Below are some photos of the festivities in Jim Koe Park in the middle of Inuvik. The celebration is still going on, but the sun got too warm for me so I had to take a break!
It's a beautiful sunny day in Inuvik today, 30 C and blue skies. June 21st is National Aboriginal Day in Canada - a day recognizing and celebrating the cultures of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. The day was first celebrated in 1996, and is a really fun day in Inuvik that everyone looks forward to, with food, demonstrations of Arctic games, music, dancing, activities for kids, fundraisers and lucky draws.
Below are some photos of the festivities in Jim Koe Park in the middle of Inuvik. The celebration is still going on, but the sun got too warm for me so I had to take a break!
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It has been (and continues to be) a really, really busy time at work, which doesn't leave much time or energy for optional things like blogging. So it will be just a short post today. An update on things in Inuvik -- summer is here! It's warm and sunny t-shirt and BBQ weather most days and I have got a couple of sunburns. The delta has turned from brown to green almost overnight. And we are firmly into 24-hour sun. I've put cardboard up at the windows to fool my brain into thinking it's dark enough to sleep. It works most of the time, but it means I can't open the window to get any air in, so I run a fan all night. You do what you have to! Flowers are blooming, and the front lawn is green... As wonderful as the sun is, in a place as dry as Inuvik, I have actually started to miss a bit of rain. I used to HATE rain when I lived in Vancouver! But when it rained for about a day last week, I loved hearing the raindrops on the window, and stepping out and breathing in the damp air.
This was the view through the glass. On Tuesday June 5th we celebrated Inuvialuit Day... and the party in Inuvik was a fun one! June 5, 1984 is the date of the signing of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement with the federal government after 10 years of negotiations. This year marks the 28th anniversary. Celebrations were held in the six communities, but the biggest was in Inuvik. It would be hard to over-emphasize the importance of the Final Agreement. It was the first comprehensive land claim agreement signed in the North (north of 60), and only the second ever in Canada at that time. Along with celebrating that significant milestone with a party, the Inuvialuit are committed to passing on the history to young people, to help them realize how hard the previous generations worked to protect their region. Under the Final Agreement, the Inuvialuit gained legal control over 91,000 square kilometres of land, with subsurface rights to oil, gas and minerals. The Inuvialuit also established the right to hunt and harvest and secured the responsibility for ensuring good wildlife management. To read more about the Inuvialuit (the Inuit of the Western Arctic), read this earlier post, or click here for wikipedia. The celebration included an outdoor community feast and BBQ, along with live music, drum dancing, and prize draws. The weather was perfect -- warm, sunny, with a nice breeze and no bugs! An estimated 400 - 500 people came out to the party. Today is another milestone -- five months since I moved to the Arctic. Pretty exciting. Because I'm too busy to provide any deep insights right now, I will save that for the six-month marker. Hopefully I'll be wiser by then!
The reason it's so busy is because tomorrow (June 5) is Inuvialuit Day, the highlight of the year for the Inuit communities in this region, and for those of us working with the Inuvialuit corporation. I made 120 cupcakes over the weekend... Tomorrow will be a full day of decorating, food, fun, games, music and dancing. I'm sure I will take lots of photos so you can look forward to that! I can't leave without posting a few pictures, so here are some of the friendly faces I saw at the Inuvik community greenhouse over the weekend. Members of the community can rent plots for the season for $100 and some people personalize their plots in adorable ways. I will do a proper post about the greenhouse soon, as it is the coolest place, but for now, say hi to these cuties! |