Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre eyes Iqaluit bayside site
Organization welcomes $50 million from federal government; establishes heritage network to share knowledge
Elders examine artifacts that were on display at the Uqqurmiut Regional Heritage Summit at the Aqsarniit Hotel and Conference Centre on Thursday. The event was held by the Inuit Heritage Trust, an organization created to build a permanent home for Inuit objects that have been held by museums in the south. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
With a recent $50 million contribution from the federal government, planning is moving ahead on the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre but with a different location from the one the designers originally had in mind.
The idea of building a heritage centre to house Inuit artifacts that have been in southern museums and galleries is one of the Nunavut Agreement provisions, dating back to 1993.
Last year, when architects presented plans for the centre, the site they had in mind was near Iqaluit’s plateau areas, tucked behind the Aqsarniit hotel.
But that area is expected to be heavily developed over the next few years with Qikiqtani Inuit Association’s plan for a subdivision and a proposed trio of eight-storey residential and commercial buildings nearby.
With that in mind, heritage centre organizers are instead setting their sights on a spot near the Arctic Winter Games Arena overlooking Frobisher Bay. That location had been considered as a potential alternate site last year.
“It looks like a very wonderful site to have the heritage centre with the extremely beautiful view of the bay, of the ocean,” said William Beveridge, executive director for the Inuit Heritage Trust, in an interview.
The organization is in talks with the City of Iqaluit and the Government of Nunavut about possible use of the land, he said.
The centre is planned to be about 65,000 square feet in size with an expected completion date of 2030.
Beveridge is welcoming the $50 million contribution from the federal government to cover one-third of the centre’s $150 million estimated construction cost. That money was announced March 8 when Ottawa and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. agreed to a $1.5-billion deal to implement the Nunavut Agreement over 10 years.
Nunavut’s Inuit organizations have already contributed an additional $20 million, Beveridge said.
“It puts us in a very good spot,” he said, adding they’ll also seek funding from philanthropists and the private sector.
Plans presented by Dorte Mandrup Architects, the Danish firm selected to design the centre, include a museum, a workshop and a theatre.
The centre would house 200,000 “cultural belongings” — a term the Inuit Heritage Trust has begun using instead of “artifacts.”
The new term has a “stronger meaning” and is “more accurate,” Beveridge said.
“Having them stored in boxes and storage facilities and not being able to access them, it can be painful when we have elders go down south with us to see our cultural belongings,” he said.
“They can feel a lot of energy and power, and a lot of memory comes back as well.”
The Inuit Heritage Trust is also developing the Nunavut Heritage Network to share traditional knowledge across the territory. It would also guide the way the new centre offers programming in Iqaluit and elsewhere.
The network was discussed at the Uqqurmiut Regional Heritage Summit, which took place March 18 to 20 in Iqaluit. It brought together Nunavummiut, including many elders, from south Baffin communities following similar gatherings in the High Arctic, Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions.
“Younger generations are losing culture, language, heritage, everything so fast,” said Sakiasie Sowdlooapik, an Inuit Heritage Trust board member from Pangnirtung, in an interview.
“We think a heritage centre will be really, really unique to have and teach people [who] are growing up, so we won’t lose too much.”
How many millions of dollars has the Liberal Government given Nunavut?
AT some point the territory needs to be contributing to the federation. All this money is on the tax payers dime. That means it’s mostly coming from the tax payers. From the south.
You clearly don’t understand the difference between a territory and a province, and who is mainly responsible for a territory. I’ll give you a hint, it starts with F
Could we please stop spending money that does not move Nunavut forward in a meaningful way. Heritage while important, I would sall falls lower on the priority list than money allocated to getting basic facilities in communities.
How many of our 26 communities have zero recreation facilities, how many have totally failing infrastructure. NU is not moving forward outside Iqaluit because we can’t keep kids in school or engaged. Having pretty display cases in Iqaluit seems like such a low priority item when 2 or 3 multi-use rec facilities for the same cost would go much further in helping residence of NU. I think a reallocation of funds is warranted and Canada really should look at its pools of funding closer and allocate to getting basic issues sorted.
Just an opinion. As always highly disappointing for those of us that do not live in Iqaluit and have nothing in our community.
So much for decentralization. I do not think there will be many people from the Kitikmeot that will be spending the $4500 airfare to the capital to view the artifacts left by our ancestors.
Decentralization is long forgotten.
This is a not a serious consideration and more of a hypothetical statement;
How much money would Feds and GN save if everyone was move to one community, a small city of 50,000. But still have annual trips by charter to original home areas..
I am not advocating for this but merely thinking out loud.
Thoughts?
[forced] relocation?? I think the government tried that once – probably thought it was a good idea at that time too. Turned out not so much…
We know about the history of the gov moving people. But the gov will lose their “human flagpole” in the high arctic. It makes way more sense to group Nunavut communities but politics get in the way.
So if you put it at apex road
Better have security
Look how much the museum gets broken in all the time