Advisory council names three people to the Order of Nunavut

Father Robert Lechat, in an undated file photo. (FILE PHOTO)

Bill Lyall in 2012, photographed at his office in Cambridge Bay. (FILE PHOTO)

Tagak Curley scrumming with reporters inside the Nunavut legislative building in 2009. (FILE PHOTO)

One of northern Canada’s oldest surviving Christian missionaries, along with two veteran business and political leaders will receive the Order of Nunavut later this year, the Nunavut legislative assembly announced Sept. 18.

The three recipients are:

• Father Robert Lechat, 95, an Oblate priest who travelled in 1945 to the eastern Arctic, where he did missionary work for many years in many communities, including Kangiqsujuaq and Igloolik.

In the early 1950s, Lechat encouraged his Inuktitut teacher, the late Mitiarjuk Attasie Nappaaluk of Kangiqsujuaq, to start writing about her daily life.

That led to the eventual publication of Mitiarjuk’s book, Sanaaq, the first novel written in Inuktitut syllabics,

Lechat later served for many years as a priest in Igloolik and Hall Beach.

• Bill Lyall

Lyall, 74, was born in the now abandoned trading post of Fort Ross on Somerset Island, grew up in Taloyoak, and lived most of his adult life in Cambridge Bay.

He served as MLA for Central Arctic in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, then known as the territorial council, from 1975 to 1979 and became president of the Ikaluktutiak Co-op in Cambridge Bay in 1978. He still holds that position.

He has also served for many years as president of Arctic Co-operatives Ltd. and was vice-chair of the Nunavut Implementation Commission.

• Tagak Curley

Curley, 71, was a founding member of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, now known as Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in 1971.

He also served as MLA for the Aivilik in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories from 1979 until 1987, when he was defeated by Peter Irniq.

After working as head of the Nunavut Construction Corp., in 2004, Curley was acclaimed to the Rankin Inlet North seat in the Nunavut legislature and was acclaimed again in 2008. He tried and failed twice to win the Nunavut premier’s job and served for a while as Nunavut health minister.

The three Order of Nunavut recipients will get their awards this fall at a ceremony to be held inside the legislative chamber in Iqaluit.

The date for that ceremony has not yet been set.

Order of Nunavut recipients are chosen by an advisory council chaired by George Qulaut, the speaker of the Nunavut legislature.