Arctic Fishery Alliance creates youth scholarships with Carleton U.

Moses Oyukuluk, the deputy mayor of Arctic Bay. His community hosted a meeting of the Arctic Fishery Alliance last month, which was attended by mayors and HTA representatives from Arctic Bay, Qikiqtarjuaq, Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK AKEEAGOK)

The board of the Arctic Fishery Alliance meeting in Arctic Bay last month. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK AKEEAGOK)

Post-secondary students from Qikiqtarjuaq, Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay and Arctic Bay will soon get a chance to apply for an Aboriginal studies scholarship that the Arctic Fishery Alliance is offering in partnership with Carleton University in Ottawa.

The AFA, a commercial fishing company made up of hunters and trappers associations from those four communities, made the decision at a general meeting earlier this month in Arctic Bay.

“The owners of AFA are very excited to provide young Inuit with opportunity to further their education and prepare themselves for today’s job market,” the company’s chair, Jaypetee Akeeagok of Grise Fiord, said in a release.

The scholarship covers a one-year, full-time transition program for students whose goal is to attend university, called the Aboriginal Enrichment Support Program, or AESP, Carleton University said in a news release.

Under that program, winners of the scholarship will attend a one-year Aboriginal studies first-year seminar and take two additional university credit courses.

And those who successfully complete the AESP will see the scholarship continued for their remaining years at Carleton.

The university says many students who started with the AESP have gone on to get degrees in business, engineering, environmental studies, economics, history, law, political science and other fields.

The scholarship is available each year to one recipient per community from Qikiqtarjuaq, Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay and Arctic Bay.

The scholarship money covers:

• tuition fees;

• all compulsory miscellaneous fees;

• travel to and from Ottawa;

• accommodations; and,

• living expenses.

“This is a great opportunity to come to university with other Aboriginal students who share a common history. It is like having family with you while you undertake your first year,” said Rodney Nelson, the AESP co-ordinator at Carleton.

Carleton and the AFA are now working on a “fair and transparent” process for selecting scholarship recipients and will likely issue their first call for applicants this spring, the AFA said.

And they hope recipients will begin their AESP studies at Carleton in September 2017.

The AFA, founded in 2008 to fish turbot in the waters of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, has since 2013 been harvesting an allocation of 1,030 tonnes of turbot, or Greenland halibut, in zone OA, and 400 metric tonnes of turbot in zone OB.

“Since the beginning, AFA has been dedicated to returning profits from the fishery to all Nunavummiut in the partnership’s four communities,” the AFA said.

They own two 100-foot fixed gear vessels that use gill nets and hook-and-line equipment, the Suvak and Kiviuq 1, and also fish for Atlantic halibut around the Grand Banks.

At their meeting in Arctic Bay, the AFA also agreed to hire community liaison workers in each of their four communities to work on local projects, such as potential winter shrimp and whelk fisheries.

“Creation of the four CLO positions will help us move towards our goal of creating more benefits for each community,” Akeeagok said.

The AFA has now started the process of hiring people to fill the four CLO positions.