Artcirq makes friends in Timbuktu

Terry Uyarak, 21, is calm while hunting a polar bear, but he admits to being a little scared when he first encountered a camel.

They always look like they're smiling. But they also spit and bite.

He need not have worried. It turns out riding a camel isn't much different from riding a snowmobile. When the animal rears up on its hind legs, Uyarak says it feels like riding over a snow hummock.

In either case, you just have to hang on.

Uyarak encountered the camel in the sweltering Saraha desert outside Timbuktu, Mali, in January. He was a long way from his home, Igloolik.

He was there to perform acrobatics and music with other members of Artcirq, Igloolik's rag-tag circus troupe, at Festival au Desert.

The international music festival is hosted each year by the Tuareg, nomads who traditionally roam the Saraha desert by camel.

Joining the clowns were two throat singers from Iqaluit, Celina Kalluk and Sylvia Cloutier.

The trip was a landmark journey for Artcirq. It was their biggest, highest-profile show to date. They performed before a crowd of 9,000, on a real stage, complete with lighting and sound systems.

It's a big change from Artcirq's humble beginnings, inside an abandoned swimming pool lined with mattresses scavenged from the dump, where they practice tumbling exercises.

And a big change in climate. Timbuktu and Igloolik each have dry, desert climates. But one is just north of the equator, while the other is not far from the North Pole.

It was hot. Uyarak and others took to wearing turbans on their heads.

Inuit sunglasses, made from a piece of caribou bone with a slit carved through the middle, came in handy. Tuareg marvelled at the invention. Artcirq left a few pairs behind.

They ate a lot of couscous. Uyarak will be happy to not see the stuff for a while.

The West Africans they met weren't sure what to make of Inuit. "At first, everybody thought we were Japanese," Uyarak says with a laugh.

The group spontaneously performed on the streets during their visit. Crowds loved the drum dancing and throat singing. Nobody had heard women make sounds like that before.

Culture shock first hit during a visit to an outdoor market.

"I've never had so many people try to sell me so many things in my whole life," Uyarak says.

Many people were poor. In Mali, children as young as eight leave home to make jewelry to sell on the streets.

"When I was young I thought I was poor," Uyarak said. "But I had so many things compared to the kids over there."

"Even a bed. Lots of clothes. Lots of food."

Soloman Uyarasuk, another Artcirq member, felt similarly humbled. "They're thankful for what they have, and they have almost nothing," he says.

The high point of the trip for Uyarasuk was ­dancing on stage with Tiken Jah Fakoly, a well-known reggae singer from the Ivory Coast, whom he bonded with during the festival.

The Artcirq performance was supposed to be timed by how long it would take a block of ice to melt on stage. The performers arranged for ice to be brought to the festival from Timbuktu.

But, by the time their show began, the ice had already turned into a puddle.

Fitting, given how Inuit and Tuareg alike worry about how tradition will survive in a warmer world. One worries that melting sea ice may hamper hunting, while the other fears growing drought.

The clowns spent five weeks away from home, but it felt like the blink of an eye. The next thing everyone knew, they were trading their sandals for snow boots.

They took home plenty of souvenirs. Sand got into everything they owned.

Igloolik's mayor, Paul Quassa, says Artcirq has become the pride of the community. Prior to their trip, he says with a laugh, he didn't know Timbuktu was a real place.

Its name, after all, is often used as shorthand to describe a place at the far end of the world.

Guillaume Saladin, who helped start Artcirq, says the trip gave everyone involved a big confidence boost. Next, he hopes the trip will also inspire confidence in government agencies he is targeting for grants.

"Now that people know we can go to Timbuktu and back, it's just a matter of time," he says.

Artcirq will next perform at Iqaluit's Alianait! festival, which begins in late June. Then, the group has plans to visit Switzerland and Mexico.

Saladin and other Artcirq members hope the journey to Timbuktu inspires other Nunavut residents.

"You don't need to join the circus," Saladin says. "Just believe in yourself."