Nunavik visitors find themselves in Quebec’s Gaspé region

A group of more than a dozen youth and elders from Kangiqsujuaq went on a cultural trip to Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula last month, where they learned about Mi’kmaq culture. But while they were there, they stopped in for dinner at the Maison Wakeham, the former home of Dr. William Wakeham, the fisheries inspector for whom Kangiqsujuaq’s Wakeham Bay was named. (PHOTO BY SOPHIE BEAUDOIN)

At a visit to Quebec City’s museum of civilization in August, Kusugaliniq Ilimasaut discovered the first pair of kamiit she made as a young woman on display. The museum will now include her name with the display. (PHOTO BY SOPHIE BEAUDOIN)

This group of elders from Kangiqsujuaq wore traditional Inuit clothing to Gaspe’s Festival du bout du monde (the end of the world festival), where organizers welcomed them publicly. (PHOTO BY SOPHIE BEAUDOIN)

KUUJJUAQ — When a group of elders and youth from Kangiqsujuaq visited a Quebec City museum last month, they had no idea about the close links they would have to the actual exhibit.

The group of more than a dozen women was en route to Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula mid-August to learn more about the Mi’kmaq culture when they first stopped to visit the museum of civilization in Quebec’s capital.

One of the trip’s facilitators, Kangiqsujuaq teacher Sophie Beaudoin, arranged for a private tour of the museum, which took the group to see an exhibit of Inuit artifacts. The group soon discovered many of the tools in display were made by past generations of Kangirsujuammiut.

The group saw hunting tools, old mats woven from branches, part of an old dog sled and a large container made of seal flippers used to store misiraq seal fat.

But Kusugaliniq Ilimasaut might have made the most surprising discovery of them all; Beaudoin found the elder crying and looking at an ulu that once belonged to her mother.

“We continued on, then Kusugaliniq started gently and quietly crying again,” Beaudoin recalled. “Near the end of our tour, we were looking at other artifacts from Nunavik and she had recognized a pair of kamiit and alirtik [liners for boots]. The first and only pair she had ever made were on display. Fifty years after making them, and having her mom tell her they were not good enough, she found her old boots.”

Everyone in the group was moved by the discovery and Beaudoin said that Ilimasaut was “touched” to see her work on display.

Ilimasaut isn’t sure how the boots got there, but remembered that her mother knew French anthropologist Bernard Saladin d’Anglure – who worked in Nunavik for decades, starting in the 1950s – and believed her mother might have traded the boots with him for something.

And now, Quebec City’s Museé des Civilizations has a name to put on some of its artifacts.

“It was awesome,” said Annie Tertiluk, another Kangiqsujuaq woman who participated in the Gaspé trip. “She had no idea there were there. A lot of us had tears in our eyes.”

But the museum was only the first stop on the group’s tour. They saw a performance of the Cirque du Soleil in Quebec City and then boarded a train up the St. Lawrence River coast towards Gaspé.

The trip, coordinated by Beaudoin and Kangiqsujuaq mayor Mary Pilurtuut, aimed to bring elders and youth to visit the region’s Mi’kmaq people and its culture.

The group spent a day at Gaspeg, a Mi’kmaq interpretative centre near the town of Gaspé, where a guide explained the nation’s history and culture before Mi’kmaq elders shared a meal with their Nunavik visitors.

Tertiluk called the experience “beautiful” and hopes to bring the Mi’kmaq elders to visit Kangiqsujuaq one day.

The two regions have much in common, she said.

“Gaspé is almost like Kangiqsujuaq, except there are trees,” Tertiluk said. “It was almost like home and we loved it.”

Other excursions: a boat trip to Bonaventure Island, a local bird sanctuary home to hundreds of bird species.

And later, a delicious seafood meal at the inn and restaurant Maison Wakeham, the former home of Dr. William Wakeham — the fisheries inspector for whom Kangiqsujuaq’s Wakeham Bay was named.

The group wore traditional Inuit clothing to Gaspé’s Festival du bout du monde [the end of the world festival], where organizers welcomed them publicly.

Tertiluk said the trip also allowed elders and young women a chance to bond.

“It was good to get to know each other,” she said.