nota bene:
The entirety of my journaling experience in Pang is listed all in this one post as to be easiest to navigate. As well, the individual entries, which are highlighted by date in yellow, descend from the most recent to the earliest, because that is how blogger decided to organize them.
July 29th, 2009:Since we landed in Pang, I started collecting newspapers from the co-op and piling them away until today when I brought them out, searching for articles pertaining to systems of knowledge around Nunavut, and to my surprises, there were quite a few examples of youth around Pang who were actively taking part in programs of jewelry making and metal work, fur design, and even learning how to build boats. Much of the skills learned in these workshops are put to excellent use in everyday life around Pang, such as constructing metal parts that are useful for boating, fishing, hunting, and equipment maintenance, all of which include an element of traditional skills.
In terms of formal education programs, it was nice to recall that on July 6th, 2009, twenty-one Inuit teachers graduate from first masters degree program offered in Nunavut as offered through the university of Prince Edward Island.
This is a three-year program that allows teachers to stay in the territory and study on a part time basis through distant education. The program also focused on both western and Inuit styles of education.
In terms of formal educational training in Nunavut, this is an exciting achievement, although, after spending time at the Arctic College it became evident to me that there are a number of these types of programs offered in Iqaluit, including Nunavut Nursing, Environmental Technology, and an Inuit Studies program which focuses on interpreter and translation work, like what Uviluq is embarking on in the fall.
July 27th, 2009; reflectionsBeing in a small community like Pang (or a fair sized place for a northern community) one would think not a lot would be going on, but it feels much the contrary here. Especially after being back from the land, there is much to do everyday, and more importantly, lots of people to see.
While it feels as though some of us are starting to look forward to being homeward bound, I’m feeling quite the opposite (and I understand this was to be mostly expected). I have been so lucky to have met so many good people in Pang and have them share a little piece of their lives with me.
But beyond feelings (luckily) have been my reflecting on my previous journal entries, going back through and seeing where my head was at earlier on.
Amongst a bunch of more recent entries regarding education (my apologies for the excess), there are several entries of me trying to make sense of why I came here in the first place, trying to find a comfort zone, trying to meet people, trying not to stand out like a silly white person and carefully tip-toeing around the community as not to disturb it in anyway. At this point, my experiences here as well as on the land have enabled me to feel extremely comfortable here, - if not very much a part of the community.
Like so many things Uviluq tells me, she reminded me a week or so ago how we are only as much an integral part of this place that we want to be/allow ourselves to be. One day I tried to express why I feel guilty being a white person here, and she proclaimed (in a very Uviluq manner) that self pity is the least productive thing I could be doing here, and she reminded me that when you’re given traditional knowledge, you are in ways able to remove yourself from self pity – like Taina being forced to marry her husband and having to learn to rise above her own sorrow about it. I’m not completely sure how these two instances are similar, but it made sense when she said it. !
July 26st, 2009: education outside of the box In a workshop Peter gave on education to a few of us that were bugging him to speak about Inuit education, the main point he highlighted was how education in the north should be more about form than content. This has compelled me to look at examples of education around Pang or greater Nunavut that are doing just that.
Peter also made reference to Summerhill when he mentioned child-centered education; learning comes when you want it, instead of being spoon fed information. Further, embodying education versus having it as an abstraction is what Inuit education is or should be all about, meaning hands on learning and first hand experiences. These ideas are closely tied with Inuit systems of knowledge, such as TEK, that emphasizes being on the land in order to embrace the experience first hand.
What programs like this take place in Pang and the surrounding area? My research thus far has led me to:
1. Pangnirtung Spring Camp Students have an opportunity to learn TEK through hands on experiences with elders from the community, with the opportunity to obtain high school credits for traditional learning, (!!!). The program looks to form bonds between traditional IQ and modern sciences, hunting, sewing, skin and meat preparations, etc. This year was their 18th annual camp experience, which speaks quite highly of its success within Pang.
2. Pujualissait’s Youth Trauma RetreatA week long retreat to Sanniru to experiment with photography and video, and then return to edit their own creations. This is exciting because I got a chance to meet the people working on this, including the youth themselves but also a professional photographer from the south and two Inuit who specialize in film editing. A truly great team of people working together to help these youth with self esteem through honing ones artistic talent. Although there is no credit offered for this program, it is a great project for healing and provides applicable life skills.
3. Nunavut's new cultural school based in Clyde RiverPointed in the direction of this excellent news by Peter – “a new state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar Inuit cultural school called Piqqusilirivvik” which school officials are saying is “so radically different” from any other school, that is almost cannot be called a school. Whoa. Piqqusilirivvik, which has received $24-million from the federal government and $10-million from Nunavut, is deliberately not affiliated with the territory's education department. The land also plays a crucial role in students learning, where they will learn land-based skills, including building an igloo to using modern and traditional hunting equipment, to forecasting the weather using the clouds, moon, stars and sun.
July 24th, 2009: meeting with DonaldToday I met with Donald Mearns who works as the curriculum and school services manager for the government of Nunavut. Although it started out that I would be a fly on the wall, listening to him and Chris discuss their latest think tank regarding a new program called “Young Men’s Engagement Program” which is meant to address and deal with the high rate of suicide among young men in Nunavut, I was able to slip in a few questions that I had for him regarding education here.
Chris and Donald spoke about how education here in Pang was very much interconnected like within a community, in that people at different levels of the community, such as a mayor and council members’ responsibilities are much like that of people working in the school system – very close knit.
Donald mentioned how the formative years of persons education take place before grade 10, this being that it is necessary to keep kids engaged in school, otherwise statistics show that if this doesn’t happen before grade 10, they won’t stick around. I think this speaks volumes regarding teacher choice in Nunavut, and the variable of Qallunaat coming north to teach and their willingness to stay for a period of time is necessary for fostering a conducive learning environment with the students, otherwise, they could regard the school more as a drop-in centre where people come and go as they please, making it okay for them to do the same. Although, professor Kulchyski mentioned how this may be one way of approaching curriculum in Nunavut, in terms of transforming the form of the school entirely.
Inclusive education: One idea that we were discussing was inclusive education, and how the Alberta curriculum (which Nunavut in part follows) is one that emphasizes peer promotion by always having students of own age group where the teaching is adapted to ones individual skills and level. In recent years there has been a huge push across Canada for inclusive education, where students of all levels are together in one classroom, interacting together, yet performing different tasks. This seems like an ideal environment for learning, if it works smoothly and teachers have the help they need, and it also tackles what Uviluq discussed about a lack of addressing individuality in schools.
Ways of learning: “School without walls” mentality
Against the idea of a “grade” concept, “ages instead of stages” – but more, how do we take youth from K-12 successfully and so that they are able to leave with life and coping skills, not just a diploma.
Making relevant, interesting connections of education with their own lives via cross-curricular learning, i.e., how to extract a boat motor in class, while tackling the basic math and reading (instructions) skills, but also even including social science aspects, such as where were the parts of the motor made? Where are these places geographically, etc.
Possible land projects: -Calculating wind speeds in terms of TEK and western science, compare and contrast.
-Photographing different stages of ice on land and in sea, learning the Inuktitut names for different ice
- Using technology to obtain these ideas, as there are more computers in Nunavut per person than many other places.
An interesting point he raised was how in Pang, there was no grade 12 until 1978, so before then students would go to Iqaluit to finish.
Further, much of the problem in Pang is getting the kids to show up in the first place. Here, Donald offered up the A.S Neil philosophy of Summerhill, that says “you don’t have to come to school, but here are the incentives…” This also ties in with individualized learning that will do well in Nunavut schools, because it pays attention to important factors in each students life by recognizing what they bring to the classroom – this can be done with the right help and staffing (funding).
July 23rd, 2009: north vs. southSince being back from the land I have been able to engage with some of the ideas presented at the workshops. One thing that has really stood out is the transfer of knowledge in Inuit culture, such as how Joanassie can speak for other hunters as well as himself when he spoke to us about climate change, whereas Taina would constantly clarify that she can only speak for herself and her own experience.
This may speak to the relationship between hunters and the idea of knowledge systems acquiring a common ground or consensus to speak about things that they have all have experienced in a similar way, whether they agree on it or not. Is it a gendered difference? Men can experience the weather in a similar enough way to feel comfortable speaking on everyone’s behalf, whereas giving birth is so radically different from one woman to the next. Although, I enjoyed the 3rd workshop on climate change back in Pang (although I can’t recall his name!) but he more or less took a completely different approach to his thoughts on climate change than Joanassie did, as he almost seemed indifferent to any negative impact happening at all, and if so, the flora, fauna and Inuit would adapt accordingly. Excellent workshop.
TEK is that of feeling the land, the weather, to “greet the day” as Inusiq told me and having to experience it to know it and to know how to speak about it intricately. Greeting the day every day will help give you profound respect for the land.
This may be why southern styles of education have no great challenge – no experience, no hands on, information that is fed directly to you, whereas greeting the day, and getting out on the land and hunting reminds you that there is something bigger than yourself, and TEK puts you in the position of learning through experience.
In terms of these Inuit knowledge systems, when you get to be Joannassie's age, perhaps you have gained the right to be an individual with individual knowledge.
In the south, one is taught to be an individual from a young age, such becomes instilled within you, yet later in life ones becomes a part of the bigger picture and seemingly melds with everyone else in society. In the north, as Uviluq has suggested, Inuit have to work as a group early on, and yet are expected to become an individual later on, like Joanassie.
Within classrooms in the south, education does not actively recognize each child as having an individual self – disregard for name sake – whereas such has to be instilled within you. Uviluq expressed that in Inuit society, name sakes play a large role in ones self-esteem, which in turn helps them to recognize their individuality. This is fascinating considering how during the pre-session in Winnipeg, I asked professor Trott about how one becomes an individual when so much of who they are is rooted in someone else.
July 20th, 2009: traditional ecological knowledge and modern education Today I had the chance to spend some time speaking with Uviluq once we came back from spending a week on the land, and I had many ideas to throw around with her and was looking forward to some one-on-one time.
Much of what we spoke about concerned TEK, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and its connection with institutionalized education in Nunavut and at large. This entry will contain a number of ideas that I will jump around between as I try to make sense of some of the ideas she gave me to ponder for my paper.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Elders, Gender Division of LaborIn Inuit society, hunting appears to translate into ones self esteem. As we saw on the land, Joanassie is the pinnacle of instruction, and we can see this in how he instructs Markasie and how Markasie responds and interacts with him.
After the formation of Nunavut, the northern communities as a whole progressed towards a division of labor. This connects well with much of what professor Trott spoke about with the division of labor in Inuit society as one that is very strictly associated with men and women, and while the bodies that perform these labors are very fluid, the labour itself is strictly inforced. Thus, the body demonstrates the gender via labor.
Uviluq explained how similarly, TEK is still divided into men and women, but with higher education and southern styles of education, such becomes genderless and disrupts this trend. Meanwhile, men still aspire to hunt, gain fresh meat, seek out these challenges that are much more challenging than staying inside and being force fed information in schools. This pertains to much of the reason why women still teach children to sew, and everything is still done according to the seasons, a highly TEK related concept inline with Inuit education.
Seasons and Learning: In Inuit communities or places where there is 24-hour daylight: how does this affect and/or transform the way students learn?
As mentioned in one lecture, there is the concern of children rarely making it to class once it is 24-hour daylight hits, because they’re up all night and sleep all day. The questions are: what should be done about this? Whose responsibility is it to assure that the kids are going to school – whether it is their parents forcing their children to go to school, or the teachers coming around waking the students up? Mom and dad are teachers but in a controlled environment, where parents do not reinforce most of the curriculum, thus the transfer of power and responsibility goes to school officials.
Problem: Education system currently does not use hunting society role and language that goes with it.
July 21st, 2009: the teachings of Uviluq, part 2. Inline with what i started to compile yesterday are two more categories of interest for me which will help me make sense of where this research project is headed.
Traditional hunting society and modern technology:Uviluq’s father was 100% Inuk, and he talked to her a lot about technology in Inuit society and how he would acquire all he could afford when he had the money. Technology looked at by most Inuit as a positive force that helps better enable and make more efficient aspects of the traditional lifestyle previous to these amenities.
What does this say about the school system? Does it fail in just handing you things, (information, ideas, all prepackaged) and your body becomes inanimate. The trick being not getting trapped in your own body, not able to work for it anymore.
Higher education is so much like this. Once a professor told me that academics only have bodies as a means to transport their heads from one place to the next, assuming that the live entirely in their heads.
The Language of TEK:Uviluq has expressed on a number of occasions to me that Inuit are taught umbrella terms in English that don’t transfer well over into Inuktitut, i.e., there is a great deal of words for “land” in Inuktitut.
Uviluq recalls her father talking about the land and how complex the vocabulary was that he used to describe it to her, it was almost as though he was speaking about the land from an aerial perspective, as though he could see it from a birds eye view. He never used blanket or umbrella terms to speak about the land.
This speaks to the intimacy Inuit have with the land, as well as their intricate knowledge and closeness of the land and with hunting. Describing things like the ice and animals are very intricate. This evokes ideas of “Dick and Jane” education for Inuit historically as taught by Qallunaat - overly simplified books for learning English that idealized southern living and portrayed only white people doing menial tasks and speaking very simply. Also showed pictures of trees and other unfamiliar things to the Inuit then – rendering it completely useless and irrelevant to their learning and their lives. How much of their education still mirrors this?
July 19th, 2009: As the program pushes forward, I was thinking about how in the coming years of the program it may benefit from a workshop from people within the community/instructors dedicated to education in Nunavut: past and present, and what this means for the future. Especially considering the program being situated within an educational context, it would be interesting (for me anyway) to learn more about it from a variety of first hand experiences.
I was struck by a conversation that became slightly heated with one girl on the program regarding education and teaching in Nunavut. She proclaimed that if she didn’t get accepted to any grad schools that she may decide to stick around Pang and land herself a teaching job at one of the two schools in the fall. This was a huge concern for me for a number of reasons.
In my mind, a bachelor of arts is in no way sufficient training to teach anywhere, let alone the north. To my very limited knowledge, there are numerous concerns surrounding Qallunaat teachers in the north, and they are as follows.
First, the high turnover rate of white teachers in the north is one factor that affects students education in a negative way. While these teachers may have excellent intentions of sticking it out for 3 years, it doesn’t seem to always work out this way. I have watched testimonials of white teachers going to remote northern communities, getting off the plane, and then turning right back around. Inuit students deserve a stable presence at school, because otherwise forming relationships with these students that are at all meaningful will be impossible.
I feel it to be of utmost importance for Qallunaat considering teaching in the north to not only recognize and understand their presence in the north, socially, philosophically and historically, but to also have some experience with Inuit culture and its people, such as through immersing themselves in ideas surrounding their education.
While I feel that Inuit should have foremost control over their own education, whether it be in terms of policy making or actual teaching, that is not to say that Qallunaat have no place. What is important are the theories and practice surrounding pedagogy to be highlighted in the minds of hopeful teachers if we want Nunavut to truly thrive in its education. It’s not a career that should be taken lightly, and certainly not act as a default plan of sorts.
Inuit youth, like all youth, need positive role models in their lives, especially the ones that are teaching them who can hopefully help make their learning relevant and constructive to their lives as a group and as individuals, thus the need for knowledgeable, dedicated and culturally aware/sensitive teachers and mentors that will help them on their path.
July 16th, 2009: writing as truthWhen Joanassie spoke to us about climate change today, Rupert asked him what traditional knowledge he feels is most necessary to pass down to his grandchildren, and within his reply he stated how his grandchildren are always telling him to write down his ideas and to not just tell them orally.
I found this compelling because it says a lot about his grandchildren’s generation inline with their education, and growing up in an educational system that is much unlike the generations before theirs. Today's youth are surrounded by educational frameworks that place great emphasis on textbook knowledge in the form of written text.
This works on the assumption that
1. Text/writing = “Truth” because
- it is permanent, static, unchanging
2. Whereas with oral knowledge/culture, truth becomes incredible in that it is:
- relative, in that it is situational, contextual
- lacking in permanence
- fluid
- highly interpretive and malleable
In western systems of knowledge, the latter category tends to be viewed as less credible due to its aforementioned features.
So what does this say about the kind of education children and youth in Nunavut are receiving? Need there be a greater emphasis and value placed on oral tradition as an equally valid and credible source of knowledge in schools?
If so, how?
- inclusion of non-text book examples of learning, such as music, folk talkes, storytelling, sharing of ideas in class in a verbal way, more emphasis of grading as based on speaking ability, verbal exercises, guest speakers.
- also, emphasizing to students the need to challenge textbook knowledge by looking for fallacies, compare and contrast with other sources of information, teaching them the skills to think for themselves and question authorship in order to understand who is writing.
July 14th, 2009: whitenessAfter Taina’s talk on gender and child bearing in Inuit culture, I was left with several concerns
surrounding my role not as a woman, but again my role as a Qallunaat in the north.
First, Uviluq’s role as an interpreter is an interesting one, considering its function as a middle person trying to tackle meaning and ideas that don’t translate as fluidly as we would like. This begs the question of what inevitably gets lost in translation, and what sentiment and subtle nuances are omitted. Also, what context we the students lose through our generational and cultural gap.
Like many of our conversations with the elders both on the land and in Pang, it feels as though when one speaks about the “the South” or all things Qallunaat, they act as a means of speaking very broadly and generalizing the way things are appear in a mostly negative light.
Specifically, when she spoke about European methods of child birthing, all of the factors mentioned above filtered how I, a white, 20-something, middle class person received the information. She spoke very lowly about giving birth in the south as compared to the north because of how “cold” an experience it was with the nurses in the south, without her family, as well as having to do so laying down as compared to squatting, which she explained is the more natural, comfortable means.
While her experience would be like myself giving birth in some foreign place, it felt as though so much of what she was describing about her experiences in the south are representative on a large scale of “the way we do things.”
I was reminded again of the negative impacts white people have had and continue to have over the Inuit, and reinforced my awareness of white privilege.
I left feeling somewhat unsure of what our group of students as a whole represents in Pang, and if in spite of trying to occupy a space that is supposed to be unlike that of tourists to Pang, I still exist on a similar threshold of being an ambassador to white culture in its entirety. I hope in later days I will find ways of becoming more at ease with my whiteness here, which will hopefully make less visible the “us and them” dichotomy.
July 10th, 2009: life experiencesBefore we left for the land, I was randomly speaking with a young woman at the youth centre. I asked her if she’s lived in Pang her whole life, and she explained that while she grew up here and finished high school here, she spent some time afterwards in Iqaluit in hopes of completing what was a year long prep of studies in core math and sciences that would allow her to be eligible to enroll in the 4 year nursing program. She further explained that the curriculum at the high school in Pang was not sufficient in preparing students for certain university programs, so the courses she had to take in Iqaluit were high school equivalent courses that she should already have had.
After spending several months in Iqaluit, for a number of reasons, she was unable to complete these courses, and moved back to Pang – a place she claims felt safer and closer to family. Some of the problems she faced there included problems with alcohol, something that she struggled less with living in Pang, as well as having a young child with her and found it hard to pay for daycare or have someone look after him for her when she needed.
Although she told me that she’s happier and healthier in Pang, satisfied with an alright paying job, her story really spoke to my interest of education in the north, and the myriad of variables that factor into and act as potential detriments to pursuing “higher” education, should one wish to.
For this girl, the factors included the following
Educational:
1. Insufficient content taught at high school level to prepare one for university?
- What does this say about the current math and science curriculum in Pang?
- Does the same go for the arts?
- How many other people face this problem?
- Did she maybe take the wrong courses at high school, making her ineligible?
Personal:
1. Problems with alcohol, that are less of a factor in Pang
2. Separated from loved ones in Iqaluit, no family there.
Social:
1. What does affordable childcare look like in Iqaluit?
While Nunavut is still a very young country, 10 years is a somewhat efficient amount of time to develop and apply a curriculum that is Nunavut’s own, not one that is created for another province such as BC or Alberta, which is currently the curriculum that Nunavut follows. It is of utmost importance for Nunavut to be leading its own educational destiny, which somewhat unfortunately seems to start at the level of curriculum building. With that said, there is a great balance to be had between teaching traditional skills applicable to modern day, while also assuring that the territory offers sufficient courses and credit for post secondary options.
July 6th, 2009: communication and valuing the elderlyAfter the discussion on climate change with Inusiqkuluk, I found myself very much drawn in by him and wanted to spend more time with him, even without someone there to interpret, but just to be in his presence. Learning about how much Inuit value their elders has caused me to realize how much I value the elders in my life, and how much better I am able to connect with elders on a level that is extremely dear to me. I considered my own grandparents on my mom’s side, and how when they were still here physically, I considered myself closer with them than my own parents.
Thinking about this caused me to think about how people in the south (very generally speaking) regard their elders, and what kind of emphasis Western culture places on the elderly, and at a glance, it doesn’t look very good. Very rarely do you see the older generation walking with or spending time in public with younger generations in the south. After spending time in Hong Kong, my friend told me how he always noticed grandchildren and their parents with the grandparents, either walking, eating, or in the vicinity of. Here, when our grandparents become unable to look after themselves, it often seems reasonable to end up in a nursing homes, and the Canadian health care system (also a glance) appears to be greatly imbued with ageism, where the average GP has very limited training in dealing with the elderly (my humble opinion).
Anyway, Jake and I decided to head over to spend some time with Inusiq, make him some dinner (as Karen was visiting Iqaluit) and just hang out. We were semi-successful in throwing around a handful of Inuktitut vocabulary that we had just recently obtained, which he seemed to appreciate. He would smile, and then proceed to correct us, and then try out new words and phrases on us that left us nodding and smiling or searching frantically in our notebooks.
I’m happy to say that our experience was anything but awkward. I felt welcome and at ease in his home, despite our lack of verbal communication. Like the sign in the library proclaims: “we all smile in the same language” such was like that for the three of us in our finding other ways to communicate that went beyond verbal language. For example, when the three of us sat down to eat, Inusiq just starred at me blankly, and it took me a moment, but then I realized that he wanted to say grace.
We proceeded to eat in complete silence, which I cannot stress the solace this provided me, especially after eating with 25 people every evening. I made sure to use my eyes as much as possible, and the yes and no facial expressions when I did understand him.
As I reflect on it tonight, the idea of connecting or communicating with someone that exceeds how we normally take for granted how easily we can express ourselves, but also talking a lot without listening, and talking about trivial things, filling spaces of silences that so many people refuse to let it be. The barrier that exists between two completely different languages that can be the catalyst for an environment of confusion is also the same environment that harbors communication that exceeds spoken words, which I was pleased to experience.
institutionalized "progress"Today I spoke with a woman from Pujualissait briefly about education in the form of healing in Nunavut, as well as its current state of being. She emphasized how I need to look at and pay the most attention to the past and the history of their culture in order to really understand the present state of education in Nunavut. While this may seem logical, it wasn’t to me at the time. In endeavoring to research educational policy here, I noticed that I was very much fixated on the now, paying less attention to where it has come from.
In ways, it evoked the Benjamin article that deals with notion of progress as a term that Western historians have favored as something, whether it be a culture or its people, that gets “better” each day. The woman at the healing center explained the benefit of looking back in time to a particular event, much like Benjamin would, and isolate that experience to understand what has come since then. In the case of the Canadian Inuit, it seems as though the narrative of linear progress doesn’t line up in the ways many would like to assume it would or should have “gotten better” with time.
Its interesting to see first hand how a community like Pang was essentially created, like many things, with the idea of progress as paramount in mind. Being static and living in communities instead of nomadically and off the land appears more progressive for colonizers, which is not necessarily true at all. However, one could argue that aspects of progress, by which I mean technology in its myriad of forms, has in many ways aided a positive perpetuation of Inuit culture, where snowmobiles and rifles have acted as a means to continue to hunt in highly efficient ways, to the internet and film, particularly ISUMA for helping to maintain, transmit and keep their culture and language alive and pumping, while is a positive force of “progress” for the Inuit in the face of constant change and adaptation, so much of their culture previous to settlements and European contact seems more progressive, such as constructing a livelihood entirely from what is directly available to you, and needing nothing more.
If our current world in all of its progressive nature ever needed to act in a similar way, one would find that we are quite inept and wildly non-progressive.
July 1st, 2009 negotiating positionalityWhen I first realized we would be spending Canada Day in Pang, I was thrilled mostly because I would get to experience Canada in such a different realm of such a huge country. Although, as the parade took place, I found myself looking for a way to articulate or make sense of my strange positionality as a Qallunaat in the north, with what felt like the representation of the colonizer and celebrating Canada’s colonial history. It was then that I recalled something a professor had said about Inuit considering themselves very much Canadian and happy to proclaim so, much unlike many First Nations peoples, who are more apt to come across as defiant, confrontational, and anti-Canada as filtered through forms of media. I thought about why such a generalization of a group of people may be problematic, and historically the differences the two indigenous groups have faced through their contact with Europeans.
At a glance it would seem as though the two groups have experienced similar oppressions and suffered similar abuses at the hands of white people, such as residential schools, but how have their experiences differed, and how has this changed the way we learn about the two groups and the stereotypes and generalizations that surround them. While I have studied very little of native studies, it seems that historically, First Nations people have had to negotiate with white people in regards to the actual land in a way that Inuit are just beginning to experience with the drastic environmental changes in the arctic. First Nations people were located in the midst of the land white people wanted for their own means, whereas the arctic landscape itself may have been less of a valuable commodity economically speaking at the time, and was instead a space of exploration for arctic explorers, as well as missionaries, traders, and whalers to come.
However, with climate change comes melting ice, making passages more accessible and land more malleable to extract resources from, creating problems for Inuit that are perhaps more contemporary. It’s interesting to see Canada’s relationship with the Inuit, and how our government tries to negotiate arctic sovereignty with the rest of the world. I am hopeful that we can remain in a positive realm and work alongside the Inuit and not against them as a detriment to their land and culture.
So, somehow all of this connects to why I envisioned the Queen waving when I experienced all the waving hands at the Canada day parade. It also left me feeling extremely content and patriot for Nunavut as a territory, considering its achievement and special place within Canada. While I am proud to call myself Canadian in spite of our sometimes shady relations with the Inuit, among other groups, but I am also hyper-aware of my position as a white person and feel responsible in some ways for assuring that we don’t find ourselves down any more dark paths with our indigenous groups.
June 29th: floundering to grasp something, anythingIn chapter two of Hugh Brody’s book, he introduces the section by recounting that “even as a small child I found some kind of escape into large spaces and cold strong air…I began to associate freedom and the future with travel much farther north.” While the larger context of the quote lies in him connecting the livelihood of hunters to that of religious texts, what I derived from it was how it so clearly articulated why I fell in love with “the north” from a young age, which began with the geography and landscape.
The months I spent working and studying in Iceland during the winter acted as a primer for my love of the physical geography, much like Brody discusses. It was there, alone in the near 24 hour darkness of the countryside that I learned about the fine line between freedom and isolation. It wasn’t until I later developed a love for Inuit culture that I realized that the Canadian north was visually similar.
Brody also discusses how “humans are exiles bound to move over the earth, struggling to survive on harsh land, aided by the dominance over all other creatures.” Much of what we have been learning about Inuit hunters does not involve the dominance over animals – instead, the animals are the ones sacrificing themselves to the humans. With that said, the latter quote summarizes what compelled me most about Inuit culture – their ability to not only persevere through extremes, but thrive in their own livelihoods in spite of periods of intense struggle.
Earlier in the program, Uviluq explained that I could only be as much a part of the community that I allow myself to be. During that time, I was treading very carefully around Pang, making extra sure not to disturb the regular flow of things. It was also during this time that I spoke with Emily at Pujualissait about hopefully doing some work with the Youth Trauma Retreat because I was feeling unsatisfied with the few menial tasks I had done around the community, such as post-Canada Day garbage clean up. I was unable to recognize then that the community project was much more about the connections one was able to make through completing these tasks, however menial they may seem, and that it was these tasks that would act as an open door into Pang.
