What you read on Nunatsiaq.com from April 8 to April 15

The top photos of the week from Nunatsiaq News on Facebook and Twitter showed Nunavut’s participation in the #JerseysforHumboldt show of support on April 12. In Grise Fiord, residents wore jerseys last Thursday to honour the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team and the 16 members who died in a bus crash. The team was on its way to a playoff game in a neighbouring community on April 6 when a transport truck collided with their bus, killing 16 players and support staff. Thirteen others were injured. Many Canadians showed their support in workplaces and schools across the country by posting photos of themselves wearing jerseys. (PHOTO BY KRISTINE WATSKO)

Last week’s article on demands in Nunavut for more mental health services struck a nerve with readers—it proved to be the best-read story on Nunatsiaq.com that week, and the second-best read article so far of 2018.

These demands came after the death by suicide of a well-liked young man, Nanauq Kusugak, 32.

Kusugak’s many friends took to social media to discuss his death. Suicide is often not talked about in Nunavut, but they said Kusugak never shied away from tough conversations.

The year 2017 marked the lowest number of deaths by suicide that Nunavut had seen in a decade.

The Office of the Chief Coroner counted 25 suicides across the territory last year, down from 32 in 2016, and the lowest number in any given year since 2007 among Nunavut’s roughly 38,000 residents.

But so far, this year, the Nunavut Coroner’s Office has investigated 11 deaths by suicide in Nunavut. Two of these deaths took place in April.

Another leading story from the past week described the death of a Nunavut RCMP member who died April 6 in off-duty snowmobile mishap near Kugluktuk, the westernmost community in Nunavut.

The officer, 30, drove his snowmobile over a 30-metre cliff in the area called Bloody Falls, in Kugluk Territorial Park, where the Coppermine River flows through a narrow gorge about 13 kilometres southwest of Kugluktuk.

A vigil later took place in the community of about 1,500 for the officer, originally from British Columbia, who had lived in Kugluktuk for about a year and a half.

Also among the top five stories for the past week:

• Nunavut judge Paul Bychok dressed down the lawyers who made a joint sentencing submission for a man who broke into Pond Inlet’s Co-op store. Given the man’s extensive criminal record, the proposed one-month sentence amount to little more than “a slap on the wrist,” Bychok wrote in his sentencing submission.

• Canada’s northern affairs minister visits Iqaluit’s shack community: Iqaluit activist Qaumariaq Inuqtaqau led Bennett and two of her staff on a walking tour of the shacks, tents and old boats along Iqaluit’s downtown beach area where many people live. Inuqtaqau said he invited the minister to do the walking tour because he wanted her to see this reality first-hand.

• An Iqaluit woman’s dog was killed April 10 in an animal trap she believes was set improperly within one mile of a building, which is a restricted zone under prohibitions established in the Nunavut Agreement. “The dog was caught by the neck and when I found her she had pulled the trap, it was supposed to be tied, and she was five feet from the trap which showed me that she wasn’t killed instantly,” Matty McNair said.

The second most-popular photo on the Nunatsiaq News Facebook page was one of a series showing Governor General Julie Payette during her first official visit to Nunavut. Payette was welcomed by a quarter-guard of Canadian Rangers and Royal Canadian Air Cadets who waited patiently for her arrival at the Royal Canadian Legion Cadet Hall in downtown Iqaluit on the morning of April 12. She also participated in this year’s Toonik Tyme, and accepted the prestigious role of “Honorary Toonik” during the spring festival’s opening ceremony last Thursday night. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)