Reality TV discovering Iqaluit, en français

Louis-Jean Cormier meets Iqaluit Mayor Mary Wilman at the Legislative Assembly June 26. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

Kids wait in anticipation of meeting Louis-Jean Cormier at the Nunavut Legislative Assembly in Iqaluit June 26. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

La Petite Seduction, unveils Jean-Louis Cormier to a crowd of about 50 people at the Legislative Assembly in Iqaluit June 26. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY) “/>
Dany Turcotte, host of La Petite Seduction, unveils Jean-Louis Cormier to a crowd of about 50 people at the Legislative Assembly in Iqaluit June 26. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

Reality television’s love affair with Canada’s northernmost capital is continuing for a third straight year.

The Canadian version of The Amazing Race filmed here in 2013, and the British show A Cabbie Abroad shot an episode in Nunavut’s capital in 2014.

This year, Quebec invaded in the form of Radio-Canada’s La Petite Séduction.

“It’s basically a really big advertisement for the community,” Carrefour Nunavut’s François Fortin said.

The show is a spinoff of the 2003 French film La grande séduction.

“The idea is that a little village or city gathers together to entice a special guest and try to convince [them] to stay,” Fortin said of the film..

“In the TV show, they try to entice the show’s guest,” Fortin said.

Now in its 10th season, La petite séduction averages more than one million viewers per week and has featured 180 villages, according to Radio-Canada.

The guest celebrity for the Iqaluit episode is popular singer-songwriter Louis-Jean Cormier — soloist and lead singer of the indie-rock band Karkwa, and also a judge on Quebec’s version of the reality TV singing competition, the Voice, called La Voix.

As Cormier sits June 28 at Iqaluit’s Francophone Centre, he looks like a celebrity with his scruffy jet-black hair, thick black scarf and black padded jacket.

“I pick up this city in the list that they gave to me. I said, if I do this kind of show, I would love to be — comment tu dis en Anglais — shaken a little,” Cormier told Nunatsiaq News.

Cormier admits he was shaken, at least by the weather.

It’s been quite a change in scenery for Cormier — he went from Parisian heat to Arctic snowfall in a matter of days.

Cormier was in Paris until Monday, flew back to Quebec City to play at the Plains of Abraham for the Fête nationale du Québec, on Wednesday, June 24, and arrived in the Arctic on Friday, June 26.

“Friday? Yeah, I think so. I don’t even know what day we are. It’s been that busy.”

Taking 10 minutes to rest on a couch, Cormier’s “happy to be here in Iqaluit,” he said while showing off his correct pronunciation of Iqaluit.

But Cormier didn’t get much of a chance to relax while here.

The first of five main filming events included welcoming parties at the airport and legislative assembly, and a tour of Iqaluit by taxi.

The next day featured Inuit games with Johnny Issaluk at Sylvia Grinnell territorial park where Cormier and the well-known Québécois host of the show, Dany Turcotte, did some face-pulling.

That’s where you stand beside someone and you both reach around to the far side of the other person’s face and then hook your finger into the other person’s mouth, pulling on it like a fish hook. Whoever relents first loses.

Dog-sledding, throat singing, traditional foods and a history of francophones in the Arctic, including captain Joseph-Elzear Bernier, followed.

Bernier, who was sent on Canadian expeditions to the Arctic, completed about 12 trips in a span of 20 years in the early 1900s. Inuit called him Kapitaikallak — or “the stocky captain.”

“He played a lot of French songs to a lot of Inuit he met,” Fortin said. “We almost had his great, great granddaughter come down to speak but in the end she couldn’t.”

“But there’s people still today who sing songs they learn from that time. And they think it’s Inuit songs,” he said.“But when they sing it, it’s traditional French songs. So it’s awesome. So we got someone to sing one of those songs.”

Cormier didn’t know much about Nunavut or Inuit culture before coming here — just what artists like Nunavik’s, now Montreal-based, singer-songwriter Elisapie Isaac told him.

“We crossed Canada many times touring between all the francophone communities. But Iqaluit is very different,” Cormier said.

Cormier compares Iqaluit to both Reykjavik, Iceland, and his hometown of Sept-Îles, Quebec.

“When we were touring with Karkwa, we went to Reykjavik to tour there at a music festival. And it was like walking on the moon,” he said.

In a parallel world, Cormier can see himself living the northern life.

“Because I’m from Sept-Îles, I have a lot of friends who live there with big pick-ups, four wheelers, skidoos and other things,” he says.

“So I would be that kind of guy if I wouldn’t be a musician. But I have to live in a city like Montreal just to live my music life.”

Cormier said two things will stick out from this trip, both music-related.

“I saw an old Inuk man who sang with a large and thin drum. So I will remember that for sure. And the other is two young ladies who sang with the throat,” he said.

“I know [throat-singing] exists. But to see it here in all this panorama, it was like — oh my God. It’s the real thing.”

Iqaluit’s Marie Belleau, a lawyer, fluent in French, English and Inuktitut, was one of those throat singers who performed for Cormier.

Belleau mostly got to know the host Dany Turcotte. Mentioning his name makes her giggle.

“He was cracking jokes all the time. He is a funny guy,” Belleau said.

Belleau was often pulled aside by the film crew to help Turcotte pronounce Inuktitut words.

“I was helping him say Iqalummiut, Auyuittuq Park. He was pretty good. He had to [spell] it out phonetically and stuff but I find if you speak French it might be easier to pronounce Inuktitut.”

“The ‘R’ — rrr — is the same in Inuktitut and in French. And he already knew the rrr,” Belleau said, rolling an ‘R’.

In the end, Cormier is hoping the show prompts Quebecers to look north, and see something new.

“It helps the village shine. Sometimes, most of the time, it’s villages who don’t have any chance to shine otherwise. So it’s funny to see Dany Turcotte visiting some villages,” Cormier said.

“I think this show that we made in Iqaluit is a very good way to learn about the place. It’s very different and very far from what we’re used to see.”

Cormier said he might come back, next time for music.

Until then, Carrefour’s Fortin said everyone is invited to a viewing party at the Francophone centre when the show airs, July 29.

Louis-Jean Cormier and Dany Turcotte take part in a traditional Inuit face-pulling contest. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)