Long-time Inuit circumpolar leader joins Inuvialuit Regional Corp.

Duane Smith, second to the right in the back row, stands with other Inuit Circumpolar Council executives at his final meeting with the organization in Ottawa. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The Inuit Circumpolar Council said good-bye to its Canadian chairperson last week in Ottawa.

Duane Smith, the ICC vice president and ICC-Canada president, resigned from his ICC positions after 17 years with the international organization which represents Inuit in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland.

“I am leaving with some regret, but I believe my contribution to ICC has left the organization with the tools to continue to do great work,” Smith said in a Jan. 28 news release.

Smith’s decision to resign, announced at an ICC meeting held during the Northern Lights conference in Ottawa, came after Smith was elected to replace Nellie Cournoyea as the Chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corp.

“On the international stage, I always aimed to do things that made a difference at home and in that way, moving to my new role at IRC is simply a continuation of this approach,” Smith said.

Jim Stotts, ICC vice chair for Alaska, said “Duane was never shy to challenge Arctic states and industry when our interests were not addressed, but mostly he asked how we can all work together.”

And ICC’s chairperson Okalik Eegeesiak also said Smith would be missed.

“Your contribution to and for Inuit in the work ICC undertakes from Novo Chaplino in Russia, Bethel in Alaska, to Iqaluit in Canada, and Nuuk in Greenland will also be missed. I’m glad your ICC work will continue to be felt at IRC,” she said.

The ICC did not say in its release how the organization plans to replace Smith as ICC-Canada chair.

In Ottawa, the ICC executives also discussed projects that the organization is expected to deliver on by its next general assembly to take place in Alaska in 2018.

This included a review of progress of the Kitigaaryuit Declaration, the four-year mandate given to the ICC at its last general assembly in 2014.

Three Inuit summits — discussed at last September’s annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay — were also launched in Ottawa.

These include:

• a circumpolar-wide wildlife summit to be held in the Canadian Arctic in November of this year;

• an Inuit economic summit in Alaska in February 2017; and,

• and an Inuit education summit in the autumn of 2017.

“We will miss Duane’s guidance as we plan and implement these very important summits,” said Hjalmar Dahl, the ICC vice chair for Greenland.

The next meeting for the ICC executives will take place in Greenland this coming August.