Nunavut’s first senator and first Inuk opera singer named to the Order of Canada

Canada’s first Inuk senator as well as an Inuk opera singer were among 78 people named to the Order of Canada in year-end appointments announced Thursday by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon.

Willie Adams, 89, was named an officer of the Order of Canada for what the announcement described as “his long-standing support of Indigenous interests” while he served as Canada’s first Inuk senator.

In 1977, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Adams to represent the Northwest Territories in the Senate as a Liberal.

At that time, Adams didn’t know much about the upper house in Canada’s Parliament.

“What’s a Senate?” Adams was quoted as asking when he was approached about becoming the first Inuk in the 105-member body, whose appointed members must approve bills before they can become new laws.

It’s a story he has retold often, including during a phone interview on Thursday from his home in Kemptville, Ont., about 50 kilometres south of Ottawa.

Adams was born in Kuujjuaq and became an electrician, businessman and politician. Before his appointment to the Senate, he was chairman of Rankin Inlet’s hamlet council, then a member of the N.W.T. territorial council.

When Nunavut was created in 1999, Adams became the new territory’s first senator.

He served in Parliament’s upper house for 32 years, until 2009, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

When he retired, Simon — then the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada — wrote an opinion article in Nunatsiaq News, calling on then-prime minister Stephen Harper “to name an Inuk to the vacant post.”

“I trust that he would meet many passionate Inuit able to serve the interests of Inuit in the Senate,” Simon wrote in 2009.

Instead, Harper named Dennis Patterson, a former N.W.T. premier, as Nunavut’s second senator.

Coincidentally, Patterson’s 14 years in the Senate come to an end on Dec. 30, when he turns 75.

In his farewell speech in the Senate earlier this month, Patterson said his replacement should be an Inuk.

In the interview, Adams said he was “glad” when he learned a couple of weeks ago that he would receive the honour, which is considered one of the country’s highest civilian honours.

He will receive the insignia — a stylized snowflake medal worn on a red and white ribbon —at a future date, according to a news release issued by Simon, herself an Inuk trailblazer as the first Indigenous person to hold the office of Governor General.

Deantha Rae Edmunds, an Inuk from Nunatsiavut, was named a member of the Order of Canada on Thursday for “her significant contributions as Canada’s first Inuk opera singer” as well as for her original compositions and for mentoring young Indigenous musicians.

She expressed her thanks in a message on the social media app X on Thursday morning.

“I’m truly honoured to have been appointed a member of the Order of Canada! Nakummek!” Edmunds wrote.

During Pope Francis’s visit to Iqaluit in July 2022, Edmunds sang in Inuktitut and English before the Pope took the stage in front of Nakasuk Elementary School.

The Governor General’s announcement lists Edmunds as being from St. John’s, NL.