From NewsHound@hound.com Sat Mar 27 12:10:24 1999 Subject: Nunavut: Canada's new territory for Inuit begins April 1 NewsHound article from "ECOLOGY_SEARCH" hound, score "35." Nunavut: Canada's new territory for Inuit begins April 1 By David Crary Associated Press Writer IQALUIT, Northwest Territories (AP) -- The fur traders came, then the missionaries and the Mounties, sometimes helpful, often bullying. Maps declared the harsh arctic wilderness to be Canada, but always, in their hearts, the Inuit considered it their own. On Thursday, the maps change. Fireworks will light the midnight sky over frozen Frobisher Bay, a new flag will rise, and an Inuit-dominated legislature will be sworn in to govern the new Canadian territory of Nunavut -- "our land" in the Inuit language, Inuktitut. Carved out of the eastern 60 percent of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut represents one of the boldest initiatives by any nation to restore land and self-government to an aboriginal people. The challenges are immense. Nunavut is as large as western Europe, yet has just 27,000 people, scattered in 28 towns and hamlets accessible only by air for most of the year. Poverty, crime, unemployment, substance abuse and suicide are far above the Canadian average. Inuit leaders are cautioning their people not to expect too much too quickly, but they are proud of the patient, persistent 20-year campaign that led to Nunavut's creation. To Peter Ernerk, who will be deputy minister for language, culture, youth and elders, the challenge reminds him of his first polar bear hunt as a boy. "You're trying to catch a bear for the first time, and you wonder, `How am I going to do this?"' he said. "It was not a smooth road getting here. But now, we're paving the road." Ernerk, 53, was born in Repulse Bay, a village astride the Arctic Circle, when it was a primitive outpost with just a handful of permanent buildings. Sitting now by a desktop computer in an office-and-shopping mall complex in Iqaluit (ee-ka-loo-eet), Nunavut's capital-to-be, Ernerk recalled moments of embarrassment in his youth at being what was then called Eskimo. "We've come from the igloo to the high-rise in a very short time," he said. About 23,000 of Nunavut's people are Inuit, descendants of nomads who crossed into the Canadian arctic from Alaska about 1,000 years ago. Their traditional lifestyle, centered on hunting, endured largely intact until the 1950s and '60s, when Canadian authorities forced them to settle in permanent communities. Many Inuit children were pressured to attend church-run boarding schools away from their families and were force-fed the culture of the "qablunaaq" -- the white man. "We lost a lot of our culture over the past 30 years," said Ernerk. "We want to put pride back into the lives of the Inuit. We're going to take back our culture." Nowhere is the collision of old and new ways more evident than Iqaluit, Nunavut's largest town and soon to be North America's northernmost capital. Located on Baffin Island, overlooking Frobisher Bay, Iqaluit is a boom town of 5,000 people, two-thirds of them Inuit. There are two tanning salons, a racquetball club and an Internet provider, but no place to get film processed or eyeglasses made, no stop lights or street names. At Iqaluit's Inukshuk High School, principal Ken Sykes describes the frustration of trying to promote Inuit culture despite the lack of qualified Inuit teachers. "It's a catch-22," he said. "The government wants us to teach Inuktitut, but we can't find anyone to teach it." And there are social problems to be addressed. In an effort to curb the high rate of teen-age pregnancies and ward off a spread of AIDS, the school flew in a health consultant from Ottawa, 2,000 miles to the south, to teach safe-sex techniques to every class. The school's vice principal, Sheila Levy, administers a suicide hotline that offers over-the-phone counseling to people across Nunavut. Levy, who moved to the far north from southern Canada in 1978, helped found the hotline in 1990 after four young men, all former students of hers, committed suicide within a few months of each other. Nunavut's suicide rate is six times the national average -- about 20 suicides annually in a population equivalent to one medium-size town. Most victims are Inuit males between 15 and 30. Levy says the suicides stem from many factors, including the dark arctic winters, alcohol, drugs and rapid social change. "Not all the change has been positive," she said. "The amount of loss that people feel because of this change is sometimes overwhelming." There are hopes that Inuit youth can play a pivotal role in reducing suicides. On Baffin Island, 21-year-old Raurri Ellsworth has been working for an Inuit association since 1996 to coordinate local youth groups, promote peer counseling and develop contacts between young people and elders. "We're in a society that's confused about what its cultural identity is," Ellsworth said. "Because of the isolation -- and then seeing all the things that are on TV -- there's a big fear of the outside world." Ellsworth, a high school dropout, said he has gradually shaken off cynicism about Nunavut. "Five years ago I thought it was a bad idea. It sounded like a big, big dream: How are we going to make this work?" he said. "Now, I'm finding out people might actually listen to what I have to say." Ellsworth has lived nearly all his life in Iqaluit, but other Inuit are returning from southern Canada, eager to help build the new territory. Madeleine Redfern left as a child and eventually became head of an Inuit community center in Ottawa. Now 31, she returned to Iqaluit in September to run Nunavut's tourism office. Redfern lost her own fluency in Inuktitut and wants her 10-year-old daughter to learn the language and culture. "There are so many opportunities here," she said. "But sometimes we need to take the time to stop and think. We have to be careful of moving too quickly." Also back from the south is Paul Okalik, 34, the first Inuit to obtain a law degree and then return home. On Feb. 15, he was one of 15 Inuit candidates elected to Nunavut's 19-member legislature in far-flung balloting that drew an 88 percent turnout. Three weeks later, his new colleagues chose him to become Nunavut's first premier -- the government leader. Okalik, who overcame teen-age drinking problems and the suicide of a brother, has never held office before and hopes he can live up to his constituents' expectations. "I know they're watching me," he said. "There's pressure." Okalik is Nunavut's only Inuit lawyer, and there are no Inuit doctors or engineers. It will take many years before the new government comes close to meeting its goal of having a civil service that is 85 percent Inuit -- matching their share of the territory's population. In the meantime, Nunavut's government will rely on federal funds for 90 percent of its budget and on the expertise of non-Inuit professionals. The territory is by no means free of racial tension, but in Iqaluit -- Nunavut's primary melting pot -- good will abounds. "The Canadian people could take a little look at what's been done in Iqaluit," said Ed Picco, a Newfoundland native elected to the new legislature from a predominantly Inuit district in Iqaluit. "You've got French, English and Inuit here," he said. "Everyone gets along very well." Picco's wife is Inuit and he has worked hard to learn Inuktitut. "I speak it as well as Jean Chretien speaks English," Picco said, alluding to the often fractured syntax of Canada's Quebec-born prime minister. Inuktitut will be one of the legislature's three official languages, along with French and English. "We're doing something historic here, that could be an example for Canadians and the rest of the world," Picco said. "We're going to stumble along the way, but you have to make mistakes to learn from your mistakes." One of the most daunting tasks will be to reduce Nunavut's dependence on federal funds. There are hopes of boosting the small-scale tourism industry, a possible deal to sell seals to China, and suggestions that prospecting could uncover major gold and diamond deposits. Jane Stewart, Canada's minister of Indian affairs, acknowledged that many Canadians question the high cost of Nunavut's creation, but said it would give the region a better chance to become self-reliant down the road. "We know we've got a system now that doesn't work and is very expensive," she said. Across Canada, federal and provincial authorities are facing other native land-claims negotiations, notably with more than 40 Indian communities in British Columbia. But those deals pale in comparison to the establishment of Nunavut to settle Inuit claims. "Here's a country redrawing its map out of respect for the democratic process," Stewart said. "People abroad say to me: `You're changing your map peacefully. How extraordinary."' The Nunavut settlement, reached after painstaking negotiations dating to the 1970s, gives the Inuit surface ownership of 135,000 square miles -- almost one-sixth of the new territory. The Inuit also get some mineral rights and broad hunting rights, extending even to hunting some whale species that wildlife-protection groups believe should be off-limits. The settlement also includes cash -- roughly $770 million to be paid out over 14 years. The money will be needed by Canada's youngest, fastest-growing population. Close to 60 percent of Nunavut's residents are under 25, and the population is growing 3.1 percent a year, nearly triple the national rate. "We want to reach out to the youth," said Ernerk, whose department will try to promote contacts between young and old Inuit. "People like me who have worked on the Nunavut project for the past 20 years -- we want to pass on our knowledge to the next generation," he said. "They will be ready." For more information, visit the NewsHound website at http://www.newshound.com or send an email to speak@hound.com.