Help for outpost camps

As the Department of Environment defended its budget in the legislature’s committee of the whole, Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson took up the cause of the tiny communities in his riding: Umingmaktuk and Bathurst Inlet.

The 10 families at Umingmaktuk consider themselves a community, and not an outpost camp, Peterson said. There are four families living at Bathurst Inlet, which is also considered an outpost camp.

The Government of Nunavut defines an outpost camp as a family living on the land for at least six months of the year, and says each camp is eligible for $5,000 of funding from the GN’s environment department.

Peterson said each of the 10 families in Umingmaktuk — “the only outpost camp in the entire world that is on a map of Canada” — should be able to submit an application for $5,000. The problem is that would use most of the region’s budget.

The Kivalliq and the Kitikmeot each receive $50,000 for their outpost camps, while the Baffin region gets $100,000.

Akesuk told Peterson it is “really up to the RWOs [Regional Wildlife Offices] that are in each region to hand out whatever allocations they want to do and what they think is best to spend the money on.”

There’s not enough money from the environment department, Peterson said, but the Department of Community and Government Services doesn’t consider them communities, leaving these two communities in a lurch.

“They have housing down there, they have fuel tank farms, airstrips, and the only thing they do not have is water/sewer trucks. They have television, satellite and Honda generators, and they have Global Star telephones. They are like communities. They are not like outpost camps,” Peterson said.

Peterson said the residents of Umingmaktuk and Bathurst Inlet feel the GN is not supporting them enough. Peterson said, as a result, they starting moving to Cambridge Bay, creating a larger need for services in the community.

“That’s putting a pressing demand on us and all the other areas, when people really want to continue to live down there, if they could get some government support.”

The GN says there are 40 outpost camps in the territory.