Rhythm of the Tides: my arctic experience

Iqaluit - a House but not a Home

Being here in Iqaluit reminds me of a book I read a long time ago entitled, Two Solitudes, by Hugh MacLennan, a novel based on the political and religious divide between the two founding peoples of Canada: the English and the French. I see life here a bit the way he saw it in Montreal in 1945.

When the American service personnel left, Iqaluit changed from a military base to a Canadian government administrative centre for the eastern arctic. As the Americans left, Canadians arrived to take their place. They were teachers, doctors, administrators and support staff. Most of them arrived on short, fixed-term contracts, not to live here permanently. Consequently, very little thought was given to social needs in community planning. People coming up for six months, a year or two at most need shelter and very little else. This short-term focus sowed the seeds of discontent, which would become evident decades later.

A new wave of southerners arrived after Iqaluit was named the capital of Nunavut. The very event that was to make the town supposedly more Inuit, as the capital of this unique territory should be, actually made it less so. In the decade following the birth of Nunavut, the town's population became predominantly qallunaat (non-Inuit), when the significant numbers of transient workers are included. In 2016, its population was 7,500 compared to 5,500 in 2001, an increase of 36% in fifteen years. In comparison, the nation's capital grew only 16% and Canada as a whole 10%.

Such rapid growth overwhelmed the city. New subdivisions were built helter-skelter leaving a legacy of isolated suburbs: Apex, Happy Valley, Lake Subdivision, Plateau, Road to Nowhere, Tundra Ridge and Tundra Valley. Apex is the most isolated, being five kilometres from downtown. There is a saying that the whole is more than the sum of the parts: here, it seems to be an exception.

As I see it, the problem is the transient nature of the qallunaat population. Most southerners still come for short periods, anywhere from one to three years, and many seasonal workers, especially in construction, come only for a few months during the summer. As a result of this constant flux of people, a real sense of community failed to materialize. The qallunaat come for the experience and for the big paycheques, not to establish a home and family. There are exceptions, of course, and Don and I have met some. But, by and large, the continuous flow of people in and out of town, makes it difficult to establish a closely-knit community.

I don't want to give the reader the impression that southerners come only for the money. Many make very positive contributions to the town and to the community, but those who make Iqaluit their home are by far the most involved and make the biggest impact. One such person is the head of the HfH Iqaluit organization, but there are others who are working hard to make this a more liveable city.

I have the feeling that Iqaluit is a house, but not a home. It's just a deep guttural feeling. I find the city rather impersonal. Where is the big town square where people go to hang out and enjoy the long summer nights? Where is the central park where kids flock to during the summer to play games and have fun in the sun? Where are the swings, teeter-totters and slides for the toddlers? If most southerners living here had families with small kids, I'm sure these facilities would be here.

Even the city's own planning document shares these concerns. Here's what it says:

We feel disconnected as a community. We need to find new ways of connecting with each other, new ways of communicating, and new ways of embracing everyone in our community. We need to counter the growing sense of isolation and disconnection from others.

Was I expecting to find something more unique, more representative of the old culture?

I suppose that could be part of it, but there's more to it. As I hinted at the beginning of this chapter, Iqaluit appears to be a town of two solitudes: a mostly transient qallunaat society and a stable Inuit one. I don't feel at home with the former, and I don't feel welcome by the latter.

The Inuit have sustainability engrained in their genes, but Iqaluit is far from being a sustainable city. Garbage is a big problem and littering an even bigger one. On the one hand there is a pristine and fragile environment and on the other there is litter and pollution everywhere. The Inuit had a culture of living in harmony with nature and waste was not part of it. Yet, Iqaluit has no recycling program. Though Iqaluit is a windy city, it burns polluting diesel oil to generate electricity rather than harnessing the wind.

Who made these decisions? Was it the qallunaat who were not here long enough to pay the consequences, or the Inuit who live here and do pay the consequences?

Who polices the city? Is it police officers from the south who are part-time residents, or Inuit officers who call it home? From what I see, the latter are by far the minority. The same is true for the fire department. We didn't see one Inuit fireman when we stopped to talk with some of them in front of the fire hall.

From what I observe, the right people don't make the decisions in this city and the consequences are visible everywhere. People who may have never been here, let alone call it home, make most of them in Ottawa. I have been told of numerous civil servants that have come with glorious plans to improve the life of Inuit people, but were ignorant of Inuit culture.

The creation of Nunavut was heralded as the beginning of a new age for the displaced and mistreated Inuit: they had finally achieved self-rule within their own territory. But, with such a large federal government presence here, how can that be? Is it even possible for Iqaluit to be an Inuit city?

Such an overpowering outside presence is inconsistent with their professed desire for self-determination and culture preservation. I've only been here a few days and already I ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant that serves shawarma and have been greeted at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit, the foremost Inuit museum, by a South Korean woman, who admitted that she doesn't know a word of Inuktitut.

Why are there no country food restaurants? And why is there not an Inuit person in such an important cultural position?

The museum is probably the most visited cultural place in town, yet it is staffed by a non-Inuit, who knows neither their language nor their culture! Like the museum, the city should be a showcase of Inuit culture; outsiders should not be its face. Will Iqaluit ever become an Inuit city?

When all the transient workers are included, Inuit are a minority within their own capital and decisions are still being imposed from the outside. Perhaps, change is on the way: I certainly hope so. I hope that if my children come here after I'm gone, they can paint a much more positive picture than I have. I sincerely wish that.

Today, the sad reality is that very little has changed since their new nationhood was proclaimed in 1999. The power in Iqaluit is still with the southerners and with Ottawa, which pays their bills. Therefore, if the Inuit want to wield some of it they have to do it as 'southerners'. That is, they have to fill key economic and political positions with highly skilled Inuit people, and in the process of acquiring those skills they adopt the southerners' culture. It must be a disappointment for those who fought hard for autonomous rule.

The Federal Government presence in Iqaluit has been a double-edged sword: good for the economy and bad for Inuit culture. It has created two classes of people: the reasonably well off civil servants and business people, mostly southerners, and those living in poverty, all Inuit. To be sure, some Inuit have also done well, particularly those who got involved in construction as entrepreneurs, and not as labourers. The construction boom made a lot of people rich, including some Inuit families.

I know that there are numerous organizations working to promote Inuit culture, but so far, from what I see, the results of their efforts are elusive.

Today, the Inuit of Iqaluit are torn between two powerful forces: the call of their ancestors for a return to a more traditional lifestyle, and modernity, which offers the potential for a more comfortable one. The latter seems to be winning and the hunters seem to be losing.