On April 1, 1999, Nunavut, which means “Our Land” was created! Nunavut celebrated 25 years!
However, if my studies have taught me anything it’s that the concept for greater Inuit self government and control over the area had begun back in the early 1970’s as Inuit sought a land claims agreement. To understand why Nunavut was created you will have to understand what Inuit were experiencing at the time period.
“They come in and damage our land and our trapping and pay $1.67 an hour.”
The Canadian Government and its law enforcement had written up rules for Inuit that didn’t make sense for Inuit life. For example, Inuit were told when they were allowed and not allowed to hunt- except the Canadian government didn’t know the migratory patterns of the animals in the arctic and often when Inuit were “allowed” to hunt, migratory animals were not in the region. Hunting was useless if there was no food and very few Inuit were given jobs by the government when they were promised jobs. Without being able to hunt, and without any serious income, Inuit were starving being controlled by the Canadian Government.
Meanwhile, oil and mineral companies were suddenly numerous in extraction and extremely damaging to the land, water and animals in its path. Inuit immediately began seeing the impacts of fracking, drilling, oil mining, and resource extraction. Inuit have been one with the arctic since time immemorial and suddenly outsiders of this land were telling us how to live and exploiting our natural resources and destroying everything in its path.
Inuit were concerned with living sufficiently, protecting the land for future generations and preserving our culture. It took a couple of decades after Inuit joined together but it was imperative we did.
Today I honour our resilience, and ‘Our Land’.