Nunavut flag not garbage

A former Nunavut teacher and a Heritage Canada employee are planning a homecoming for the flag that flew over the first sitting of the Nunavut legislature in 1999.

Teacher Brian Carey rescued the flag from a garbage can at Inuksuk High School, several months after the Legislative Assembly used the school as a temporary site for its first gathering.

“When I walked into the staff room, this was literally in a ball in the garbage,” Carey told CBC News earlier this week. “I said, ‘My God, this is a piece of history. I don’t want it in the trash heap.'”

Carey hung the flag in his Arctic Echoes art store in Halifax, which is where Canadian Heritage employee Wendy Thomas spotted it while in town for a national museum conference. The pair are now working to return the flag to Nunavut, and possibly donate it to the Legislative Assembly.

John Quirke, the clerk of the Legislative Assembly, has promised to exchange the artifact for a newer flag or map of Nunavut that Carey can hang in his store.