Pang group wants to start new hamlet

SARA MINOGUE

Several dozen people in Panniqtuuq want to move permanently to Opingivik Island across Cumberland Sound, and are seeking hamlet status for the outpost camp founded there by Lypa Pitsiulak over 25 years ago.

Twenty-seven Panniqtuuq residents met last week with Sakiasie Sowdlooapik, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association’s community director for Panniqtuuq, and the acting spokesperson for the group.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Sowdlooapik said.

“These people moved to Panniqtuuq from other outposts in the past,” he said. “They want to pass on their culture and traditional life by living in a less populated area.”

The idea to expand the outpost camp to a full-fledged community first surfaced in 2001.

The QIA started work on a written proposal for the project last year at Pitsiulak’s request. Pitsiulak has now held three meetings with Panniqtuuq residents to discuss the idea. He described the concept to their hamlet council several months ago.

So far Sowdlooapik has presented the proposal to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and to Peter Kilabuk, the Government of Nunavut’s minister for community and government services. There has been no formal response.

Sowdlooapik raised the issue again with Kilabuk at the QIA’s annual general meeting in Iqaluit last Friday. Kilabuk told the QIA delegates that no funds were available this year for groups wishing to start their own hamlet, but added that he would look further into the issue.

Opingivik outpost camp is located on the southwest side of Cumberland Sound, about 120 km southwest of Panniqtuuq across the bay, and about 180 km overland from Iqaluit.

Pitsiulak, a hunter and artist born in the area, decided to move permanently to the spring camping site in the late 1970s, some 10 years after he moved to Panniqtuuq in 1967 at the age of 24.

Now 61, Pitsiulak still lives at Opingivik, or “the spring place,” with his wife Annie and their three children. Over the years, the camp has been home to several different families.

In the summer of 2002, Pitsiulak and Leopa Akpalialuk, who once lived at Opingivik, went on community radio to hear what Panniqtuuq residents thought of the idea.

According to the proposal document, the response was “overwhelming.”

Panniqtuuq residents listed several benefits to moving to Opingivik, including milder winds, better hunting grounds, more room to expand and the possibility of an overland supply route to Iqaluit.

A total of 105 individuals have now expressed an interest in moving from Panniqtuuq to Opingivik.

To accommodate those people, the outpost camp would require a significant amount of development.

Right now, there are just four houses at the camp; a five-bedroom house occupied by Pitsiulak, his wife and three children; a two-bedroom house that belongs to Pitsiulak’s son Simeonie; one spare two-bedroom house for visitors; and one three-bedroom house that has fallen into disrepair.

Pitsiulak and his family travel by boat or skidoo to Panniqtuuq for groceries, gasoline and heating fuel. They plan to do monthly trips starting January, after the ice freezes over Cumberland Sound. If the ice is late, Pitsiulak will travel overland to Iqaluit for supplies.

As many as 25 barrels of fuel are hauled in by boat to heat the homes every year. There is a small generator.

Fresh drinking water is available, and there is a landing strip that can accommodate a Twin Otter.

Both Lypa and Annie Pitsiulak earn an income by selling art works. To supplement that income, Pitsiulak leads polar bear sport hunts, and sells sealskins, fox and wolf skins. He also excavates soapstone from a site nearby the camp, which he uses for carvings and also shares with artists in Panniqtuuq.

They recently started taking in offenders to teach them land skills, Inuit traditional knowledge and carving.

Country foods are readily available and, the proposal suggests, residents could also supplement their income by selling arctic char and turbot.

The proposal document describes Pitsiulak’s vision of a full-fledged community, complete with a community council, school, day-care and a Nunavut Arctic College learning center.

Other facilities would include a hockey arena or swimming pool and a health centre as well as a post office and an RCMP presence. Plus, the proposal envisages several businesses such as a Co-op or Northern Store, a coffee shop, a taxi service, a telephone company, and a hotel and restaurant.

The idea is still just a proposal and Sowdlooapik is aware that it won’t happen overnight.

“I’m looking at about five years,” he said.

If Opingivik does become a community, it is sure to immortalize Lypa Pitsiulak, who is already well-known in and outside of Nunavut.

His print “Disguised Archer” appeared on a Canadian stamp in 1980s, and several of his carvings have been sold to prestigious galleries. Annie sells her art works through the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts and Crafts in Panniqtuuq, and had one of her drawings chosen for that group’s logo.

Japanese film crews documented life at the camp in the 1980s and in 2000. In 1988, the National Film Board produced a film about his life and work called “Lypa.”