑎᑕᐅᓗᑎᒃ ᐱᖁᓂᖅᓴᐅᔪᒥᒃ, ᖃᓄᐃᖖᒋᑦᑎᐊᕐᓇᖅᑐᒥᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗᖁᓚᕐᓇᖖᒋᑦᑐᒥᒃ ᐱᔨᑦᑎᕋᕈᑎᖃᖅᑎᓪᓗᑕ ᖃᖓᑕᕙᒃᑐᖁᑎᑦᑎᓐᓄᑦ ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᑦᑎᐊᕋᑦᑕᑎᑐᑦ.
ᖁᔭᓐᓇᒦᓕᖅᐸᑦᓯ ᕘᔅᑦ ᐃᐊᒃᑯᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖓᓂ ᐃᑭᒪᔪᖕᓇᓚᐅᕐᓂᑦᓯᓐᓄᑦ,ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥᐅᑦ ᖃᖓᑕᓲᖁᑎᖓᓂ!
ᐸᕌᒃ ᕗᕇᓴᓐᕘᔅᑎᐊᒃᑯᓐᓄᑦ ᐊᖓᔪᖅᑳᖅ & ᐊᐅᓚᑦᑎᔨᒻᒪᕆᒃ
Brock Friesen / XÇ4 K‰n8 Jobie Tukkiapik / JW bexW4President, Makivik Corporation & Chairman, First AirxzJ6√6, mr=F4 fxS‰nzk5 x7m w4y?sb6, {5 wsf8k5
Président, Société Makivik et président du conseil, First Air
Book online at firstair.ca or call 1 800 267 1247 /firstairLike us!
Supporting The North’s Potential First Air is an integral partner and supporter of initiatives that foster sound economic development, real social progress, and the realization of opportunities for Canada’s Arctic regions and their people.
Find out how northerners and others are exploring the true potential of the North to build on and develop new and better opportunities right now and into the future at the ARCTICAGE Conference in Ottawa, March 17, 2015.
In the News
Travel Convenience, Deals and Savings Packages With other airlines charging for each piece of baggage these days,
did you know that First Air allows your first 2 pieces of baggage on board FREE (Maximum 32 kgs/70 lbs per piece)? It’s true! Have more than two?
Not to worry. Take advantage of our new call-ahead on excess baggage fees service and SAVE!
Your First Air destination not your last stop? Our online trip continuation services are now your route to booking the best ground transport options
and savings with our partners, VIA Rail and Car Trawler at: www.firstair.ca/viarail/ and www.firstair/car-trawler/
Celebrating northern culture First Air is proud to be the official airline and an event sponsor to what’s described as Ottawa’s most highly anticipated and exciting cultural event of the year, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s exceptionally popular, A Taste of the Arctic being held at the National Arts Centre, March 10.
Great food, great culture and great airfares too! A Taste of the Arctic, nothing could be more delicious.
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Proud SponsorLive, from the stands in Rankin Inlet — that’s the best way to take in the First Air Avataq Cup. All the skills, the speed, the good-natured competitiveness and the heart-stopping excitement of the “ping” of the puck ringing off the goal post are yours to enjoy. Be there with our special fares to one of the North’s premier hockey events.
Book online @firstair.ca by March 15, 2015
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Long John JamboreeLater in March, why not put on your long johns (red is preferred but hey, we like plaid and polka dot too) and make the most of our special fares to hop on to attend Yellowknife’s premier and more than just a bit zany “celebration on ice,” the Long John Jamboree, March 27-29, 2015.
So why wait? Save today and join in the revelry and fun at A Taste of the Arctic and the Long John Jamboree. Like us on Facebook. Visit our page for booking details and promo codes too.
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A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 5
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A B O V E & B E Y O N D – C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L
2015 | 02 • $5.95 What Happened to the Mary?A Historic Site
Printmaker Extraordinaire
Frozen Finds in the Alpine Ar�facts of the Caribou Hunter
The Reindeer PhilosopherA Culture with Purpose
www.arcticjournal.ca
PM40050872 o
Andrew Qappik
Features09 Andrew Qappik
Printmaker Extraordinaire Qappik drew everywhere and everything. And so began his life as an artist.— Season Osborne
23 What Happened to the Mary? A historic site ravaged
through time The mast and a few boards are all that’s left of the12-ton yacht Mary, left at Beechey Island in 1853.— Season Osborne
29 Frozen Finds in the Alpine Artifacts of the Caribou
HunterAs long as caribou have been gathering at icepatches in Alaska, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories for over 9,000 years, people armed with sturdy moccasins and stone-tipped weaponshave followed them.—Todd Kristensen, Tom Andrews and Darryl Bereziuk
7 Arctic Change — above&beyond15 Living Above&Beyond21 Inuit Forum — Terry Audla22 Resources35 Arts, Culture & Education The Reindeer Philosopher — Zoe Ho39 Politics Choosing a QIA President — Teevi Mackay43 Tourism NWT at Winterlude45 Sound Tracks — Trent Walthers46 Preview The Right to Be Cold — Sheila Watt-Cloutier49 Bookshelf50 Guest Editorial — The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq
Contents
9
23
29Detail: Pause (Polar Bears), 2002stencil on paper, 31/7051 x 64.5 cmCollection of the Winnipeg Art GalleryGiven by the Council for Canadian American Relationsthrough the generosity of H.G. Jones, 2006-323Photographer credit: Leif Norman, Winnipeg Art Gallery
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 7
A R C T I C C H A N G E
On March 17, 2015 Ottawa is host to an inaugural one-day conference titled, Arctic Age: Our Northern Future.
The conference, as part of an international City Age strategies for the future initiative, will bring together key
stakeholder organizations and top-of-their-fields speakers and leaders in academia, government, business and
industry to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas that will help define and tackle the major issues and challenges
faced by peoples around the globe in social development, transportation, technologies, etc. The ultimate aim is to
help chart better ways forward for societies to move in public policy development areas beyond the socio-economic
and cultural landscapes of today in the face of uncertain economic times, social need, growing infra-structure
requirements, and the competitive factors and trends involuntarily injected into our lives through globalization.
Still very much awhirl with the rapid pace of change the Arctic has already experienced in the last 50 years or
more in terms of climate, cultural renaissances and reaffirmations, new alliances and the discovery of vast resource
potentials and more, forums such as Arctic Age will become all the more significant going forward as one means
to bring all aspects and challenges (some might say truths) to the forefront and to more respectfully engage those
societies and cultures most affected to ensure that opportunities are made the most of for all and that no one is
left behind.
Arctic Age: Our Northern Future
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 9
The artist with his brushes after a stencilling workshopwith passengers aboard an Adventure Canada cruise
through the Northwest Passage, September 2014.© Season Osborne
It started with a cowboy. When he
was little, Andrew Qappik’s uncle
drew a cowboy wearing a Stetson,
vest, chaps, and toting a pistol,
then asked if he could draw the
same thing. Qappik did. And so
began his life as an artist.
By Season Osborne
Andrew QappikPr intmak er E x t raord ina i re
Andrew Qappik was born in 1964 in a camp outside the east Baffin community of Pangnirtung. His family moved into
Pangnirtung a few years later. ey didn’t have a TV, but Qappik hadcomic books, stacks of them. He started sketching comics.
“Paper was quite hard to come by,” says Qappik. “It was only inschool. But at home I’d use anything — cardboard — and start drawing. I drew pretty much from Marvel comic books: Batman, Superman, Shazam... all the comic book heroes.”
Qappik drew everywhere and everything. Even students in hisclass became his models.
“While everyone was studying or doing their schoolwork, Iwould be making portraits of them,” he says. “One teacher would letus try to see who could do math the fastest. I got pretty fast, so Icould finish math and have time to do my drawing.”
John Houston was technical arts advisor to the Uqqurmiut InuitArtists Association in Pangnirtung in the mid 1970s. He recalls Andrew as a young 11-year-old who’d come to the print shop towatch his printmaker uncles Solomon and Imoona Karpik work.
“Andrew would get off school and come straight to the printshop,” says Houston. “He was just observing. He was the perfect fellow to have around — friendly, easygoing, and quiet.”
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When he was in elementary school, there was a drawingcontest for all the schools in the Baffin region. Qappik entered and his drawing won first place. e prize was a hugetrampoline for the school, which introduced gymnastics tothe students.
A few years later, the Pangnirtung print shop had an artcontest. irteen-year-old Qappik entered the contest andcame in second. Five of his drawings were made into printsand included in the 1978 collection. His prints sold out.
One person who bought all five prints was Dr. H.G. Jones, a history professor at DukeUniversity in North Carolina. He was interested in Inuit art and visited Pangnirtung.e young art prodigy intrigued Jones. Qappik recalls the school principal telling himhe had the aernoon off to go to the Auyuittuq lodge to meet Dr. Jones. Over the next 31 years, Jones came almost every year to Pangnirtung. He became Qappik’s patron,purchasing every one of his prints, created using etchings, stone cuts, lithographs, andlinocuts.
By the time he was 16, Qappik had completed 11 prints. He had no formal artistictraining but he had talent in spades. At 17, Qappik knew he wanted to be a printmakerand approached the print shop about working there. He had one more year of highschool, and the printmakers suggested he come work there aer he graduated. His parents agreed, but Qappik’s argument was irrefutable. “What’s the point? I’m going tobe an artist. I’m going to be a printmaker. Why don’t I start now?”
In the end, there was no reasoning him out of it, so Qappik became apprenticed tothe Pangnirtung print shop, sweeping the floor and cleaning the printmakers’ brushes.Eventually, he was allowed to do the sky or the water part of the stencil, while the experienced printmakers did the rest of the print. en, he was allowed to cut stencils.In time, he started doing his own drawings, all the while keeping up his work, makingprints for other artists. Qappik’s own images proved very popular, and gradually heearned respect not only as a printer but as an artist.
Fishing at Ingalik, 1996stencil on paper, 20/50
39.2 x 64.5 cmCollection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery
Given by the Council for Canadian American Relations throughthe generosity of H.G. Jones, 2006-292
Photographer credit: Leif Norman, Winnipeg Art Gallery
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 1 1
Favourite Place to Be, 1993stencil on paper, 34/50
50.7 x 43.7 cmCollection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery
Given by the Council for Canadian American Relations through the generosity of H.G. Jones, 2006-279Photographer credit: Ernest Mayer, Winnipeg Art Gallery
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When Nunavut was being created, a Canada-wide contest was held for design submissions for the new territory’s flag and coat of arms. Qappik started thinking aboutdesigns, and prayed for a vision: a flag vision. In July 1998, he went to the Great NorthernArts Festival in Inuvik. On his way back, he stayed in Yellowknife and drew sketchesin his hotel room.
“I kept drawing the inukshuk. All I could draw was that,” says Qappik. “I tried something else, it didn’t work out. I kept going back. I used four or five of the differentaspects of inukshuk.”
Finally satisfied with his design, on his way home to Pangnirtung, he went to theNunavut commissioner’s in Iqaluit and handed in his entry.
Representatives from the Governor General’s Heraldry flew to Pangnirtung andtold Qappik that his art had been chosen out of 800 entries. He was invited to be the chiefdesigner of the Nunavut flag and coat of arms at Heraldry in Ottawa. e final version
Pause (Polar Bears), 2002stencil on paper, 31/7051 x 64.5 cmCollection of the Winnipeg Art GalleryGiven by the Council for Canadian American Relations throughthe generosity of H.G. Jones, 2006-323Photographer credit: Leif Norman, Winnipeg Art Gallery
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 1 3
Darlene Wight, curator of Inuit art at the WAG, says,“Andrew’s use of perspective is unique. He started off withaction figures from comics, so he puts action into his figures.ey are not static.”
Qappik’s depiction of wildlife is unique too. His work isfilled with caribou, fish, whales, and polar bears. He hasgreat respect for animals and captures the quality of the animals, masterfully giving them personality.
When Qappik first started making art, he was criticized.It didn’t look Inuit because he was so adept at using three-point perspective and techniques attributed to western art.For instance, his paintings of ice fishing show the person ontop of the ice and the fish below it.
“He loves to play around with perspective,” says Wight.“Andrew is a master printer because he is able to get these wonderfully, transparent veils of colour that almostshimmer. ey’re translucent.”
Andrew Qappik is a role model for younger artists. Buthe is also a widely respected member of the Pangnirtungcommunity. He and his wife, Annie, have three daughters,a son, and 11 grandchildren. His faith is very important tohim. Qappik was a deacon at Pangnirtung’s Anglican Churchfor 12 years. For the last three, he has been co-pastor, leadingthe congregation, at Full Gospel Church. He offers spiritualleadership and lends encouragement and support to familiesgoing through difficult times.
Qappik’s positive influence is felt in his community. But hisoptimism, so apparent in his art, has a far-reaching influencewith art lovers.
As Wight says, “He is a virtuoso.”
of these was officially accepted by the Governor General and Queen Elizabeth II. eflag was officially raised when Nunavut became a territory on April 1, 1999.
Designing a flag where every colour has significance is not something every artistcan do.
“ere is a technical aspect to it that is not necessarily creative,” says Houston. “Itcombines artistry in abundance, but requires a designer mind, which is quite a bit morepragmatic than the strictly artistic mind.”
Weavers in Pangnirtung have also used Qappik’s drawings in tapestries. In 2011, hedesigned a coin, featuring a woman with a baby in her amauti. Qappik’s art has takenhim many places. He visited Jones in North Carolina and spoke to students at the Inuitstudies program at Duke University. He has also travelled across the Arctic as an invaluable staff member on Arctic cruise ships with Adventure Canada and Studentson Ice. As artist and culturalist, Qappik quietly shares his artistic talents and gives passengers insights into Inuit life in the Arctic.
In 2006, Dr. H.G. Jones wanted his collection of 140 of Qappik’s catalogued and uncatalogued prints to have a permanent home in Canada. e Winnipeg Art Gallery(WAG), which has the largest collection of Inuit art in the world with 13,000 pieces, wasthe logical choice for Jones’ collection. In 2010, the WAG had an exhibit showcasing 32 of Qappik’s prints. It was Qappik’s first solo art show.
Season Osborne has a passion for Arctic history, and is the authorof In the Shadow of the Pole: An Early History of Arctic Expeditions,1871-1912. She lives and writes in Ottawa, Ontario.
Images of Qappik’s prints are part of the Winnipeg Art Gallery collection, given by the Council for Canadian American Relationsthrough the generosity of H.G. Jones.
Andrew Qappik (Self-Portrait in Printshop), 2002drypoint on paper, Artist’s Proof IV/V35.5 x 41.3 cmCollection of the Winnipeg Art GalleryGiven by the Council for Canadian American Relations throughthe generosity of H.G. Jones, 2006-326Photographer credit: Ernest Mayer, Winnipeg Art Gallery
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 1 5
L I V I N G A B O V E & B E Y O N D
Bluenose East caribou herd.© B. Tracz, ENR, GNWT
Nunavut government’s interim moratorium on hunting caribou on and around
Baffin Island, which took effect January 1, will help give the Baffin Island
caribou population time to recover. The Wildlife board will hold hearings
March 11 and 12 on a caribou management plan. Until further notice, hunting
caribou on Baffin Island could result in fines and charges for illegal hunting.
Nunavut’s environment department will move ahead with a project
to collar caribou in the Dolphin and Union herd around Cambridge Bay
in April 2015. The three-year collaring project is intended to collect new
information on the population numbers of the caribou, their migrations
and their habitat.
The GNWT territorial government has set up a no-hunting zone to
protect the Bathurst caribou herd and is tracking the herd’s core with collars
and will put out weekly updates on the location of the protected zone.
The government will allow hunting of 15 Bathurst bulls for community
ceremonial harvests but aboriginal groups have to apply to the govern-
ment beforehand. Hunting of the Bluenose East caribou herd is limited
to 1,500. These measures will be reviewed after aerial surveys of the
Bathurst herd and the Bluenose East herd are conducted this spring.
Managing the North’s caribou
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L I V I N G A B O V E & B E Y O N D
In collaboration with Canadian Geographic, the Canadian Museum of Nature has created a giant
Arctic floor map to help teach students about the Arctic.
The national educational project allows students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to explore
the natural diversity of Canada’s North: plants, animals, fossils and minerals. The map includes
10 curriculum-linked activities for teachers and a trunk of real Arctic specimens that encourage
students to challenge their perceptions about the diversity and geography of Canada’s Arctic.
Schools or teachers can reserve the map and associated activities at canadiangeographic.ca.
Giant map teaches students about the Arctic
© a&b_files/MayJune2012/People of a Feather/Joel Heath
Eider ducks have long been a source of food
and clothing on the Belcher Islands. A study
has determined there is enough eiderdown to
restart the eiderdown factory in Sanikiluaq,
Nunavut.
Eiderdown is considered one of the best
natural insulants in the world and it commands
a good price. The factory could also produce
vests or mittens.
Collecting the down doesn’t harm the ducks
since the down is taken from the nests.
Eiderdown factory to re-open
Grade 5/6 students from St. Gabriel School in Ottawa try out the giant Arctic map during a launch at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Jessica Finn © Canadian Geographic
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 1 7
L I V I N G A B O V E & B E Y O N D
Instructor Jackie Milne describes how to care for carrots to students from around the Northwest Territoriesduring a Midseason Garden Maintenance and Marketing workshop. © Caroline Lafontaine
Farming in the NWTThe Northern Farm Training Institute (NFTI) in
Hay River, NWT, has become Canada’s first Savory
Institute training hub. The Savory Institute is
an international non-profit organization that
promotes preservation and restoration of the
world’s grasslands through holistic management
of livestock. A Savory Hub serves as a training
centre to help spread the organization’s tech-
niques and philosophies worldwide.
The NFTI is also developing a site that will
include a teaching facility to house 15 or more
students, a state- of -the- art barn, yurts for
student accommodations and a large yurt to
be used as a classroom.
NFTI’s programming covers subjects such as
seed selection, planting, wild harvesting and
how to apply for funding support. By teaching
people to farm their own food, NFTI can help
transform the food system North of 60.
(Front: L to R): Tagak Curley, the founder of Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) with Senator CharlieWatt who was the leader in the JBNQA negotiations with William Tagoona, now Makivik Senior Communications
Officer. Curley and Watt were filmed in Ottawa at Parliament Hill for the documentary. In the back (L to R): director Ole Gjerstad, cameraman Alex Margineau and producer Bernard Lajoie. © Jean-Marie Comeau
The JBNQA documentary The James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement (JBNQA) was the first
modern land claims agreement signed in Canada’s Arctic. The Pascal
Blais Studio is producing a documentary that will underline the history,
facts, events and stories of the negotiations that led to the JBNQA. The
Makivik Corporation — mandated to protect the rights, interests and
financial compensation provided by this 1975 agreement — is advising
the production team.
Film production started in March 2014 at the Makivik Annual General
Meeting (AGM) where the majority of the signatories of the JBNQA were
present. This documentary will serve as a tool to educate Nunavik
beneficiaries about their shared history. A short preview will be screened
at the upcoming Makivik AGM in March, while the film is expected to
be completed in late spring 2015.
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L I V I N G A B O V E & B E Y O N D
Makivik Corporation, along with other Nunavik organizations, has completed the Parnasimautik
Consultation Report after extensive consultation with Nunavik Inuit. Parnasimautik is an unprece-
dented exercise in regional and local mobilization and unity that began in 2013 at workshops
organized in every Nunavik community with local committees, associations, groups and residents.
This report gives Nunavik Inuit one voice and calls for governments to commit to a comprehensive,
integrated, sustainable and equitable approach for improving Nunavik Inuit lives and communities. The
full report is available at www.parnasimautik.com along with the “What Was Said” community bulletins.
The Parnasimautik report
Makivik Corporation President Jobie Tukkiapik presents the ParnasimautikConsultation Report at the Nunavik Forum held in Kuujjuaq in November.© Robert Fréchette
Native North America features tracks produced by Aboriginal artists in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.© Light in the Attic
Attic Records has recently released a new CD,
Native North America Vol 1: Aboriginal Folk,
Rock and Country 1966-1985.
Native North America features Inuit musicians
from across the North, including folk singer
John Angaiak; a Yup’ik from Nightmute, Alaska;
Willie Thrasher, an Inuk singer-songwriter from
Inuvik, Northwest Territories; the Sugluk band;
Kuujjuaq musician and retired CBC host William
Tagoona; Puvirnituq’s Sikumiut, headed by the
late, great singer-songwriter Charlie Adams;
and Baker Lake’s Alexis Utatnaq.
The album represents the fusion of shifting
global popular culture and a reawakening of
Aboriginal spirituality and expression. The songs
speak of joy but also tell of real tragedy and
strife.
New CD features Inuit musicians
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 1 9
#56 Kugluktuk Dr., Kugluktuk, NUPh: 867-982-4713F : 867-982-4718
Email: [email protected]
General construction, remediation work, plumbing and heating,
heavy equipment rental and service, earthworks, vehicle service
and rental, expediting, ice road construction, cat train work
General contractors serving the North since 1999Inuit owned and operated
KIKIAKCONTRACT ING LTD .
The elders in residence group at the exhibit opening. L to R: Annie Atigihioyak, Mabel Etegik,Mary Avalak, Mary Kilaodluk, and Pam Gross (Program Manager). © Brendan Griebel/KHS
The May Hakongak Community Library and
Cultural Centre in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, has
opened its new Inuinnauyugut exhibit. The
exhibits number more than a dozen artifacts
and include carvings, paintings, clothing, pelts,
and photos as well as artifacts from hundreds
of years ago alongside tools still used today.
The cultural centre also plans to pass on
traditions between generations through new
programs, including a qulliq-making workshop,
an Elders’s Mentorship program and a summer
camping trip to Perry River.
Showcasing Cambridge Bay culture
L I V I N G A B O V E & B E Y O N D
Federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq
has announced funding of more than $7 million
for research on new and developing fisheries
in Nunavut.
Research will include:
• studying how existing turbot harvests can
be expanded and whether new locations
can be added as well as doing surveys to
help manage the stock;
• surveying and sustainability research on
northern shrimp;
• investigating the feasibility of having a
commercial clam industry near Qikiqtarjuaq,
and
• deciding whether Nunavut’s small Arctic
char fishery can be expanded.
NU fisheries to be studied
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 2 1
I N U I T F O R U M
When footage of Inuit
feeding their families
with food from local
dumps made it to the
evening news a short
while ago, the issue of
food security suddenly
became real for many
Canadians living in the south. In the days
that followed, many Canadians joined online
discussion groups to learn more about the
issue. Some formed a network to send food
packages directly to food banks and families in
need. Interestingly, a number of others clicked
the donate button at www.itk.ca to help us
develop Inuit-driven solutions to social policy
needs.
The economic reality of the 21st century
is that government is not funding Aboriginal
policy development in the way it has through-
out much of ITK’s history. Notably, ITK’s federal
funding has declined nearly 50 per cent since
2011-12. To continue doing the work that we do,
we must diversify our funding sources, adding
new productive alliances. In the non-profit world,
funding must come not just from government
but also from charitable foundations, private
individuals and corporations.
ITK is entering this new fiscal future with a
strong base of partnership successes. Our work
to investigate the feasibility of a unified writing
system for Inuktut has been funded since 2011
by the Counselling Foundation of Canada, a
family-run organization established in 1959 by
Frank G. Lawson, a stockbroker who was com-
mitted to developing human potential and
helped establish what is now the United Way.
We’re proud to work with the Lawson family
and we’re proud of the work that we’re doing
with their support.
Similarly, we have been fortunate to partner
with the estate of a lifelong community volunteer
and social worker with a deep commitment to
libraries. The bequest has helped support an
online resource collection of Inuit early child-
hood education materials allowing educators
across Inuit Nunangat to share limited resources.
Inuit have historically been a self-reliant
people, and ITK is working to become self-
reliant as well. By outlining our programs and
future plans, we hope to motivate private
donors to invest, encourage volunteers and
even re-energize ourselves. Ultimately, we know
that long-term change for Inuit must be led by
Inuit, and this is as true in policy development
addressing food security, access to health care
and wildlife management practices as it is for
creating a culture of philanthropy.
Terry AudlaPresident, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Lillian Elias of Inuvik describes the elements of her language duringa forum to discuss a unified writing system for Inuktut. The work isbeing funded by the Counselling Foundation of Canada. © ITK (2)
Click “Donate” to Create Lasting Change
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R E S O U R C E S
NUNAVUTAgnico Eagle’s explorations continueAgnico Eagle’s explorations for their IVR zoneshave expanded so the entire project has been renamed “Amaruq,” an Inuktitut word meaning“large wolf”. The environmental baseline datafor Amaruq had begun and could be used forthe eventual permitting of the project.
The permitting team has been evaluatingthe possibility of an all-weather road between the Meadowbank mine and Amaruq, includingmaking a water crossing assessment, fish surveysand a gravel quarry. The road would be used forthe transport of fuel, equipment and personnel.An expansion is underway to accommodate 60workers by spring 2015. However, the NunavutImpact Review Board is reassessing the Meadowbank gold mine’s project certificatefollowing the proposal to expand operations.
Meanwhile, the federal government has accepted the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s recommendations to approve the Meliadinegold mine. Agnico Eagle has yet to make a final decision on building the mine and still operatesthe site as an advanced exploration project. Thecompany must also finish negotiating with theKivalliq Inuit Association on an Inuit impact andbenefits agreement, as well as go through a licensing process with the Nunavut Water Board.
Uranium mine to be discussedAreva is proposing to open Nunavut’s first uranium mine, located about 80 km west ofBaker Lake. Areva plans to mine four ore depositsusing the open pit method and one deposit usingunderground mining methods. The companyexpects to run the mine for 14 years, with threeto four years of construction prior to that and10 years of decommissioning and monitoringonce it’s closed.
The Nunavut Impact Review Board hasscheduled technical presentations and communityroundtable discussions related to the Kiggavikuranium project in March in Baker Lake.
Diamond explorations to begin on Boothia PeninsulaArctic Star Exploration Corp, has announcedthe acquisition of the Stein Diamond Property,in Nunavut. The property is located 85 km NWof Taloyoak and consists of four contiguousprospecting permits covering an area of 105,637hectares on the Boothia Peninsula. Extensiveregional heavy mineral sampling has revealeddiamond indicator minerals.
Arctic Star will begin explorations on theproperty this spring and summer, with workculminating towards a drill program.
NWTNWT government to study potential all-season roadsThe Northwest Territories government is lookinginto the possibility of turning the first 150 kilo-metres of the ice road to the diamond minesinto an all-weather road. It would provide formore certainty with re-supply and would facil-itate development of other mineral propertiesin the area. Another option would see the all-weather road go to Nunavut, near the Lupingold mine.
The NWT government is also studying thepotential for an “energy, communications andtransportation corridor” along the MackenzieValley to the Arctic Ocean from the end of theIngraham Trail in Yellowknife to the first rest stopon the ice road at Lockhart Lake. An all-seasonroad here could reduce the risk of the ice roadclosing due to warm temperatures and couldpotentially extend the seasonal life of the entireice road to three months from two months.
Mineral deposits found in the SahtuThe Denendeh Exploration and Mining Co.(DEMCo) 2014 exploration program has revealedevidence of extensive gold and copper deposits,along with lead, zinc, cobalt, silver and bismuthat the Camsell River property, an old silver minenear Great Bear Lake in the Sahtu. Samples
taken at the property point to the possibility ofmuch larger, undiscovered deposits, including ahigh potential for copper and gold in the area.
DEMCo plans to continue exploring at Camsell River, starting with a gravity survey intended to outline any magnetic anomalies associated with copper, gold and other metalsunderground. Additional drill core re-sampling,mapping and prospecting is also planned.
New drill targets sought at Triceratops siteArctic Star Exploration Corp. has acquired the“Triceratops Property” in the Slave Craton of the Northwest Territories. The property covers six historical kimberlite discoveries and consists of 62 contiguous claims with an area of46,840 hectares located 31 km NW of the Ekatidiamond mine.
Arctic Star plans to use heli-borne gravityand other modern diamond exploration methodsto generate new drill targets on the property.
Mine to develop fourth diamond pipeDevelopment of a fourth diamond pipe at theDiavik diamond mine will begin soon. The mine islocated 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.
Rio Tinto, the majority owner of the mine,says building the 2.2-kilometre dike to accessthe pipe will require about 177 constructionworkers.
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 2 3
A long grey timber lies across the snow-covered beach, pointingat Erebus Bay. It is a ship’s mast. The mast and a few boards are allthat’s left of the 12-ton yacht Mary, left at Beechey Island in 1853for use by expeditions searching for Sir John Franklin and his men.But her keel never felt the sea again.
A historic site ravaged through time
By Season Osborne
What happenedto the Mary?
Mast of the yacht Mary lying on the beach at Beechey Island, September 2014 © S.L. Osborne
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“This was not a pleasure ‘yacht’ as we think of the term today, but a small, swisailing boat used by navy ships,” says Capt. Patrick Toomey, retired Canadian
Coastguard captain and ice master aboard Arctic and Antarctic cruise ships. “Yachts wereused for communicating with other distant vessels comprising a fleet, for hydro graphicsurveys in unknown waters, and as a dispatch-vessel for landing mail ashore when shipswere not coming into port. e yacht would be carried on board the ship, or towed astern.”
e Mary was towed astern.e mahogany boat was owned by19th century British naval officer and Arctic
explorer Sir John Ross. Ross was determined to lead a search expedition for his friendJohn Franklin who, in 1845, sailed into the Arctic with two ships and 129 men to findthe Northwest Passage. eir countrymen never saw them again. Hearing nothing ofthe expedition by 1848, the British Admiralty sent search parties, which returned in1849 with no news of the missing expedition.
In a January 14, 1850 letter to the Admiralty, Ross offered his services. He wouldtake his own yacht, the Mary, and proceed as far west as Bank’s and Melville islands.He wrote, “e retreat vessel Mary should be hauled up at Winter Harbour, and lewith nine months’ provision, fuel and ammunition, which would secure the ultimatesafety, both of our crew and any that may be found alive of the missing expedition.”
e Admiralty had its own plans that did not include Ross. However, the Hudson’sBay Company financed his expedition, and he le Scotland on May 23, aboard the 90-ton Felix, with the unmanned Mary in tow. He arrived at Beechey Island in the centralArctic Archipelago on August 27, shortly aer Franklin’s 1845-46 over wintering spotwas discovered there by British search expeditions. Ice blocked any westward progress,so Ross wintered at Beechey. He le the Mary hauled up on the beach at Cape Spencerin Union Bay, on the other side of Beechey, and returned to England in October 1851.He informed the Admiralty that the Mary had been supplied with provisions and fuelfor use by any future expedition parties needing them. He asked the Lordships to compensate him £190 sterling for the loss of his vessel. e Admiralty agreed and Rosswas reimbursed in full.
In 1852, the Admiralty sent a search squadron of five ships under the command ofSir Edward Belcher. ey set up a base camp at Beechey Island. Four ships, Resolute,Intrepid, Pioneer and Assistance, commenced search operations, leaving the depot ship
The Mary, taken by the photographer on Allen Young’s1875 Arctic expedition aboard the Pandora, had
been on Beechey Island for two decades and was still in good seagoing condition.
Courtesy of S.L. Osborne
Mrs. JD Craig and RCMP Insp. C.E. Wilcox stand in the hulk of the Mary, 1927. The two were
members of the first Eastern Arctic Patrol to visit the historic Beechey Island.
Library and Archives Canada, PA-186867
North Star stationed in Erebus Bay. e North Star’s Commander W.J.S. Pullen had astorehouse (Northumberland House), a forge and a carpenter’s workshop built on thesoutheast side of the island. Pullen planned to visit Port Leopold on Somerset Islandto the south, and figuring the little yacht “would be well adapted for the service” rowedthe three miles over to Cape Spencer with three men to fetch the Mary.
Moving the vessel proved a difficult task, as she was frozen solid to the icy beach.Aer strenuous hours of hacking away ice and using a luff tackle, they succeeded in finally floating the Mary and towed her back to Erebus Bay, an ordeal that took 24 hours.e boat was fitted out and kept in readiness, but remained at anchor.
e following summer of 1854, Belcher ordered the ships abandoned. Before returning to England, the men hauled the Mary onto the beach near NorthumberlandHouse. ere she remained for the next 160 years.
In 1858, Francis Leopold McClintock arrived in Erebus Bay aboard the Fox. He deposited the large marble slab from Lady Franklin, inscribed as a tribute to Franklinand his men, at Belcher’s wooden monument on the terrace above NorthumberlandHouse. McClintock then headed south to King William Island where he found evidenceof the fate of the Franklin expedition.
Allen Young, the sailing master on McClintock’s expedition, decided to search forFranklin’s missing written records, and returned to Beechey Island in August 1875 aboardthe Pandora. He noted the place hadn’t been visited by humans since the Fox’s visit 17 yearsearlier. Polar bears had smashed open the barrels of provisions in NorthumberlandHouse, but the Mary was still in good shape sitting upright on the beach. Young wrote inCruise of the Pandora, “I should consider that the Mary might be made available for aretreating party in about four or five days with the resources of Northumberland House.”
In 1902, when Norwegian Otto Sverdrup was about to face his fourth winter onEllesmere Island, three of his men went to Beechey by dogsled to adjust theirchronometers, required to accurately determine latitude and longitude. Beechey’s geographic coordinates had been accurately determined by Franklin search expeditions.Sverdrup also wondered about the state of the Mary. He contemplated sailing to Greenlandto send word home that all was well. However, his men found the mast and deckinghad been sawn off and the zinc sheathing damaged, possibly by whalers. Mary was notfit for long voyages, and she stayed on the beach.
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RCMP officers of the 1928 Eastern Arctic Patrol at theMary. (L to R: RCMP officer, Captain F. Faulk of Beothic,crewmember, Richard Finnie, RCMP officer.)National Museums of Canada # 70971Courtesy of David Gray
Sgt Henry Larsen (left) and special RCMP constablesDiplock and McKenzie with pieces of the Mary’s planking and her keel aboard the St. Roch after arriving in Vancouver from the Arctic, 1944. Courtesy of Doreen Riedel
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A year later, Roald Amundsen stopped at Beechey Island on his Northwest Passagevoyage to pick up provisions le for him by a Scottish whaler. He attached a tin with arecord that the Gjoa was proceeding down Peel Sound to Belcher’s wooden monument.
On August 15, 1904, Albert Peter Low, commander of the first Canadian expeditionto the High Arctic aboard the Neptune, landed at Beechey and found Amundsen’srecord. Low brought it back to Ottawa, and it was eventually forwarded to the Norwegian government. e crewmembers explored the site and picked up little souvenirs. Dr. Lorris Borden, the ship’s surgeon, took photos and a piece of the Mary.
Borden wrote in his journal, “e portion I got for a curio was from the cabin ofthe sloop of Sir John Franklin. It was mahogany and was made into a picture frame forone of the photographs by the carpenter, Mr. Ryan, of the Neptune.”
On the second Canadian expedition to the Arctic in 1906, Capt. Joseph-ElzéarBernier also landed on the island. His men cemented the marble slab le by McClintockto the base of the monument. ey also moved the Mary to higher ground closer tothe base of the cliff, so she would not be “destroyed by the sea” and still be of service in the event of a shipwreck in the area. Bernier assessed the boat as being in useablecondition.
However, when the RCMP Eastern Arctic Patrol ship, Arctic, landed at Beechey inthe summer of 1923, the Mary was not in as good shape. e Arctic was resupplyingRCMP posts set up in the Eastern Arctic, and also carried a judicial party for a murdertrial in Pond Inlet. e Arctic made a detour to the historic Beechey Island. ey foundthe Mary lying on her side in the gravel. RCMP Inspector C.E. Wilcox and Mrs. Craig,wife of the expedition commander, had their picture taken standing in the hull of the Mary.
Beechey Island became an annual stop on the annual Eastern Arctic Patrols. Some-times the patrols carried more than just RCMP officers. In 1927, artist A.Y. Jackson,founding member of the Group of Seven, travelled to the Arctic with the Eastern ArcticPatrol.
“She was more or less a hulk, with her deck and a good deal of her timbers brokenor washed away, as far back as the late 1920s, when she was sketched by A.Y. Jackson,”says Dr. Russell Potter, Professor at Rhode Island College, and a Franklin expeditionexpert. “at’s now nearly ninety years ago, so I expect that natural forces must havedone the rest, though it’s possible that souvenir-hunters or scavengers accelerated theprocess.”
Potter is likely correct in this assumption. Dr. Borden’s mahogany picture frame isone example of this. It was a habit of early Canadian expeditions to bring back relics ofpast expeditions for the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa.
In August 1944, the RCMP vessel St. Roch called in at Beechey on her epic voyagewest through the Northwest Passage. Ship’s captain, Sgt. Henry Larsen, found the Mary’smast standing, planted in the beach. Her keel, stern and pieces of planking were all thatwas le lying on the beach.
In his 1944 expedition report, he wrote, “It seems strange that it should have beendestroyed and the wreckage scattered along the beach, with the mast still standing.”Larsen brought part of the keel and other pieces onboard. ey are now in the Vancouver Maritime Museum collection.
Planking of the Mary lying on the gravel beach in 2010.
© David Gray
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 2 7
“ere was not much then aer nearly a century,” says James P. Delgado, former director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, which houses the St. Roch. “Larsen’s souvenirs in the museum’s collection speaks to what happened.... slowly picked apart andtaken away, or deteriorated and gone, thanks to bears, weather, and fascinated visitors.”
Except that when Larsen found the Mary, she had already been dismantled and themast stuck in the beach. is destruction happened between 1928, when she was visited bythe Eastern Arctic Patrol and still relatively intact, and 1944. Larsen himself was surprisedto find the Mary’s much deteriorated condition. Surprisingly, 70 years later not much haschanged, except that the mast has fallen and is lying on the beach amongst bits of planking.
In 1993, Beechey Island was designated one of Canada’s National Historic sites byParks Canada, though the Nunavut government is responsible for it. Removing artefactsfrom historic sites is prohibited. However, Beechey Island is an extremely remote site,so difficult to regularly patrol. Since 1984, passenger cruises through Canada’s Arctichave become possible. Beechey Island is always a tour highlight.
“I would guess that there are about 1,000 visitors to Beechey Island in any given year,”says Capt. Toomey, calculating that cruise ships typically have 100 to 300 passengers,and smaller numbers of tourists arrive by private vessels and small aircra that canland on the beach.
e Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators enforces strict rules for landingat cultural and historic places like Beechey. Nothing can be picked up or rearranged.ere are no fences around the historic site, and only good conscience keeps visitorsfrom removing articles of interest.
One is inclined to say that weather, time, and souvenir seekers are slowly vanquishingthis historic site. But with regards to the yacht Mary, the damage was done to her longbefore cruise ship passengers landed on Beechey’s shore.
Mast of the yacht Mary lying on the beach at Beechey Island, September 2014.© S.L. Osborne
The hulk of the Mary devoid of decking and mast, 1923.Library and Archives Canada, P1120520
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By Todd Kristensen, Tom Andrews and Darryl Bereziuk
Frozen finds in the AlpineArtifacts of the caribou hunter
The winds bode well for a small group of climbers high in the alpine on an
August aernoon. ey are peering down below at unsuspecting caribou that
have clustered on a patch of ice to stay cool. e stench of caribou dung le by
thousands of animals that have returned to this area over thousands of years is a
nasal reminder of how caribou are set in their ways. On a daily basis during the
summer months, the animals migrate upslope to colder heights during the hottest
time of day only to return to the valleys at night. is ancient habit makes the
caribou predictable. And so, as long as caribou have been gathering at ice patches
in Alaska, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories for over 9,000 years, people armed
with sturdy moccasins and stone-tipped weapons have followed them.
Lake area where people camped before ascending to the ice patches
for hunting expeditions. © Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
Archaeological research from Alaska’s Wrangell-St. EliasRanges to the Mackenzie Mountains in the NWT has revealedrare and delicate tools preserved in high altitude ice thatdocument a deep human history in some of the most remote alpine habitats on the continent. ese artifactswere lost by ancient people such as the hunters describedabove, and have since been encased in a barrier of ice thatclimate change has recently unlocked. A race is now on tofind frozen relics from the past before they, and the icyarchives that house them, disappear forever. Also fadingare the memories of this traditional practice among localindigenous groups. Elders still remember an age old mantrapassed down for generations that may just as well describethe strategy of modern hikers: “Climb high and stay high”.e important point was to approach game from above.
Archaeology and traditional knowledge combine to tell anamazing story of mountain climbs in ancient times.
e story of prehistoric alpine hunters owes its exis-tence to modern biologists in the Yukon who discoveredan odd piece of wood above the tree line in the Coast
Mountains. e find was reported to local archaeologists who realized that it was awooden tool lost on the ice thousands of years ago. Indigenous people across the Northstill remember stories of life in the alpine, but until that lucky Yukon find, archaeologistsdidn’t expect that much physical evidence of old activities would preserve in the harshhigh altitude conditions. It is very rare to find intact wooden tools that are thousandsof years old, so the artefact triggered a series of research programs that focused theeyes of archaeologists upwards on loy peaks where they eventually found themselvesdown to their knees in slippery caribou dung.
A suite of research techniques is helping to uncover the technologies used by alpineclimbers while radiocarbon dates are indicating when different weapons were used.e flurry of scientific methods in alpine research is an avalanche of acronyms to the uninitiated: GPR (ground penetrating radar), SEM-EDS (scanning electron
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This stone dart is over 2,000 years old and is preserved in its original wooden shaft.
Courtesy of Greg Hare, Government of Yukon
Ice patches in the Selwyn Mountains of NWT.© Tom Andrews, Government of NWT
Profile of ascent from lakeshore camp to high altitude kill zones.© Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
Caribou gather on the upland ice features to stay cool in the midday heat.© Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometry), and our own invention HUMT-FT (hiking up mountains to find things). Scientists also rely on caribou radio-collar data,ancient DNA research, mountain range satellite imagery, and snow indices. e resultis an impressive library of information about alpine life in the days before hiking boots,crampons, and Gor-Tex.
Archaeologists have learned that Indigenous people used three major weapons tokill caribou, sheep, ptarmigan, small mammals, and even bison in high altitude areas.e first and oldest is the atlatl and dart system (or spear thrower). Picture a lacrossestick but instead of a basket on the end, a little spur or hole served as the seat of a smallwooden spear. e spear or ‘dart’ was launched from the wooden stick like a javelin.When compared to a basic spear, the atlatl increased the length of the thrower’s armand in turn increased the power, which drove the dart deeper into the target’s body.
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 3 1
Around 1,200 years ago, the atlatl and dart were replacedby the bow and arrow. Broken bow fragments from the icepatches tell of failed hunting expeditions while frozen arrows tell of near misses that were lost in the snow. ebenefit of the bow and arrow was that hunters could standstill while firing as opposed to the running launch of theatlatl dart. Less hunter movement meant that animalsdidn’t notice their two-legged predators until too late. ebows were made of maple and willow wood (bendy butdurable) while arrow/dart shas were made of birch,spruce, and saskatoon. A traditional indigenous name of the saskatoon plant is ‘arrow berry,’ which reflects theancient roots of a raw material used over 2,000 years ago.
Stone arrowheads were coated in thick, sticky spruce sapthat glued the arrowhead in place on the arrow sha. It
was then tied tight with thread or “sinew” made from caribouback tissue. Sinew was also used to tie neatly clipped birdfeathers to the ends of arrows. is is called ‘fletching’ andhelped create drag that kept the arrows flying straight. Just asevery old village in Europe had a blacksmith, every village hadan arrow-maker, which explains the now common NorthAmerican surnames of ‘Smith’ and ‘Fletcher’. Arrowmakeris also a common indigenous family name for this samereason. e ideal feathers for arrows were from hawks, owls,and eagles because it was hoped that their silent aerialhunting skills would be passed on to the flying weapons.
e last weapon system found in the high altitude icewas used to capture the notoriously ferocious ground
Caribou rest on ice and snow features to keep cool and escape insects.© Tom Andrews, Government of NWT
Modern science is pin-pointing the materials used in ancient weapons.© Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
The perfect ice patch borders a round top that enables hunters to lurk from above undetected. © Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
Over time, the caribou have seen it all, from atlatls to snares and bows and arrowsto muskets (a musket ball was found on a Yukon ice patch). In addition to all that technological change, the caribou are now watching a novel impact of human industry,one that is having bigger effects on caribou populations than prehistoric hunting.Warming temperatures are eating away at the ice patches that caribou rely on to beatthe heat. For an animal adapted to surviving frigid Arctic winters, it is the hot summersthat may prove more dangerous to survival. Now, archaeologists and caribou are meetingeye-to-eye along the vanishing edges of alpine ice patches. While archaeologists eagerlyrecover ancient artifacts, caribou reluctantly clamour for pockets of cool snow. eyare now laying on totally melted ice patches out of instinct, which is bad news because theexposed dark dung bands absorb solar radiation and drive up caribou body temperature.ey are returning to cool down at ancestral resting spots that no longer exist.
Ice patches that lasted for over four millennia have vanished in the last 50 years.Jennifer Galloway of the Geological Survey of Canada studies changes in northernplant communities by inspecting ancient pollen and her research helps uncover therate, magnitude, and direction of climate change over the last 10,000 years. She’s detected dramatic changes in the recent past and hopes to use that information to understand how regions like the mountains of the NWT may experience future changesif the climate continues to warm.
e causes of global warming are debated but the alpine effects are clear. It is ironicthat as the ice melts it unlocks a story of prehistoric hunting while exposing those veryclues of the ancient past to destructive high altitude weather. A book is opening andquickly closing. Much remains to be learned. If modern climbers find old bones, wood,or a potential artefact, please leave them in place and contact the authors with somephotographs or map coordinates so we can continue to learn about the deep past oflife in the alpine.
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squirrel and marmot. Rodent snares have been found inthe Selwyn Mountains of Northwest Territories that aremade of leather loops that were triggered by wooden trippegs set outside burrows. Indigenous stories tell us that ground squirrel skins were stitched together to formbeautiful robes and that up to 200 snares in a single alpinearea could produce enough food to last for months. Addthe supply of caribou, sheep, ptarmigan, and berries andalpine life from late summer to early fall was good.
e collection of preserved alpine tools in northern icepatches is truly unique in North America and they arebroadening our understanding of prehistoric ways. For example, a 1,400-year-old moccasin from the Yukon Plateauregion represents one of the oldest pieces of footwearfound in northern North America. e moccasin was
likely replaced by spares that hunters carried with themwhile hiking over hard and rocky mountains. As modernclimbers know, the right gear (in this case new shoes) canbe a matter of life and death. Moving around in the alpinewas a critical thing, which is strongly echoed in indigenousstories. Living in the alpine meant knowing how to movethrough it, and, more importantly, how to properly treat alandscape that held the fate of one’s own life. People wouldregularly “pay the water” (offer gis to spirits at water bodies), properly dispose of animal remains (to make surethe spirits could be re-incarnated), and “dream animals”(listen to the omens of alpine spirits that communicatedto people through dreams). All of this helped maintain ahealthy balance in which people took care of the land andthe land took care of the people.
This moccasin held the foot of an alpineclimber over a thousand years ago.
Courtesy of Greg Hare, Government of Yukon
Selwyn Mountain landscape below ice patches.© Todd Kristensen, University of Alberta
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 3 5
There are about 150 people, more people
than I have ever seen gathered together at
Swimming Point, 20 minutes southwest of
Tuktoyaktuk and one and a half hours north of
Inuvik. Most are from communities connected
through the ice road. Anticipation is building
with murmurings about the reindeer’s imminent
arrival.
A fine line of dots break through the vast
whiteness in the distance.
“They are coming! They are coming!” Every -
one exclaims as we run across the ice road.
Then with the grace of ink spilled and
spread ing gently on paper, the dots grow
bigger, joining up. Moving in synergy, the rein-
deer billow forward, their furious legs kicking
up a cloud of snow dust. The magnificent
spectacle is oddly quiet for its size. The 3,000
reindeer move with purpose, flowing past us
as one dark amoeba over the banks and up the
hills with the herder guiding by skidoo. He is
wearing a gakti, the Sami traditional clothing
for reindeer herders, complete with a lasso.
Gleeful with excitement, the spectators
break out of their trance as the reindeer drift
out of sight. Minutes later, Henrik Seva, the
Sami herder, returns to embrace his wife,
Anna, before jumping back on his skidoo to
follow the reindeer.
The photos and videos my husband and I
posted went viral; it seemed the rest of Canada
was just as interested, so we wrangled a chance
to meet Henrik at the reindeer calving grounds
the following week.
There are no words to describe the awe and
sense of immense fortune to be surrounded by
reindeer in their natural habitat under a bright
Arctic sundog. They were grazing in scattered
groups across the hilltop, and it was surreal to
have them edge closer as we sat by the fire
making pie-iron grilled cheese sandwiches. Our
curiosity was mutual.
Henrik spoke in a lilting, soft voice with a
tinge of Inuvialuit accent. When Henrik arrived
in Tuktoyaktuk 14 years ago, he was 49. An
elder David Nasogaluak taught him English
with guessing games.
“Tuk is an indigenous community. Sure I felt
some connection but it was a different culture,
a different way to live,” he says.
A R T S , C U L T U R E & E D U C AT I O N
I am standing in my mukluks on the frozen and slippery Mackenzie River for an hour, squintingthrough the viewfinder of my camera into an expansive Arctic tundra, my frostbitten finger likean icicle ready for the shot. I know this is the moment of a lifetime. Today 3,000 reindeer willmake their annual crossing at Swimming Point, from their wintering grounds at Jimmy Lake totheir calving grounds at Richards Island.
The Reindeer PhilosopherA culture with purpose
The magnificent Reindeer Crossing. Community members from Inuvik,Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk came out inforce to watch the reindeer during their annual crossing. © David Stewart
Anna Johansson visits her husband Henrik Seva at the reindeer calving grounds. The couple foundtrue love despite vast cultural differences.© Zoe Ho
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Herding in Tuk was especially challenging
on exposed tundra, unlike where he herded in
Kitkiojarvi near the Swedish-Finnish border
above the tree line. Henrik carries a Swedish
passport but prefers to say he is a Sami from
Sapmi. He was born near Muonionalusta, an
island in the river that separates Sweden from
Finland.
The reindeer herd was first brought to the
Mackenzie Delta area via Alaska almost 80
years ago, when caribou numbers dwindled
and the government sought to supplement
food sources. Back in the day, herders patrolled
on skis, travelling 20 to 30 miles a day to keep
up with the reindeer. During the summer
months the reindeer are left on Richard Islands
to range freely. It is Henrik’s 11th winter with
the reindeer. He has been with the reindeer
longer than some of their owners. For seven
months of the year, he carries on his Sami
traditions in this Canadian setting, mostly
alone.
“Reindeer is my life. I have grown up with
the reindeer, so did my dad, so did my grand-
dad. We have all been reindeer herders. It’s a
lifestyle. It’s not work,” says Henrik.
The Sami calendar is broken into eight
seasons, based on life cycles and migration
patterns of the reindeer. We were in spring
season, and the herder was consumed with
ensuring the fawns arrive healthy and safe. “Even
you are not out on the land, your mind is there
and you think about what is best and what to do
to help the reindeer. I try to take care of reindeer
best as I can and that’s my purpose. When I
feel I’ve done what I can, I feel good,” he says.
A R T S , C U L T U R E & E D U C AT I O N
An ancient connectionReindeer herding is when people in a limited area herd reindeer. Currently, reindeer are
the only semi-domesticated animal that naturally belongs to the north. Reindeer herding is
conducted in nine countries: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Greenland, Alaska, Mongolia,
China and Canada. A small herd is also maintained in Scotland. There are about 30 reindeer
herding peoples in the world and 3.4 million semi-domesticated reindeer. The intimate
connection between humans and animals is perhaps best embodied by this relationship as
reindeer husbandry represents a connection ancient in origin and practiced almost identically
wherever it is found.
Reindeer herding in Sweden is now divided into 51 Sami communities, from Karesuando
in the north to Idre in the south. Each Sami community has an east-west geographical grazing
area (50 to 200 kilometres in length) divided into summer, spring, autumn, and winter grazing
lands. Agreement on population totals for the Sami in Sweden vary, but it is estimated that
there are between 15,000 and 20,000 Sami living in Sweden, 900 active reindeer herders,
and approximately 3,000 people who can exercise special Sami resource rights. It is estimated
that there are approximately 300,000 reindeer in the Swedish territories.
Henrik Seva, Sami herder, guides reindeer over the frozen MacKenzie River by skidoo.© David Stewart
Henrik is happiest when he is looking after
the reindeer.© Zoe Ho
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 3 7
“My priority is herding. You are like a living
fence. You have to know where the reindeer are
and bring them back. It can be difficult when
wolves chase them. I’ve lots of help with the
Inuvialuit here. They are good hunters and they
take care of the wolves. Skinning and butchering
the meat is part of the job too,” he says.
“When you stay in a cabin like I do, you can
spend weeks by yourself.” In a typical season
of reindeer herding, you carry on the traditions
sometimes for days in complete silence, with
only the company of your journal.
Spending so much of his time on the land
alone with the reindeer has made him one
with nature, completely at ease in just being.
“Usually the reindeer come much closer.
The relationship is built on trust. I used to yoik.
It’s our singing style and to make sure they
recognize my voice,” he laughs. “They are not
fussy, even if they are 3,000.”
“Part of the time I felt alone too and it
would be nice to have somebody close to you,”
Henrik’s voice lowers, “and that's how Anna
came into my life.”
Anna Johansson lived in Montreal and had
an equestrian background. She literally skijored
into Henrik’s life. She came to the Northwest
Territories to become a Kennel Master, guiding
dog sled tours for Arctic Chalet. Three years
ago her boss sent her up to Henrik’s cabin to
plan tours, and by the end of that weekend
Anna knew Henrik was “the one”.
“Everything is great about Henrik. He’s very
calm and very happy, and very wise and he puts
up with me and my plans and my projects and we
laugh a lot. He’s very unique, very special, very
supportive and the coolest dude. He’s hand-
some, with the curly boots and the knives and
the big belts,” Anna gushes.
A R T S , C U L T U R E & E D U C AT I O N
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“He did say his mother was married to a
reindeer herder and all of the women who are
married to reindeer herders have a hard life
because their men are always with the reindeer,
always thinking about the reindeer. And it’s
hard but I think you marry a reindeer herder
because it’s so amazing to be with somebody
whose day-to-day life is perfectly aligned with
their purpose. It gives him this wonderful
confidence that he is doing the right thing, and
it gives him an energy... he knows who he is,
what he does and he’s really good at it.
Anna has been a vegetarian for over 30
years but she and Henrik do not find that to be
a discordant point. “I grew up on a farm with
horses and dogs and donkeys and cows and
you just can’t eat your friends. So it was easy
for me to stop eating meat. Henrik, however,
harvests in a traditional Sami way with a lot of
respect to the animals. He makes sure they
have a really good life, a really quick painless
death, and then he skins them so beautifully. I
have made exceptions to my vegetarianism and
I will eat reindeer meat that Henrik harvests.
It’s important for him that I respect his way of
life and he’s never asked me to eat the meat,”
she says.
Henrik smiles, “I knew there were people
who were vegetarians, but I had not been
involved with people like that before. But sure
I can respect that everyone has their choices
and it’s fine with me. Let all the blooms
bloom.”
“It’s a beautiful Swedish proverb. Basically
you have to let everybody blossom and bloom.
And that’s the way Henrik lives his life,” says
Anna.
Zoe Ho
A R T S , C U L T U R E & E D U C AT I O N
Reindeer herders go up the hill to the reindeer calving grounds with the 3,000 strong herd at Swimming Point last spring. © David Stewart
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 3 9
P O L I T I C S
Well, that is not all it took, but the two votes
certainly counted.
Any voter, who actually did vote in this
election, can say “my vote counted” and any
eligible Nunavut beneficiary could have easily
discounted this, especially with the low
turnout of 31 per cent.
Akeeagok says that this was part of his
campaign, letting all beneficiaries know that,
yes, their vote counts, and it was strikingly and
evidently so for this election. After the first
unofficial results on December 8, Akeeagok
unofficially lost with 755 votes while Mikidjuk
Akavak led with 758 votes. With the recount
on December 14, Akeeagok officially won with
756 votes. Akavak closely trailed with 754
votes, two votes away from a tie and three
votes away from winning.
“I lost and won in the same election and
I’m fortunate to know what it feels like to
lose,” Akeeagok says, speaking humbly of the
experience.
“At the end of the day that proved right, in
terms of every vote counting,” says Akeeagok,
and added that he received about 50 messages
from Inuit saying, “My vote counted.”
“It was my first time putting myself out
there: it’s a lot harder than it looks. I could say
that now: having to convince people that you
have a vision… That was the most challenging
and rewarding part with people saying, ‘you
know what, I believe you’ and people saying,
‘you know, I’m voting for the first time’.”
Akeeagok felt humbled to learn that many
have confidence and hope in him.
Two votes. That was all it took to win the Presidency of QIA (Qikiqtani Inuit Association) for
PJ (Pauloosie) Akeeagok. QIA is the designated Inuitorganization for the Eastern/Baffin region of Nunavut,
or more appropriately, the Qikiqtani region, set outby the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
“My vote counted”Choosing a QIA president
PJ Akeeagok.© Teevi Mackay
Iqaluit, January 2015.© Teevi Mackay
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shaping of Nunavut. These leading negotiators
worked really hard to get to where we are and
it’s one of those things you want to keep pushing
on, what they’ve started.”
“My upbringing gives me that positive out-
look as well. There are so many good things
around us that we should always be thankful
for: family, being able to go hunting, and what’s
important — being able to speak Inuktitut. You
have be optimistic — there’s always two different
ways to see a situation. I’m always a positive
thinker… if it’s not working, let’s make it better
instead of complaining.”
A vision of unity for now QIA President AkeeagokDuring Akeeagok’s campaign he visited and
heard from Nunavummiut. He says that Inuit
feel that QIA is not connected with Inuit.
Akeeagok’s goal as President, he says, are the
goals of those he serves, Inuit, and first and
foremost—children—or early childhood devel-
opment in order to set the foundation for their
future, Nunavut’s future.
Akeeagok would also like to be accountable
to Inuit through consultations and aims to
From the smallest Nunavut town tothe biggest political Qikiqtani jobGrise Fiord, the smallest and most Northern
town of Nunavut, (and most Northern nationally)
with a population of approximately 120 people
is where Akeeagok calls home. Like Grise Fiord
being unique in its own right, Akeeagok resonates
that through uniquely and impressively being
the youngest ever elected QIA President.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from; it’s
how hard you work to get to where you want
to go,” says Akeeagok.
Akeeagok’s foundation is family and this
has grounded him. He merits his grounded
nature to his parents. Akeeagok has the same
approach today being married with two young
children.
Some of Akeeagok’s experience and outlook“I was fortunate to talk to many of the people
who made the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement
a reality, through helping produce Staking the
Claim, a documentary about the building and
Proud to be given the opportunity to serve QIAbeneficiaries in his new role. January 2015.© Teevi Mackay
Cooking and happy when out on the land.Photo courtesy PJ (Pauloosie) Akeeagok
A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 4 1
communicate more with Inuit about QIA’s
work. Also, part of his platform is sustainable
resource development to give Inuit more
opportunities economically and to enable
more social development.
“It comes right down to making sure they
(Inuit) are informed: what are you doing (QIA),
what are you going to do and what the plan is.
To me that information is going to be very key
for accountability because I’m representing
Inuit in our region. In order to make very good
decisions, you have to be informed and Inuit
have to be informed of what QIA is, what roles
and responsibilities it has, what we’re going to
do and what we’ve done.” And to sum up ac-
countability, he says, “Communication is the
number one thing I’m going to work towards.”
“People really want someone who will listen
to them. People want to have someone represent
them who will not look at their own interests;
it’s the people’s interests… I’m there for them,”
says Akeeagok.
What else keeps Akeeagok grounded besides family?“Hunting keeps me grounded. It’s a different
feeling when you’re hunting or going camping
with family; that’s the precious moments that
I always look forward to every time. You not
only get connected with the land but with
yourself more, and I think that’s what really
holds me together: being able to go hunting.
When you’re hunting you get to speak more
Inuktitut, too.”
That is what it comes down to for QIA
President Akeeagok — his identity, which he is
very connected to and that, in turn, connects
him to the people he serves, Inuit.
Teevi Mackay
P O L I T I C S
PJ enjoys a day at home with his children, Ryan(left) and Jazmine, after a hunting trip, 2013.
Photo courtesy PJ (Pauloosie) Akeeagok
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A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T i C J O u R N A L 4 3
T O u R i S m
For three days, Ottawa and visitors to the Nation’s Capital enjoyed a taste of The Spectacular
Northwest Territories during the opening weekend of Ottawa’s most well known winter festival,
Winterlude. NWT Days presented a series of free public events housed within a beautifully
designed cultural pavilion at the Shaw Centre, on the Rideau Canal where over 8,000 visitors were
treated to programming that included live performances, Arctic games demonstrations, a visual
arts gallery, interactive technology and educational exhibits, NWT wildlife, a career fair, traditional
knowledge and craft demonstrations, and a dynamic NWT film festival.
This year, the NWT was given an opportunity to program the Winterlude Stage at Crystal Gardens
in Confederation Park for ‘Spectacular NWT Night’. NWT Days Creative Director Lynn Feasey was
thrilled at the opportunity to produce a show with northern performers that gave audiences a
unique audio-visual glimpse into life in Canada’s remote NWT.
The Northwest Territories wow Ottawa’s famed Winterlude Festival
© Pavel Cheiko / Fotolia.com
From the top counterclockwise: Popular NWT singer Leela Gilday performs; Hmm...I wonder, do they...? ;Storyteller and song-writer Pat Braden warms a cold crowd with his music andstories of living North.; The GNWT Pavilion put the territory on display.Photos courtesy: Lynn Feasey
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A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 4 5
S O U N D T R A C K S
Stay Thelma Cheechoo
Available for download at iTunes, and from
independent online music store, Stay, a
surpris ingly sumptuous disc featuring original
songs (all except one) written and performed
by northern Ontario born, Cree artist, Thelma
Cheechoo, channeled my ear buds recently.
Listed under “Alternative Folk” at iTunes,
Stay is really born of different origins, with tracks
weaving a rare, seamless tonal artistry that
doesn’t let up. Each cut, in its own way pays
homage to form and craft steeped in tradition.
Cheechoo’s musical maturity and understanding
of the elements required to nail a love song, or
deliver the plaintive plea so huge in country
music make for an easy-listening fusion of
indigenous folk, country, and pop.
Recorded in Los Angeles, this disc is beauti-
fully produced, dishing rich harmonic layers of
voice, over-dub harmonies and outstanding
studio musicians driving instrumentals that
are in perfect compliment to Cheechoo’s song-
writing skill and tender vocal range.
Listening to Stay, leaves no doubt whatso-
ever that talent and music are in Cheechoo’s DNA.
She’s come by her art honestly, call it an inher-
itance of sorts that’s undeniably embedded in
her heart and soul too. Evocative of life’s intrinsic
longings and her natural desire to reconnect to
a simpler time and place, Stay, is equally great
to listen to on a candle-lit Saturday night, or a
cozy, lazy Sunday afternoon or, both. Definitely!
The official commercial release date for Thelma
Cheechoo’s, Stay, was February 2015.
Trent Walthers
Courtesy Thelma Cheechoo (2)
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P R E v I E W
The Right to Be ColdSheila Watt-Cloutier
“Sheila Watt-Cloutier is one of the world’s most recognized environmental and human rights advocates. In2007, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy work in showing the impact global climatechange has on human rights, especially in the Arctic. In addition to her Nobel nomination, Watt-Cloutier hasbeen awarded the Aboriginal Achievement Award, the UN Champion of the Earth Award, and the prestigiousNorwegian Sophie Prize. She is also an officer of the Order of Canada. From 1995 to 2002, she served as theelected Canadian president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), and in 2002, she was elected internationalchair of the council. Under her leadership, the world’s first international legal action on climate change waslaunched with a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.” —Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited
above&beyond Canada’s Arctic Journal and Inflight publication for First Air, is proud to have permission to present this brief excerpt fromthe author’s Introduction of this highly anticipated release.
The world I was born into has changed forever.
For the first ten years of my life, I travelled
only by dog team. As the youngest child of four
on our family hunting and ice-fishing trips, I boundless landscape and a close-knit culture in
would be snuggled into warm blankets and fur
in a box tied safely on top of the qamutiik, the
dogsled. I would view the vast expanses of
Arctic sky and feel the crunching of the snow
and the ice below me as our dogs, led by my
brothers, Charlie and Elijah, carried us safely
across the frozen land. I remember just as vividly
the Arctic summer scenes that slipped by as I
sat in the canoe on the way to our hunting and
fishing grounds. The world was blue and white
and rocky, and defined by the things that had
an immediate bearing on us — the people who
helped and cared for us, the dogs that gave
us their strength, the water and land that
nurtured us. The Arctic may seem cold and dark
to those who don’t know it well, but for us
a day of hunting or fishing brought the most
succulent, nutritious food. Then there would be
the intense joy as we gathered together as
family and friends, sharing and partaking of the
same animal in a communal meal.To live in a
which everything matters and everything is
connected is a kind of magic. Like generations
of Inuit, I bonded with the ice and snow.
Those idyllic moments of my childhood seem
very far away these days. Today, while dog teams,
qajaqs (kayaks) and canoes are at times still
used to move out onto the Arctic land and water,
snow machines are more common than dogs,
and the hum of fast-moving powerboats is now
heard on Arctic waters. All of our communities
now have airports, medical clinics and schools,
with some having hospitals, television stations,
daycares and colleges. Our people still hunt
and fish, sew and bead, but they are also
nurses, lawyers, teachers, business people and
politicians.The Arctic is a different place than it
was when I was a child. And while many of
the changes are positive, the journey into the
The Right to Be ColdSheila Watt-Cloutier978-0-670-06710-7 / 352 pages / $32.95 Publication date: March 17, 2015An Allen Lane hardcover
A B O v E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 4 7
modern world was not an easy one — and it
has left its scars.
In a sense, Inuit of my generation have lived
in both the ice age and the space age. The
modern world arrived slowly in some places in
the world, and quickly in others. But in the
Arctic, it appeared in a single generation. Like
everyone I grew up with, I have seen ancient
traditions give way to southern habits. I have
seen communities broken apart or transformed
dramatically by government policies. I have
seen Inuit traditional wisdom supplanted
by southern programs and institutions. And
most shockingly, like all my fellow Inuit, I have
seen what seemed permanent begin to melt
away.
The Arctic ice and snow, the frozen terrain
that Inuit life has depended on for millennia,
is now diminishing in front of our eyes.
We are all accustomed to the dire meta -
phors used to evoke the havoc of climate
change, but in many parts of the Arctic the
metaphors have already become a very literal
reality. For a number of reasons, the planet
warms several times faster at the poles. While
climate experts warn that an increase of two
degrees in the global average temperature is
the threshold of disaster, in the Arctic we
have already seen nearly double that. As the
permafrost melts, roads and airport runways
buckle. Homes and buildings along the coast
sink into the ground and fall into the sea. The
natural ice cellars that are used for food
storage are no longer cold. Glaciers are melting
so fast that they now create dangerous torrents.
The world becomes focused and horrified only
by haunting images of polar bears struggling to
find ice, but hunters too are finding that the
once reliable ice can be deadly. The land that
is such an important part of our spirit, our
culture, and our physical and economic well-
being is becoming an often unpredictable and
precarious place for us.
P R E v I E W
“This is a moving and passionate story from a committed woman who hasbridged the ice age to thedigital age. Her sophisticatedviews on the environmentand the way the world works from her engaged involvement are brilliant and convincing.” — The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson
From The Right to Be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Copyright © Sheila Watt-Cloutier, 2015. Reprinted by permission of
Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.
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A B O V E & B E Y O N D — C A N A D A’ S A R C T I C J O U R N A L 4 9
B O O K S H E L F
Kinds of Winter: Four Solo Journeys by Dogteam in Canada’s Northwest TerritoriesDave OlesenWilfrid Laurier University PressNovember 2014
After a fifteen-year career as a sled dog racer, musher
Dave Olesen fulfilled a lifelong dream by dog sledding
over four winters away from his home in the Northwest
Territories on long journeys heading south, east, north,
and west before arriving home again to Hoarfrost River.
Having lived and travelled in the boreal outback for over
thirty years, his book about his adventures is filled with
details not only about how to accomplish these journeys
but also on winter camping and the care of the dogs.
It is a unique blend of armchair adventure, personal
memoir and self-reflection.
Helping Ourselves by Helping Each Other: The Life Story of William Lyall
Edited by Louis McComberNunavut Research Institute
November 2014
Today’s co-ops reflect how people lived many years ago. In Helping Ourselves by
Helping Each Other, William Lyall tells the story of the co-operative movement in
the Arctic. It is a tribute to the dedication and community mindedness that the
co-op movement represents to Canada’s North and will be a good reference tool
to help promote careers within the Arctic co-op movement. The book is published
as part of a series on Inuit Leadership and Governance.
Remember the PromiseSahtú Renewable Resources Board (SRRB)
Jean Polfus, IllustratorNovember 2014
Recognizing the special relationship Dene people have with the land, a new book,
Remember the Promise, offers ideas for how Dene communities can help protect species
at risk in their region. Based on stories by Sahtú elders, the story starts with ancient
times when wildlife were giants and made their own laws, and describes how Dene and
other living things agreed to live together and take care of each other. The book includes
a glossary and terminology list, and information about the Species At Risk (NWT)
Act. Remember the Promise is a partnership project of the GNWT departments of
Environment and Natural Resources and Education, Culture and Employment and
the SRRB. A learning module for schools based on the book is being developed in
partnership with ENR and Ecology North. www.srrb.nt.ca
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G U E S T E D I T O R I A L
Development for the people of the NorthWhen I became Minister for the Arctic Council in
August 2012, I consulted with Northerners from
across the Arctic and their message was clear: The
well-being and prosperity of the people living
in the North must be our top priority.
For this reason, Canada’s Arctic Council
Chairmanship has operated under the theme
“Development for the People of the North.”
Over the course of our two-year Chairmanship,
we have made important strides to improve the
lives of Northerners and foster environmentally
responsible development throughout the Arctic,
most notably through the establishment of the
Arctic Economic Council (AEC) last year.
In the North, we face many of the same
economic and social challenges, including high
costs of living, skilled labour shortages and
extreme weather. So we have much to learn
from each other, and it only makes sense that we
should work together to share best practices and
advance sustainable development for Northern
communities.
The AEC facilitates this Arctic-to-Arctic
collaboration by providing a forum to discuss
common economic challenges and discover
new business opportunities to develop and
benefit the North.
Additionally, Arctic Indigenous peoples serve
on the AEC, which ensures that those living in the
North are active participants in decisions affecting
their local economies and communities.
Since its inaugural meeting in September
2014, the AEC has forged ahead in its work by
establishing working groups on responsible
resource development, maritime transportation
and stewardship in the Arctic.
Within the broader mandate of the Arctic
Council, we have also advanced other important
priorities for the North, including climate change,
biodiversity conservation, mental wellness and
shipping safety. These actions range from
developing a framework to reduce black carbon
and methane emissions in the Arctic to a new
action plan to enhance oil pollution prevention.
Another key priority of Canada’s Chairman-
ship has been to incorporate traditional and local
knowledge more effectively into the Council’s
ongoing work. This knowledge, which has helped
Indigenous peoples survive for millennia, can
serve in the development of better, more
representative policies for the North. To support
this and to promote the importance of traditional
knowledge I recently hosted a discussion with
international leaders and decision makers. At
this meeting I took the opportunity to share
how Canada has benefited from the inclusion
of traditional knowledge in several initiatives,
including wildlife management, the protection
of migratory birds and the recovery of species
at risk.
As we move towards the end of our Chair-
manship, we are working closely with our
neighbour and the incoming Chair, the United
States, to advance our shared priorities for the
Arctic region.
I look forward to welcoming our Arctic
Council partners to Iqaluit in April for the ninth
Ministerial Meeting, where we will highlight
our accomplishments, and chart a path for the
next two years and beyond.
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, P.C., M.P.Minister for the Arctic Council
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq speaks about the strength of Canada’s wildlife management regime at the 2013 Meetingof Polar Bear Range States. There, Canada and four statesagreed to include, for the first time, “traditional ecologicalknowledge” from indigenous Arctic peoples in the 1973 International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears.© Joel Koczwarski
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