Arviat wins bid to host Inuit Nunangat University main campus
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami short-listed 8 communities in search for site; official announcement due Wednesday afternoon
Arviat has been chosen to host the main campus of Canada’s first Inuit university, says hamlet Mayor Joe Savikataaq Jr. (File photo)
Arviat will host the main campus of Canada’s first Inuit university.
“I am 10 out of 10,” said Arviat Mayor Joe Savikataaq Jr. in phone interview from Ottawa on Wednesday morning as he prepared to head to Rideau Hall for the official announcement in the afternoon.
“When we heard that Arviat will be the new home of Inuit Nunangat University, it was overwhelming. We had the full support of the community.”
Savikataaq confirmed reports Wednesday morning from CBC News that his hamlet was chosen.
The mayor will join Nunavut Premier John Main, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed and ITK’s board of directors for the announcement event with Gov. Gen. Mary Simon.
Inuit Nunangat University is an Inuit-led initiative to establish the first university in Canada created, governed and operated by Inuit.
The project has been underway for several years.
In October 2025, ITK short-listed eight northern communities as potential hosts for the main campus after assessing their readiness and infrastructure.
Those communities were Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet and Arviat in Nunavut; Puvirnituq and Kuujjuaq in Nunavik; Inuvik in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region; and Nain in Nunatsiavut.
Arviat, the Kivalliq community of about 3,000 people, was chosen because it was deemed most capable to accept an influx of new people and infrastructure, Savikataaq said.
“There’re so many things that we don’t know right now on how much it will benefit the community of Arviat,” he said.
“But there are definitely a lot of benefits in hosting this university for everyone.”
ITK aims to open the university in 2030, with space for about 100 students and roughly 80 staff. Plans call for seven faculties, including governance, Inuktut, social work and education.
Representatives for ITK declined to comment Wednesday morning prior to the announcement ceremony.
Check back later for more on this breaking news story
Boondoggle coming in hot 🔥 Call me Negative all you want, history will tell the tale.
Doubt many will disagree, this is an appearance thing for Nunavut. It’s going to be NS 2.0 but cost significantly more to operate and churn out kids with a participation trophy.
I mean why try to fix Arctic College , why try to understand why half the campus buildings are not being used, why try to improve programing.
Nah lets start a new thing and watch it not do well either.
Nunavut needs to start looking at what they have and improve upon it until it actually functions as intended. Why do we insist on spending money duplicating things that don’t work.
Look at NTI, creating their own housing organization when our current one could be improved on. Now this is something NTI is tossing a bunch of money behind. It just makes no sense. ITK and NTI are out to lunch and want to create their own systems in NU wasting vast amounts of money that could just go to working in collaboration with things that already exist that are trying to carry out that same function. So much money into creating a new building when we have unused Arctic College ones across the territory that are doing into a state of dilapidation due to no use.
The egos on NTI and ITK thinking they can reinvent the wheel in a better way and duplicate the horrible bureaucracy’s across NU is something else.
Our incompetent leadership is totally unable to tackle and solve problems.
So they are always chasing photo-ops and “good news” stories.
I’m so tired of it all.
The problem with all that in Nunavut is that it’s run and operated by the Nunavut Government, the college being part of the GN has been degrading for decades and is ignored by the GN when we should be using the college to build local capacity, but that might be a problem for our transient GN staff and consultants.
Anything the GN touches it ruins, housing 3000 is another great example, with so much potential and funds they managed to screw that up, it takes some skill to ruin things like that and the GN is very skilled in that department.
This university will not be run by the GN and that alone has this university starting off in the right foot, just look at the culture school that was supposed to be at Clyde River, that place has become less than a school for the GN and more of a token school. Why do they do there? Keep this university away from the GNs hands.
I can’t wait until the staff and students find out that alcohol is prohibited.
And that should be on the pamphlets of the school, Sober town with more booze then Rankin, Apply with-in!
At least the students will be able to walk over to the Fans office to find out what’s happening with their payments and won’t have to wait for a return email that never arrives.
That is good news since it is not Iqaluit.
However, Arviat’s airport will certainily have to be upgraded. There is no jet service nor direct flights to Arviat from the South. Both Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay airports can handle jets and have jet service. Cambridge Bay would have been the better bet as the Canadian High Arctic Research Station is located there.
Last I checked, most Nunavut students only travel home from university once or twice a year. I’m not sure why that pattern would change simply because a university is based here in Arviat.
Even using the estimate of 100 students and 80 staff thats 180 additional passengers annually. That’s a very small impact on airport operations, and it would be easy to accommodate with a few additional seasonal flights if needed.
Have you ever been to arviat?
A good choice.
By what metric is this a good choice?
It’s not Iqaluit.
Bootleggers in Arviat will be busy!
The tone deafness of the GN (including the new Premier), ITK, The Feds, and everyone else involved here is absolutely stunning. There are so many challenges facing Nunavut and Nunavummiut right now. So many issues with existing education programs, housing, health care, social services, food Insecurity and on and on.
But hey let’s all go down to Ottawa for a press conference and Photo Ops to talk about creating and building a new university. A University that will take decades to become (world) recognized (if it ever does) and grows the ability to attract top educators and administrators. Let’s also not forget that the 100 students and 80 staff need a place to live, they needs infrastructure and services outside of just the University. Oh, and just this small note to all the so called “brains” involved in this “initiative”. You actually have to have children graduating from high school In Nunavut to then go on to university. Try focusing on that first.
Making this University a priority at this moment in time is absolutely nonsense at the highest level by ITK, GN, Feds and anyone else involved.
Water and Sewer Services breathe sigh of relief in Cambridge
Yup, they forsure gave that ‘president’ the wrong speech. Arviat is not the proper place for this University. The last time I checked it is quarantined a lot and it is overpopulated to the max. I think that the reason of ‘it was deemed most capable to accept an influx of new people and infrastructure’ as why it was picked is rediculous and it will just embarass Inuit all over because of it’s huge failure, especially since they want it to start in less that 4 years. Stupidity through and through that’s forsure!
This is a step again but wrong direction .Infrastructure needs fix first, Arviat has a History with Bad water and Salt water, Also places are closed for sometime for blizzards and the airport needs some overhaul. Education can be moved anywhere and safety is priority today. Inuit custom should be followed especially the syllabic system that was fought for sometime to have better clarity and understanding to terminology .
Sure why not Arviat; water issues, land constraints, fuel supply concerns, so let’s bring in another couple of hundred people. Education is the backbone of the future, but instead of ensuring that kids are actually going to school, the GN is spending funds which should be used for things like housing and other infrastructure.
And, just like that everyone becomes an expert university locations, an expert in infrastructure airports community service routing needs, an expert in quality of Arctic College and NS. You would have complained about Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, Kuujuaq, Puvirniqtuq, Inuvik, Nain.
“You would have complained about Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, Kuujuaq, Puvirniqtuq, Inuvik, Nain.”
Yes, because the idea of it is absurde, no matter location in Nunavut. We already have schools that are supposed to do the exact thing this is slated to do and they don’t achieve their goal.
So why do we think this one will? Why would we not improve what we have and ensure those things are functioning correctly first? Why have two things that don’t work rather than one thing that’s working optimally before moving to the next?
The reason is fairly obvious though and that NTI and ITK have been unable to work with the Government of Nunavut in any meaningful way for over a decade now. And rather than repair that relationship and work in collaboration with each other you have NTI and ITK going their own way duplicating what exists already. The critisiims here are valid of ITK and NTI.
Unless I am missing something they released a ton of infrastructure money nearly 5 years ago. Nothing to show for it. They were given hundreds of millions in housing money, I believe 450 million total again nearly 5 years ago. Nothing has come from it.
I think the criticisms here are well warranted.
Go you work for the GN? For those of us that try to work with the GN it’s nearly impossible to work with them, their attitude over at the GN is they are the absolute position in power and you have no say whatsoever, I find it hilarious when someone especially from not Nunavut saying do this and do that when they have no clue.
The GN with nearly a 3 BILLION dollar annual budget will not do anything meaningful for Nunavut, the arctic college is a joke, the culture school in Clyde River what do they do there?
The schools in Nunavut to this day still does not have any Inuktut curriculum or resources.
Trying to work with the GN is not possible when they do not want to work with anyone!
The mistake was making our government a public government, it’s a cash cow for southerners and a stepping stone for career advancement and move back south, that’s the GNs goal.
It is not that everyone becomes an expert, but the majority of people have common sense. If the GN floated an idea about lowering costs in Nunavut by building a bridge from Quebec to Baffin Island and another from Baffin to the Kivaliq, not everyone would become a bridge expert but they would realize it would be a silly idea, costing millions in studies and plans without any expectations of becoming a reality.
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”
… or an ‘expert’ to see the plainly obvious.
Unlike the non functioning elders’ van 1 million dollar photo opportunity.
From what I heard, the two places of thoughts were Kugluktuk, Cambridge Bay, because of the up coming Greys Bay road. Cam Bay I can see, flights daily, alot of infrastructure, up and raising community, Health care. But, very little services like every town, and water/sewage questionable. Kugluktuk, will not much happening there, CERB parties still going on, poor health care services, (sounds like Eskimo Point right) My question is, Why Eskimo Point?
There is a hydro connection in the works with highway plus Churchill Port is getting huge upgrade, Eskimo Point – Arviat was a no brainer selection. Hope Calm Air is looking at this movement and start changing the routes from WPG.
Definitely a “no brainer” …
Alot of issues to be fixed, yeah kind of stupid move arviat should of been granted a new airport 1st build accommodation for students to be used by students only. Poor whale cove was granted a new airport instead. That should’ve went to arviat 1st. We’ll see in the coming years ahead.
This is a start! You can say and think all you want, we are the ones living here plus we try and do our best, even through colonial times PLUS we have talented people!
This is good stuff, am just laughing away at the disappointment of Iqaluit, Rankin and CamBay. Three regional hubs that has nothing but griefs socially. I can see so munch $$$ for improvements to be spent in Arviat in the next three years. Little community that has nothing and becoming had community.