Allen Maghagak remembered as ‘diplomatic but firm’ negotiator for Inuit rights

Allen Maghagak is being remembered as a strong leader for Kitikmeot, a diplomat for Inuit rights and a lover of music.

Maghagak, 73, died last week in Ottawa.

“He was a determined man, so that Inuit can define their own future for their children, their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s children,” said Piita Irniq, a former commissioner of Nunavut.

“It’s very sad. I think he was getting very sick in the end.”

Maghagak and Irniq worked together negotiating the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement between 1982 and 1987, which eventually led to the creation of Nunavut in 1999.

Maghagak was chief negotiator for Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut, which later became Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the legal representative for Inuit in Nunavut.

“This has been a long struggle arising from a dream, a dream that just couldn’t go away,” Maghagak wrote in a column for Nunatsiaq News in 1999 about the work that went into creating Nunavut as Canada’s newest territory.

Dennis Patterson, a former Northwest Territories premier and longtime Nunavut senator, said “Allen was known then as a great team leader who brought his team together and made maximum use of folks from other regions.”

And things weren’t easy. Maghagak and other Inuit negotiators had to travel across the country and be away from home for weeks on end without pensions or benefits, Patterson said.

But no matter what, Maghagak was “quietly authoritative as a negotiator,” he recalled. “Diplomatic but firm. Never losing his temper or his focus on the strategies of the negotiating team.”

Later, Maghagak served as president of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the organization promoting the rights of Kitikmeot Inuit. He also worked as a member of Nunavut Impact Review Board studying the environmental and socio-economic impacts of major projects as they were proposed in Nunavut.

“Allen will be greatly missed,” said Dionne Filiatrault, the review board’s executive director, in a statement released Monday.

An avid songwriter, Maghagak once mused about writing an Inuit rock musical some day, Patterson said.

That never happened, but Maghagak — who Patterson said was a “gifted musician” — often performed at Umingmak Frolics, the spring festival held in Cambridge Bay.