Iqaluit square becomes a circle?

Council has started shaping the design of a new public gathering place to be located in front of the Elders’ Qammak.

Councillors, gathered at the April 27 meeting of the engineering and planning committee, favoured building a large circular drum surrounded by rocks and vegetation taken from the land outside Iqaluit.

Many councillors also want the consultant designing the park to use local sculptures to tell a story based on a local legend. Coun. Glenn Williams suggested using multi-media projects made by college students and other artists to tell the story, as well.

However, Williams cautioned against using sculptures of animals, which he said would likely be vandalized.

Councillors knocked down one design option that would have used caribou or walrus sculptures, which were meant to represent the story of a girl in the Iqaluit area who managed to survive a famine that killed her family.

“Enough people look at the Arctic as barren,” Williams said of the famine story.

Coun. Simanuk Kilabuk suggested the public square, which alternates between the names Iqaluit Square and Nunavut Square, should use a design similar to a qammak, which typical use large, flat flagstones.

The consultant John Laird, who attended the meeting to get feedback on the square’s design, assured councillors he will incorporate their ideas, including the use of benches to ensure elders have a place to sit.