The hall is back in Nunavut’s Hall Beach

The community hall in Hall Beach reopened earlier this month. Built in 1990, the hall required a multi-million-dollar repair job before opening. (PHOTO BY S. SNOWBALL)

STEPHEN SNOWBALL

HALL BEACH — While MLAs haggled over Rankin Inlet’s recreation needs this week in the Nunavut legislature, people in Hall Beach continued to enjoy the recent re-opening of their modest community hall.

After a year when there was no place for people in Hall Beach to gather, Hall Beach’s Pinguaqviktanguat hall reopened in early October after undergoing more than $3.5 million worth of repairs paid for Nunavut’s Department of Community and Government Services.

Before its extreme makeover, the building, built in 1990, was in such bad shape “that people were afraid to use the washrooms,” said Hall Beach’s recreation co-ordinator Lena Kautaq.

The revamped facility also includes a new lobby, storage rooms, and improved kitchen facilities.

“Pinguaqviktanguat is a vital part of Hall Beach,” said Kautaq, and it’s one which is used every day by people in this community of 650.

“It is used for so many events, whether for the youth, the whole community, big, small, private and public — it welcomes gatherings of all kinds and sizes throughout the year. So everyone is really happy that it has re-opened and that so many of the programs are running again,” Kautaq said.

Since it re-opened earlier this month, people of all ages have put the space to use for many events.

For Thanksgiving, the hamlet hosted a community feast in the hall with a turkey dinner, seal, caribou, walrus and muktuk for more than 300 people.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the hall is used for teen dances.

For $3 — a fee charged in part to cover the extra expenses of cleaning the hall and paying staff — youth may listen to loud music, buy pop and snacks, and socialize.

The hamlet’s recreation department also hosts bingo nights every other week.

The money that these bingos generate for the hamlet are put towards holding even more events such as the recent feast and an upcoming Halloween party.

But the hamlet isn’t the only group that uses the hall to raise money.

Students from both Nunavut Arctic College and Arnaqjuaq School recently held bake and table sales to raise money for extracurricular expenses, such as the costs for the senior girls’ soccer team to participate in a tournament in Iqaluit.

In addition to the regular events, there are a number of impromptu gatherings in the hall after school, during the evenings and on weekends.

When passing by the hall, you can see the lights on inside or someone peering out an open door.

Often a band is holding a jam session or a group of friends are tossing a ball around.

“When the hall was closed, on weekends we had nowhere to go and nothing really to do,” said teen Cain Apak. “If we wanted to go out, we had to hang out in the streets.”