Qinnirvik Country Food and Bulk Store officially opens in Iqaluit

The Qinnirvik Country Food and Bulk Store in Iqaluit is officially open for business.

Francine Doucet, food centre co-executive director of the Qinnirvik Country Food and Bulk Store, displays fresh char for sale Friday at the store. (Photo by Daron Letts)

Its parent organization, Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre, celebrated the store’s grand opening Friday. Qinnirvik has already paid out $140,000 to 21 hunters from six communities for the country food on its shelves and in its freezers.

Located next to the food centre at 655 Maattaq Cres., the small but efficiently organized grocery shop has honed its practices since its test run in December and its quiet soft opening in January, said Francine Doucet, food centre co-executive director.

“Having country food available at the store means reclaiming our power over our food systems,” she said.

“It means being connected to our land, culture and each other. To build a future around country food is to advocate for our health and well-being.”

The store offers Arctic char from Qikiqtarjuaq, Taloyoak, Arctic Bay and Clyde River; seal from Clyde River and Naujaat; caribou from Naujaat and Arviat; mattaq from Taloyoak, Arctic Bay and Qikiqtarjuaq; and muskox from Taloyoak.

The hunters are organized through one of the food centre’s partners, Project Nunavut, an Iqaluit-based organization that works to improve the viability of a harvesting economy consistent with Inuit societal values.

Friday’s grand opening is the culmination of more than two years of work spent securing funding, renovating the space and building relationships with partners and hunters, said Doucet.

Haali Paton, country food access assistant at Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre, prepares to pluck a Canada goose donated by the Iqaluit Hunter and Trappers Association. (Photo by Daron Letts)

In Inuktitut, Qinnirvik means “a place of cache.”

The initiative stems from the food centre’s Food Box program. Launched in July, the program aims to supply people in Iqaluit with healthy and affordable food, including country food.

It also sells produce, baking ingredients, soup and sauce bases, and even environmentally friendly cleaning products.

Prices are offered on a sliding scale, which the food centre defines as “wholesale prices, medium prices, and lowest prices,” said Doucet.

The prices are also visually expressed with colour-coded “char, nanuq and narwhal” graphics to represent the price points. Customers can discreetly and silently point at the graphic corresponding to their choice of price point at the till.

The prices are being kept below those of other local grocery chains. The food centre is even trying to out-price Amazon in an effort to improve food security in the community, Doucet said.

The food centre is also looking into ways to create regular salaries for the hunters who supply its freezers with country food, said Doucet.

Qinnirvik is funded by Citi Foundation, the Government of Canada under the Community Services Recovery and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, as well as by the Canadian Tilling Foundation, the City of Iqaluit, and the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Culture and Heritage.