Nunavik girl’s 2017 death considered accidental: Quebec police

Alacie Inukpuk, 11, died sometime in late October 2017. A police investigation just concluded that her death was accidental. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The death of an 11-year-old Nunavik girl was accidental, an investigation has concluded.

In October 2017, Alacie Inukpuk went missing in her home community of Umiujaq. A few days later, someone walking just outside the village found the girl frozen to death.

Inukpuk died of hypothermia, but the girl had also been drinking alcohol.

The investigation, led by the Sûreté du Québec provincial police, continued for months, although police said they weren’t investigating any criminal element.

A spokesperson for the SQ said May 22 that the investigation was now closed and Inukpuk’s death is considered “accidental” based on information in the coroner’s report. That report has not yet been made public.

Inukpuk’s mother, Jeannie Sappa, has called on authorities to crack down on the access to alcohol, which is restricted in the Hudson coast village of 450
and only available on order from the South.

Sappa, who was out of town when her daughter went missing, was told her daughter Alacie was seen drinking with another girl before she went missing.

She contends someone would have had to have either given the girls alcohol or seen them drinking, and not reported it.

“Why didn’t anyone call the police?” Sappa said after the girl’s death. “She was just a child.”

Since Inukpuk’s death, staff at Kilutaaq school in Umiujaq—where she was a Grade 5 student—have prepared an activity to educate students on the risks of drinking and hypothermia.

Family members hope to set up a memorial for the girl in the Nunavik community.