A big cash windfall, murder, mayhem and much more

January

• Pita Aatami, president of Makivik Corp., is named one of five "Heroes of the Year 2007" by Reader's Digest magazine. The magazine chose Aatami, 47, as a hero in the "public life" category, citing his long service with Makivik Corp.

February

• A new committee will manage the short-term development of Salluit to prevent more damage from climate change, then make a plan for the future and monitor the permafrost to see how fast it's melting. Options for Salluit's future include looking for new building areas, developing a new neighbourhood, or relocating the community.

• Residents of Nunavik, both Inuit and non-Inuit, will get money back in 2008 every time they buy an airline ticket, hunting equipment, furniture, vehicles or nutritious food. These are among the purchases, which the Kativik Regional Government will subsidize, thanks to $4.1 million a year from Quebec for the next three years.

• Environmental hearings in Puvirnituq, Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq are the last major hurdle in the permitting process that Canadian Royalties, a junior mining company from Val d'Or, must jump over before moving ahead with its Nunavik nickel mine.

• Singer Charlie Adams, 55, a pioneer in the development of recorded Inuktitut pop music, dies Feb. 25 in a Montreal hospital from complications related to injuries suffered in an accident four years ago.

March

• Dazed bystanders in Salluit watch as local firefighters attack a blaze that destroys Salluit's large co-op store and warehouse complex March 2.

• Two Inuit elders, Mina Tooktoo Meeko, 70, and Mary Unganak Angatookalook Fleming, 72, die in a snowmobile collision in Kuujjuaraapik on March 14, leaving Inuit and Cree from the James and Hudson bay communities to grieve over the Easter weekend. In October, Ricky Weetaltuk, 20, receives a 40-month sentence, minus time served, for impaired and dangerous driving causing death.

• On March 21, a late-evening argument between a Puvirnituq couple turns ugly, resulting in the stabbing death of a man. When members of the Kativik Regional Police Force in Puvirnituq answer a call at a private residence they find Charlie Amarualik, 45, already dead of stab wounds.

• Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a brief visit to Kuujjuaq March 28, officially opens the new airport terminal and delivers welcome news to Inuit leaders: the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims agreement will become law in May or June. Harper calls the deal, which settles Nunavik's offshore claims, a "big step forward for social and economic development in this region."

• The KSB orders George Livingston's family out of staff housing. Livingston, 51, has been with the KSB for 24 years, including seven years as administrator and five years as a vice-principal. Since 2001, he's battled rheumatoid arthritis, a painful and potentially crippling disease.

April

• Nunavik's hunters are up in arms over this year's beluga quotas and the threat of legal action against those who may exceed them. The current beluga management regime constitutes a "form of genocide," say delegates to the annual general meeting of Nunavik's co-operative association. The uproar results from cuts to this year's quota for Hudson Strait, from 121 to 94.

• More than half Nunavik's eligible voters brave windy, snowy conditions to vote in Makivik Corp.'s April 4 election. Despite many pre-election calls for change, beneficiaries return the incumbents, Johnny Peters and Anthony Ittoshat, to their respective positions of vice-president and treasurer.

• At Makivik's annual general meeting in Quaqtaq, Xstrata mines hands over a $32.5 million profit-sharing cheque to the organization.

• A man who threatens to shoot two unarmed police constables terrorizes the Ungava Bay community of Kangirsuk during the morning of April 9, driving around the community on his snowmobile with a 22-calibre rifle. Many of the town's 450 residents cower in their houses for hours.

• An armed man on a drunken rampage causes the community of Inukjuak to shut down for 15 hours on Apr. 29, after he utters threats, shoots at police and provokes a lengthy armed standoff. Police say the man was heavily "intoxicated and very, very angry."

May

• Hundreds of mourners pack St. Stephen's Anglican Church in Kuujjuaq May 7 to say their good-byes to Annie Gordon, a woman who devoted her life to helping others but who became depressed and suicidal herself. Gordon, 40, took her life May 3 while undergoing treatment for depression at the Tulattavik Hospital in Kuujjuaq.

• House 1328 in Kuujjuaq suffers damage during a May 7 stand-off between members of the Kativik Regional Police Force and a man with a firearm.

• Police say alcohol is involved in a fatal hit-and-run collision in Kangisujuaq. A 21-year-old woman dies on May 11 after a green SUV strikes her shortly before 11 pm. Cora Kiatainak, the mother of two young children, is transferred to the community's health clinic where she is declared dead at 11:25 pm.

• Residents of Kangiqsualujjuaq hide inside their houses on the afternoon of May 19, when a frustrated ball player takes pot shots around the community before heading down a road that leads towards popular camp grounds. After the man lost a baseball game, witnesses say he pummeled another ball player and then went to a shack near the baseball diamond to fetch a firearm.

• Nunavik needs outside government assistance to help communities resist the flood of bootlegged alcohol and fight rising levels of violence, say regional councillors from the Kativik Regional Government meeting in Kuujjuaraapik. Paulusie Padlayat, acting regional councillor from Salluit, says he's worried about what will happen when people in his community start to receive giant profit-sharing cheques from Xstrata's Raglan Mine.

• Convicted killer Samwillie Grey sobs and lays his head down as he sits in the prisoner's box May 30 after hearing a seven-woman, five-man jury announce a verdict of first-degree murder in the bloody stabbing death of Kitty Thomassie two years ago in Kangirsuk, the first jury-delivered first-degree verdict ever in Nunavik.

• Kuujjuaq experiences its warmest month of May since community weather records were first taken in 1947.

June

• About 70 teachers do not renew their contracts with the Kativik School Board for the 2008-09 school year. Eleven school principals won't be coming back in September. This means the KSB stands to lose nearly half its non-Inuit teachers and nearly all its principals, despite perks which include low rents, subsidized cargo and paid trips back home.

• Two people, a couple in their 50s, are spotted June 8 about 3 p.m., floating on the surface of the water, not far from where their vehicle had plunged into the Koksoak river in Kuujjuaq. The driver, Willie Makiuk, an employee of Makivik Corp., recovers, while his wife Lydia Makiuk, a receptionist with the Kativik School Board, dies due to her injuries.

• On June 17, the high temperature reaches 27.9 C, making Kuujjuaq the warmest place in Quebec.

• Environmental groups want Quebec to enlarge and protect Tursujuq provincial park between Kuujjuaraapik and Umiujaq. They say that if Tursujuq isn't enlarged and protected the park will be at risk from hydroelectric development.

• Rev. James Nassak, appreciated for his passionate and humour-filled sermons as an Anglican minister, dies June 24 in Kuujjuaq. Nassak, 61, a former residential school student, was originally from Pond Inlet, although he had lived in Kuujjuaq for many years.

July

• A profit-sharing bonanza sees millions of dollars flow from Xstrata's Raglan mine into the pockets of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq residents – then flow back out again. The Raglan Agreement, the Inuit impact and benefits deal for the nickel mine, gives $23 million to the two communities closest to the mine, out of a total of $32.5 million handed over to Makivik Corp. After Salluit's $14 million share is divvied up among its 1,100 beneficiaries, each adult gets $15,000 and every child receives $3,500. Many families end up with more than $50,000.

• On July 23, a high of 30.1 C is recorded in Kuujjuaq, beating the previous high temperature record of 30 C from 1953. Thursday, July 24, is even hotter. Then, a high of 30.9 C is recorded, beating the previous high temperature record of 28.9 C from 1973.

August

• Noah Annahatak thrusts a harpoon into a bowhead whale Aug. 10, not far from Kangiqsujuaq, marking the first bowhead kill on Nunavik's Hudson Strait coast in more than a century.

• Temperatures in the mid-20s are hot enough to melt lard in Kangisujuaq, as the heat closes down stores and offices and sent Nunavimmiut leaping into the water to cool off. The beach by the Koksoak River is the place to be in Kuujjuaq during the afternoon of Aug. 6 when temperatures shoot up to 28.1 C.

• Inukjuak's Brenda Epoo and Aileen Moorhouse obtain their midwifery permits from Quebec's order of midwives, the first Inuit midwives who have completed the entire permitting process and may practice without any restrictions wherever they want in Quebec.

• The violent deaths of a woman and her two children, killed Aug. 22, leave their mark on the residents of Kuujjuaraapik and Whapmagoostui. Purple armbands are handed out to mourners at the funeral for Minnie Natchequan, 37, a Cree childcare worker, and her two children Dawson, six, and Peter, eight. Peter Jr. Tooktoo, 35, the father of the children and Natchequan's former spouse, faces three charges of first-degree murder in connection with their deaths. When Tooktoo returns to Kuujjuaraapik for a November court appearance, he attempts suicide.

September

• The price of a litre of gas in Nunavik is to rise to between $1.88 and $2.00 a litre on Sept. 1, but thanks to subsidies ranging from 32 to 48 cents a litre, the price of a litre of gas rises by only 16 cents in Kuujjuaq.

• Nunavik beneficiaries vote in favour of receiving cash payouts from a Nunavik Trust and an offshore land claim agreement dividend worth $2 million. Many beneficiaries in Kuujjuaq say they were not aware of the Sept. 17 referendum, for which only 2,050 or 29 per cent of the 6,868 eligible beneficiaries turned out.

• Fewer hunters come for caribou in Nunavik in 2008 than in 2007, say outfitters who predict they will make less money due to rising fuel costs and unpredictable exchange rates. A slumping economy south of the border appears to be keeping many U.S. hunters at home.

• About 200 workers at the Nunavik Nickel Mine site receive bad news: they will all be laid off by the end of October. The future looked bright for Canadian Royalties' during the summer, when the company finally had all its environmental permits, land leases and Inuit benefits agreement in place. But now a cash crunch, logistical snafus and a dispute with its minority partners bring work on the site between Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq to a standstill.

• The North West Company gives away 1,500 reusable shopping bags to customers in Kuujjuaq. The free bags available at the Northern store in Kuujjuaq will help customers in adapt to the municipal by-law that prohibits Kuujjuaq stores from supplying or selling single-use plastic shopping bags to customers.

• Seven MSO musicians, under the direction of music director Kent Nagano, two throat singers and a narrator perform during a tour, co-sponsored by the MSO and Nunavik's Avataq Cultural Institute in Inukjuak, Kangiqsujuaq and Kuujjuaq.

• Jimmy Simigak of Kangirsuk suffers a beating during the early hours of Sept. 6. His body is covered with ugly bruises and one leg remains swollen after a group of boys and young men, aged 12 to 22, pummel him with their fists, feet, a golf club and a hockey stick. It takes police two weeks to locate and arrest the three ringleaders who hide out up river.

• During the federal election campaign, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion travels across Canada on Air Inuit's recently-purchased Boeing 737. The jet, chartered by the Liberal Party from Air Inuit, is a combi-freighter with special cargo doors that can seat between 34 and 112 passengers.

• The grey rocks at Nuvvuagittuq, 40 kilometres south of Inukjuak, are the oldest known rocks in the world, with an estimated age of 4.28 billion years. Nuvvuagittuq's rocks may be remnants of a portion of the first crust that formed on the surface during Earth's early history, says research published in the journal Science.

• Nearly 100 keen, young Nunavimmiut, 5 to 17, participate in the first annual youth northern karate festival in Kuujjuaq.

• The public learns that First Air board members recently received bonuses totaling $1.5 million, including several payments to Makivik executives: $600,000 to First Air's chair, Pita Aatami, also president of Makivik, $250,000 to George Berthe, Makivik's corporate secretary, and an undisclosed amount to Michael Gordon, a Makivik vice-president. Makivik board members also allegedly received $5,000 for approving the larger bonus handouts to the First Air board.

October

• The Makivik Corp. board member for Quaqtaq, Lizzie Kulula, will appear in court early in 2009 to face charges of drug trafficking in connection with a seizure carried out in Quaqtaq. Police with the Kativik Regional Police Force seize cash, marijuana and cocaine in the community.

• Bloc Québécois MP Yvon Lévesque will continue to represent Nunavik's riding of Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik Eeyou, following his third win in the Oct. 14 federal election. Lévesque's 10,994 votes- 39.6 per cent of the vote- give him the edge over the Conservative candidate Jean Maurice Matte, who receives 8,422 votes or 30.4 per cent of the vote.

• Monthly bills drop by $10 for Nunavimmiut who receive internet services from the Kativik Regional Government's non-profit Tamaani internet service provider, thanks to recent deals with the region's school and health boards. Tamaani's high-speed internet will also become progressively faster over the next six months, due to an additional block of subsidized bandwidth from ­Telesat.

• Run-down social housing units in Kuujjuaq and Salluit are undergoing an extreme makeover, as part of a 10-year, $400-million overhaul of Nunavik's 2,100 social housing units.

• Makivik Corp. board members who received bonuses from First Air should give the money back, says a petition circulating around Nunavik. "I was not advised in advance of these payments. I do not approve of the large bonuses made to the board of Makivik from First Air," the petition says.

• Jobie Epoo, interim police chief since September 2007, is suspended with pay after he is charged by police in Montreal. The Sûrété du Québec say they arrested a man from Kuujjuaq at 1:20 a.m. on Oct. 29 as he was driving east on Highway 20 in Montreal near the 55th avenue exit. The man allegedly failed sobriety tests administered by police. He is released with an order to appear in Montreal court on March 11, 2009.

November

• A new committee will resolve the growing dispute around the personal export of country foods from Nunavik. Makivik Corp. maintains the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement gives Nunavimmiut the right to transport fish or game out of the region, not only for personal use, but to share with others. But Quebec says the land claim's provisions only apply above the 49th parallel, within what the JBNQA calls "the Territory."

• The Department of Fisheries and Oceans sends letters to communities that exceeded their beluga quotas, telling their hunters to stop beluga hunting and warning them that their 2009 quotas will be reduced to make up for this over-hunting. Then the beluga hunt in the Hudson Strait off Nunavik closes Nov. 13, with a stern warning to Nunavik hunters from the DFO to stop hunting there and in the Nastapoka, Mucalic and Little Whale River estuaries of the Ungava and Hudson bays.

• Glenn Mullan, chairman of the junior mining company, Canadian Royalties, says its Nunavik Nickel Mine project has gone into "hibernation" one day after a devastatingly negative business report surfaces.

• Senator Charlie Watt calls for a special emergency meeting where Nunavimmiut will take a position on the bonuses recently pocketed by some Makivik executives.

• The Kativik Regional Police Force's new interim police chief, Aileen MacKinnon, says the total number of crime files opened to date during 2008 in Nunavik has already surpassed the yearly totals for crime files in 2006 and 2007. The seriousness of assaults is also increasing, with more violent assaults occurring and incidents involving firearms and armed youth.

December

• The Quebec Liberal Party fails to grab the Ungava riding away from the Parti Québécois during the province's Dec. 8 election. Incumbent Luc Ferland of the PQ easily holds on to his seat, winning 47.3 per cent of total ballots cast. Voter turnout in the riding is a woeful 36 per cent.