Gjoa Haven residents celebrate traditional Inuit knowledge

Updated on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 at 12 p.m. ET.

Gjoa Haven residents gathered to share a feast in their community hall last weekend to celebrate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, or Inuit traditional knowledge, as part of the annual Umiyaqtutt Festival.

Artistic performances, interpretive displays and cultural demonstrations were part of the event held Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, which also honoured the 10^th anniversary of the discovery of the first of the two wrecks from the ill-fated Franklin Expedition.

Mary Porter lights the qulliq to open the Umiyaqtutt Festival in Gjoa Haven on Aug. 30. ((Photos courtesy of Teevi Mackay)

“The opening ceremony was extremely well-attended,” said Andrew Maher, Parks Canada’s area superintendent for Nunavut South. “The night was very celebratory.”

A collaboration of Inuit traditional knowledge with scientific methods is credited with leading to the discovery of HMS Erebus in 2014 and, two years later, HMS Terror in 2016.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror set sail from England in search of the Northwest Passage on May 19, 1845, led by Sir John Franklin.

After reaching an area northwest of what is now Gjoa Haven, the expedition became locked in a thick layer of year-round ice and was lost for more than a century and a half.

The Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site is now the first national historic site to be jointly managed by Inuit and Parks Canada.

The Umiyaqtutt Festival, established in 2017, borrows its name from the Inuktitut word for “shipwreck” and recognizes the role Inuit oral tradition played in helping locate the two ships.

Inuit knowledge, passed down orally from generation to generation, helped to outline the search area for researchers more than a decade ago. With that, they employed archeological methods on land and sonar technology underwater to find the submerged wrecks.

Children peer up from the depths of the HMS Erebus wreckage as they sit in front of images shared by Parks Canada during the Umiyaqtutt Festival in Gjoa Haven, Aug. 30.

At this year’s festival, two cruise ships anchored nearby allowing travellers to participate in the festivities.

Jacob Keanik, a member of the Nattilik Heritage Society who also served on the Franklin site advisory committee, was master of ceremonies at the opening. Joanni Sallerina presented a drum dance, and Mary Porter lit the qulliq to open the festival.

Master of ceremonies Jacob Keanik opens the 2024 Umiyaqtutt Festival on Aug. 30 by revealing a reproduction of the original ship’s bell salvaged from the sunken HMS Erebus in September 2014. The bell features an arrow design attributed to the Royal Navy and the year “1845,” denoting the year the Erebus set sail in quest of the Northwest Passage.

Designed to showcase the diversity of Inuit games, art and music representing the greater Netsilik region of western Nunavut, the festival is billed by the community’s Nattlik Heritage Centre as “Canada’s only Northwest Passage celebration event.”

The heritage society organizes the festival each August, with the Hamlet of Gjoa Haven and in partnership with the Government of Nunavut, Parks Canada and the Franklin Interim Advisory Committee.

Shortly before the weekend festival began, Parks Canada’s 228-tonne, steel-hulled research vessel the David Thompson departed Gjoa Haven.

The ship was due to begin its latest underwater archeological expedition of the Erebus wreck, submerged 24 metres deep in the Arctic Ocean about 125 kilometres east of Gjoa Haven.

Since the wrecks were discovered, Parks Canada underwater archeologists have retrieved hundreds of artifacts during almost yearly expeditions to excavate the two ships.

The recovered artifacts are sent to Ottawa for study and preservation. Many will be returned to Gjoa Haven for display at the Nattilik Heritage Centre.

Correction: This article has been updated from its originally published version to correct Andrew Maher’s job title.