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Cultural Connections Link Nunavut and Alaska
By Rudy Brueggemann
Consulate of Canada, Anchorage
Cultural connections and lasting friendships were forged between Nunavut and Alaska during a visit to the Frontier State by nearly two dozen Nunavut students from Nunavut Sivuniksavut. For at least one member of the troupe, family connections linking relatives from Alaska and the newest territory in Canada were re-kindled during the group's trip to Barrow, on Alaska's North Slope.
Nunavut Sivuniksavut, the unique eight-month college program based in Ottawa, brings together university-age Inuit youth from Nunavut who are pursuing educational, training, and career opportunities enabled by the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) and the new Government of Nunavut. Each year, the students organize a cultural tour, and between April 27 and May 9 this year, the group visited the northernmost state of the United States, Alaska.
The newly opened Consulate of Canada in Anchorage helped the 23 students identify local Native Alaskan contacts, so they could learn more about efforts by Alaska's Native communities to identify their own research and community needs and preserve their more than 10,000-year-old traditions. The visiting group organized the entire trip on their own, packing together a busy program in the state's largest city, Anchorage, and in the North Slope community of Barrow.
In addition to meeting with Consul Karen Matthias and Political Affairs Officer Rudy Brueggemann of the Consulate, the Nunavut Sivuniksavut group met with members of the Alaska Native Science Commission, the Alaska Federation of Natives, and the First Alaskans Institute during their first few days in Anchorage. On April 29, the group received a warm welcome at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, where they meet with 35 Canadian military members and their families stationed in Alaska as part of NORAD. For their part, the NORAD contingent described their permanent mission working with the U.S. Armed Forces in Alaska, while the visiting students better explained their Nunavut homeland to the Alaska-based Canadians. The exchange was followed by the group singing, dancing, throat singing, and drumming, all traditional art forms of Nunavut. Traditional Inuit games followed.
 On May 1, the group then flew three and a half hours north to Barrow, a historic hunting area of Alaska's Inupiaq people that now is the most northern community over 2,000 persons in the world. Fannie Akpik, Director of the Inupiaq Studies Department at Ilisagvik College, helped to coordinate what soon became one of the most popular cultural exchanges Barrow had seen in years. Within hours the entire community was abuzz with news that Nunavut visitors had arrived. During the following week, the students participated and shared traditional dances and songs and gave cultural presentations at local schools. Perhaps the highlight of the visit for the students was participating in a traditional whale hunt and the sharing of the animal in the community.
Capping of their successful tour in back in Anchorage on May 8, the students from Nunavut Sivuniksavut gave a well-received performance of traditional Nunavut songs, throat singing, dancing, and drumming at Alaska's premiere Native cultural facility, the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. The group shared the main stage with other Native performers from Alaska and were received with enthusiastic applause from a full house that attended the Mother's Day performances at the Center.
Read more about the students’ experience at Elmendorf Air Force Base
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