Never too old

The details are beginning to fade along with the memories of many of the participants, but Lizzie Kelly says the annual gathering between Nunavut and Nunavik elders began in 1997 in Cape Dorset as a collaboration between a group of friends.

“Two couples thought it would be nice if elders got together,” says Kelly, Iqaluit’s elders co-ordinator.

“They invited some Salluit people and they talked about old times and how they used to play games when they were young.”

The following year, the event was held in Salluit and involved not just a few friends, but elders from across the eastern Arctic, people related through history.

“Their ancestors were related and their grandmothers would tell them that they used to know this person and that person,” Kelly says, explaining the success of the summer-time gathering that each year unites a people divided by artificial political boundaries.

Since then, the event has continued to grow, and this year’s festivities, held last week in Iqaluit, brought more than 50 elders, some even travelling from outpost camps.

“Inuit traditionally always got together,” says Josephi Padlayat, one of the organizers of the Salluit group. “Maybe not every year, but they would get together at one place.”

The annual elders gathering is a continuation of that tradition. Surprisingly, however, it has persisted without help from the formidable governing bodies in Nunavut and Nunavik.

“We have no meetings,” Kelly says. “We have this gathering.”

Instead, the event is pulled together each year with the help of dedicated elders’ representatives such as Kelly and Padlayat. They help elders from their home community solicit funds from hamlet councils and development corporations.

All the elders have to do is come out to play.

An elders’ soccer match last Monday was a knock-down, drag-out fight to the end. A hula hoop demonstration on Tuesday gave elders of all backgrounds the opportunity to shake their booties, and chide each other like schoolchildren for their ineptness with the plastic tube.

And on Thursday, a stylish Celestine Erkidjuk of Iqaluit kept the square-dance going well into the night.

“It’s been good to see the people I used to know,” says Kimmirut elder Eva Itulu in Inuktitut. “Sometimes I feel like I go into another world when I see the people I’ve known before.”

Itulu was born in Salluit, and moved to Cape Dorset with her family in 1943 when she was just a little girl. In 1953, she and her husband travelled by dog team to Kimmirut and settled there.

She says meeting her old friends and relatives reminds her of her childhood – days spent fishing with her family and catching fish as big as herself, when her parents were the only leaders and there were no political issues to speak of.

“It doesn’t make you cry, it just makes you happy,” she says.

Itulu lifts up her pant leg to show a deep scar running across her knee. She says despite the scars, she still loves to dance.

But when she saw her relatives at last, she says she felt weak.

“It’s been so many years since we’ve seen each other, we’ve even gotten old.”

In an elaborate passing of the bat ceremony, the same bat used during Monday’s baseball game, the elders selected Kangiqsujuaq as the site of the next gathering.

And while a year may be a long time for an elder, in many ways, the annual gatherings keep them young.

With files from Itee Akavak.