Living in Iqaluit Nunavut Canada
Arctic Muktuk, Inuktitut, Spring Festival
Rae-Lynne Patterson, 29, lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut, where she is the manager of library services for Nunavut Arctic College. She has lived in this capital city of 6,000 for five years. Not only has she made a life for herself in the middle of nowhere, but she feels lucky to be experiencing such a different way of living.
The Inuktitut syllabics on the road signs. (The language of the Inuit is called Inuktitut and most of the language is written in symbols or syllabics).
Iqualuit is considered 'the big city,' as the next largest is 2,400 people. Over half of the surrounding communities are less than 1,000. There are many towns of a few hundred people with no roads leading in or out and everything is flown in. Most are 60% Inuit 40%t non-Inuit. Through the rest of the territory it's 85% Inuit.
In Iqaluit there are two grocery stores and daily flights with two air carriers. Most load up whenever they go down south for a trip using giant Rubbermaid totes instead of suitcases.
When the ice breaks in the summer, it opens up new ways to get supplies in. They send up barges for those few months when the water is open called "sea lifts" to order a year's worth of certain supplies.
Iqualuit is a restricted community, so you can order drinks in licensed establishments but there's nowhere to buy alcohol for personal use. The place to go here is the Legion. There's a line-up every Friday and Saturday night, so if you want to get in go before 11p.m., otherwise you'll be standing in line. You'll see elders in jogging pants dancing next to 19-year-olds in tube tops.
The majority of the population is Inuit and their culture is very much alive and tied to the environment. Nunavut came to be as a land claim, and the territory explicitly belongs to the Inuit. Because of this, the government is mandated to incorporate aspects of the culture, like the principals and traditional knowledge of the Inuit. On an IQ day everyone has the afternoon off work to have tea on the tundra, or play Inuit games or go snowmobiling and enjoy the land.
The annual spring festival is a week-long event featuring igloo-building, bannock-making and seal-skinning contests. Whale skin is called Muktuk. It's chewy, eaten raw or with a bit of soy sauce. Caribou, arctic char and other "country food" is eaten while drum dancing or throat singing. Events are kicked off by the lighting of the quilliq, a traditional lamp.
Winter wind chill brings it into the -40s but locals still go cross-country skiing wearing long johns, pants, snow pants, Sorrells, a parka, seal skin mitts, toque underneath the parka hood, and a scarf.
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Comments
Thanks so much for your story!
After sending a month up north in a small town called Mackenzie last summer i have become fascinated by life up there. I find it amazing that in one province we can have such different ways of life and such different standards of "normal" everyday life. I found the people up there so amazing and love learning about all the different cultures and traditions amongst the natives up there. It is truly my hearts desire to spend some time in Nunavut so maybe I'll see ya there!
I'll also bring up some different beer with me to!!
My comment is less about the awesome story by Rae-Lynne and more about Trisha Baptie's final sentence in her comment on Rae-Lynne's story. As someone who only began reading Orato because of the Pickton trial coverage I was disgusted when I read the follwing comment by Trisha Baptie (Orato correspondent for the Pickton trial):
"I'll also bring up some different beer with me to!!
For several months now many of us have read the trial coverage as written by two former sex trade workers. Trisha Baptie and Pauline VanKoll. Trisha you say you are 6 years into your healing and "recovery". What an interesting comment for someone who is a "former" drug user in recovery. We have read accounts of what it is like to be stuck out in the trenches of the DTES using drugs and alcohol to numb yourself while working the streets. We read of your blessing of being able to get off the streets and start a new life for yourself and your children and heal yourself and all the relationships in your life. I can't help but think that you are projecting an image through your writing that is an image you are trying to obtain rather than one you have obtained. Trisha, you say you are 'interested' in other cultures and would love to go visit Nunavut one day to experience their culture (with your beer). If you are in fact so interested then here are a couple of facts for you Trisha. Nunavut, the place you would like to visit and experience has a population of just over 29,000 people, 85% of which are Inuit. They have the highest cost of living in all of Canada and the lowest graduation rate in the country as well. They suffer severe unemployment and a lack of housing which results in overcrowded family households with high stress levels. Nunavut also has a suicide rate that is 8 times higher than that of the national average, and guess what Trisha, substance abuse is generally associated with the completed suicides. Alcohol and marijuanna are the most commonly abused drugs in the communities of Nunavut. However, due to the need to fly in all goods, the alcohol ends up being bootlegged at a price beyond anything we see on the West Coast. A 40 ounce bottle of alcohol can go for around $250! It is not uncommon for households to be emptied out in order for mom and dad to purchase alcohol. Young kids are looking after their younger sibblings while intoxicated parents pass out drunk. These same kids end up learning from what they see and hence the low graduation rates. These kids are either at home looking after their parents and younger siblings or they are skipping school because of their own substance abuse problems. Binge drinking is usually how kids in these communities start, they party for a few days in a row til the supply dries up, then they look for the cheaper, more available substance, pot. In response to the substance abuse problems in the area and the (until recently) lack of services, some communities in Nunavut are dry and alcohol is illegal in their community. Now, having spent 6 years in the DTES surely Trisha you can appreciate the severity of your comment. I have worked in the DTES community at the street level for 15 years and I dont know a single 'former' user who now sits back and has a casual beer with friends. Nor do I know anyone, who is still active in their recovery, that would make a flippant remark about alcohol or drugs because they know, first hand, how destructive these substances have been to them and to their friends. The people that I'm speaking of aren't even people who are, as you put it in one of your first articles:
"...blessed to be able to be a voice for those who as of yet have not been able to find their way out of hell and for those whose voice was taken from them against their will"
They are just everyday people who have been caught in the trap of addiction in the DTES and who have found their way out and who I believe would be much more sensitive in their comments. Lets not forget, the most important component of recovery is honesty.
Hi Tracey - I personally think that recovery is different for everyone and the total abstinence philosophy is not the only way one can find personal balance. I know there are many alcoholics for whom it is the only way, but I don't believe we can cast judgment on those who have found a different way out of hell. I don't see Trisha in personal settings, but I can attest to the fact that she definitely has her life together and must be doing something right.
The points you raise about Nunavut are very important, and I thank you for shedding light on these issues.
Heather Wallace
senior editor
I am very aware of the issues of the North my son's father who is native is from there.My social circle is full of natives, ones who grew up on rez's as well as in the city and i have been to many rez's to see the horrific issues first hand. i imagine the issues faced by the people in Nunavut are quite similar.
I was in fact just teasing the author who had complained about drinking the same beer for a year.
Yes i am drug free but i have never stated i am abstinent from alcohol. I can actually sit and have one or two drinks with friends and you can argue all you want about whether or not i can, but i have people in my life whom i am accountable to and it does work for me. I do not advise it for everyone however.
Sorry you seem to have taken such offence at one line in my comment, if you had been following most of my writings then you would know what my heart is about the issues you spoke of and realized i just meant it as a joke to the author.
Thank you both Heather and Trisha for your responses to my comment. I stand by my comment and feel that the subject matter being covered is serious enough that my concern is warranted. I once read a quote that has stayed with me for over twenty years, "words are to thought as paint is to canvas". Never should we diminish the impact of even the most simple statements and the impact they may have on the greater whole.
I think it's important to remember, it's the motivation that counts, the intention behind what's said. Obviously very difficult to know when something is written, but i don't think it was meant to be harmful - or was in bad taste.
Trisha and Pauline both went through difficult times, and had different crutches at different times, we all do.
I don't disagree that even the smallest statements can have an impact, but that's really up to the person who says it to make that judgment - i don't think anybody has the right to say, "i am disgusted by what you said, you are a hypocrite" - because we're all trying and battling our own delusions.
Therefore, i think it's far more useful to be encouraging, if we notice something that the other person doesn't.
Having said that, everyone's intention writing these comments are for some happy result.
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