Saami experience Nunavut in Cambridge Bay

Jan-Erik Henriksen and Nina Hermansen, Saami visitors to Cambridge Bay, wanted to learn more about life in Nunavut, and took part in one Canadian custom they don’t see back home in northern Norway— Halloween. (PHOTO COURTESY OF KEVIN MCGILL)

When Jan-Erik Henriksen and Nina Hermansen, Saami from northern Norway, went ice fishing with Anna Kaotalok, Jerry Puglik, Doug Crossley and David Omilgoitok at Kitigak Lake near Cambridge Bay earlier this month, the two Saami found the excursion familiar— but also different from what they’re used to back home.

First, the fishing was different because the lake fish were much larger than in Norway, the two Saami said. Secondly, the weather was much colder than they see in northern Norway at this time of year.

And you wouldn’t see a herd of muskox wander by back home, either, Henriksen and Hermansen said.

But, at the same time, jigging through the ice felt familiar to them, because Saami also survived for thousands of years by fishing— and herding reindeer— in the Arctic regions of northern Europe.

Henriksen and Hermansen, who teach at Finnmark University College in Alta, Norway, arrived in Cambridge Bay on Oct. 27 to learn more about Nunavut and Nunavut Arctic College’s programs.

Finnmark University College offers bachelor of arts degrees in social work and a masters degree in social work through UArctic, whose north2north exchange program, along with Norway’s Saami parliament, sponsored the two instructors’ trip of one week in Cambridge Bay and another week in Yellowknife.

During a visit to one of the community’s schools, where Henriksen gave a presentation about Saami, he was reminded of his own youth in the 1970s when none of his teachers were Saami—a situation that has now changed, he said.

Today in Norway, home to about 80,000 Saami, there are Saami teachers, social workers, doctors, nurses, dentists and other professionals.

But even as education standards improved, the Saami region lost something that Cambridge Bay still has, Henriksen said— the freedom to go out on the land, by snowmobile, and hunt or fish.

Now in northern Norway, “everything is regulated,” he said.

While in Cambridge Bay, Hermansen visited with students in the health foundations course at Nunavut Arctic College where she spoke about Saami birthing practices.

Hermansen, who has edited a book of Saami women’s birthing stories, shared some Saami traditions around birthing with the students, discovering many similarities.

Like Inuit, Saami used to deliver out on the land, as recently as 60 years ago. These days they must travel to one of two birthing centres in northern Norway.

Henriksen and Hermansen were both impressed by the easily-accessible cultural activities they found in Cambridge Bay.

At the May Hakongak Library and Cultural Centre, located in the same building as Cambridge Bay’s Kiilinik High School, they found elders working on various projects in a public setting where people could come and chat with them.

“This impressed me because you can’t find this in the Saami area,” Henriksen said.