The year in review in Nunavik: April — June

April

— On April 1, as most other northerners are witnessing the creation of the new territory of Nunavut on television, Kuujjuammiut are fighting a terrifying fire in their community’s school. Firefighters manage to get the fire under control within 15 minutes.

— From April 14 to 22, the FCNQ meet in Kangiqsualujjuaq, where 40 years ago, on April 25, 1959, the first co-op in Nunavik was established. This year, the FCNQ welcomes a thirteenth co-op, from Umiujaq, into its network.

— The $500,000 three-week inquest into the deaths caused by the January 1 avalanche in Kangiqsualujjuaq starts up in the community’s new church. During the first days of the inquest, public attendance at the inquest is generally small. Although relatively few of the community’s 700 residents attend the inquest, reporters, and lawyers representing the Kativik School Board and two families who lost members in the avalanche closely follow the proceedings. More than 40 witnesses testify. Bérubé’s report is expected to be released early in 2000.

May

— Some Inukjuak residents are upset because the court system has been slow to deal with the case of a man accused of sexual abusing minors. In 1997, Barry Gunn, 69, a past resident of Inukjuak and former Baffin region district manager for DIAND, was charged with eight separate counts of sexual abuse. These charges were to be heard in December, but were postponed to March. Then, they were postponed to May when the traveling court returned to Inukjuak.

— The House of Commons northern affairs committee concludes that the housing shortage and the high cost of transportation are crippling the North’s economic development. They are giving the federal government only 30 days to act on improving conditions in northern Quebec and Nunavut.

— Quebec’s education minister, François Legault, sends a letter to the Kativik School Board in which he confirms his commitment to the board’s relocation from Montreal to Nunavik, acknowledging that it was “important to the population.” The move will cost the province of Quebec an estimated $35 million.

— A psychiatrist’s report determines that accused murderer Taamusi Angyiou is sane and is able to stand trial for the murder of Evie Luuku. Angyiou, 26, of Akulivik faces a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Evie Luuku’s death, which occurred on April 6, 1998 in Akulivik. Angyiou also faces four other related charges: break and enter with intent to commit a crime, using a firearm while committing a crime, unlawful confinement and sexual assault. Angyiou’s lawyers have opted for a trial by jury.

June

— The Kativik Regional Government’s meeting in Puvirnituq tentatively throws its support behind a plan to allow Kativik Police Force members to carry sidearms by March, 2000.

— A badly burned 70-year old woman waits nine hours for medical treatment because no nurse from the nearby community of Kangiqsujuaq is willing to go out on the land and help her. Two nurses say that they aren’t allowed to travel out of the community to help Sarah Ningiuruvik at her camp because of “internal regulations.” After Rangers bring her back to the community, Ningiuruvik can’t be immediately medevaced out to Kuujjuaq, either, because pilots at every northern airline say they’ve already flown their legally allotted hours for the day. Ningiuruvik dies in a Quebec City hospital two days after her accidental burning.

— A Kuujjuaq woman, Jessie Snowball, 62, dies on June 4 after she is hit by an all-terrain vehicle. Snowball is walking towards the centre of town from Ikkaqivvik Bar around midnight when she is hit by a 4 x 4 vehicle traveling in the opposite direction.

— The Quebec government has embraced a last-minute amendment to its Midwife Act that should let aboriginal midwives continue to practice in the province. The amendent says the government can strike agreements with native communities to permit “a native person who is not a member of the Order [of midwives] to practice.” This opens the door for the continued, legal practice of Inuit community midwives at Puvirnituq’s Inuulitsivik Health Centre.

— Workers at the Raglan mine site in northern Quebec will soon join the United Steelworkers union. Within a few months they could begin negotiating their first collective labour agreement. More than 50 per cent of workers at the site support the union’s recruitment efforts by buying membership cards.

— Some 40 health workers demonstrate on June 15 in front of Kuujjuaq’s Tulattavik Health Centre. They bring their union’s message of “equity for all” to the streets, marching — in the snow — from the health centre to the Kuujjuaq Inn.

— The Quebec government doesn’t meet its June 24 deadline for the signing of the Nunavik Political Accord. Instead, Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard summons native leaders to Quebec City on Tuesday to try and sell them on the Parti-Québécois vision of nation building.

— Due to labour turmoil in the health sector, the Quebec Hospital Association cancels all elective surgery, and some 25,000 medical appointments are cancelled. This leaves 85 patients and escorts from Nunavik stranded in boarding homes waiting for treatment at Montreal area hospitals. The strike ends in July, but the backlog in cases persists.

— Jane Stewart, the federal minister for northern development and native affairs, travels 1500 kilometers from Ottawa to set off a spectacular explosion of rocks in Kangiqsualujjuaq. This big boom marks the official kick-off of a $30-million marine infrastructure program. On the one-day junket Stewart hands out an additional $5 million for new housing in Nunavik and $300,000 for nine other projects.