Aqqusariaq Recovery Centre’s new executive director prepares for opening day

Annie Aningmiuq’s experience as an Inuk in the south is helping her imagine what might make future clients at Iqaluit’s Aqqusariaq Recovery Centre feel at home.

Take food, for example.

When Aningmiuq, the recently minted executive director of the healing centre, and her son lived down south, family members would bring her country food. If she went without it for a couple of weeks, her appetite for other foods would be lacking and she’d lose her energy.

At the same time, she said, if she ate maktaaq or tuktu by herself, it wouldn’t quite feel right. She needed her loved ones on the side.

“That aspect alone is magical,” she said in an interview about the power of making connections over a traditional meal.

That’s why regularly offering inuksiut, which roughly translates to “food for the soul,” to clients is one of the many plans that Aningmiuq says she looks forward to implementing when the healing centre opens.

There is still no clear timeline for when that will be. When construction on the $87-million centre began in August 2023, Nunavut’s Health Department said it expected the building to be complete by December 2025.

“The last update we had was that it was going to be done by the end of this month and then they just came back saying they need more time but they didn’t have a specific date,” Aningmiuq said.

The healing centre is in the final stages of construction, said Chelsea Halvorson, spokesperson for the Department of Health, Friday in an email.

“Following substantial completion and final GN preparations, it will transition to NTI and the Inuit-led not-for-profit who will determine when the facility is ready to welcome clients,” Halvorson said.

In the meantime, Aningmiuq is busy charting out programming, planning community visits, writing outreach materials and recruiting staff, which includes Inuit nurses and social workers who currently work in the south.

The availability of Inuit health staff shows some things are changing, Aningmiuq noted.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t know of one single Inuk nurse,” Aningmiuq said. “Now there’s multiple.”

Staff will have access to 25 housing units in a new complex downtown, she said, adding that “it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities for Inuit.”

Aqqusariaq translates to “a trail you go through to reach your destination.”

Located north of Toonik Pond, the healing centre will include facilities for both inpatient and outpatient care, including a daycare, traditional ceremony areas and two wings dedicated to trauma and addictions recovery, according to architectural firm Stantec’s website.

It will have a beading room, a sewing room, and an area for butchering, Aningmiuq said, adding there will be “elders-in-residence” as well as therapists, and an area for youth.

She said the centre will also have rooms with cribs so that, for example, if a mother wants to access Aqqusariaq’s services, she doesn’t have to leave her child behind.

“It’s very much Inuit-centred and focused when it comes to wellness and how Inuit need specific things that maybe aren’t offered in a southern institution,” Aningmiuq said.

Services will be available to Nunavut Inuit throughout the country, and Aningmiuq is looking forward to welcoming them.

“It’s going to take some time for people to want to take the step,” she said.