The year in review in Nunavik: July — September

July

— Kuujjuaq celebrates a peaceful July 1. Last year’s Canada Day celebrations in Kuujjuaq were marred by public drunkenness and mischief, and police made a record numbers of arrests. But this year the recreation committee decides this year not to serve any alcohol. “It was beautiful,” says Kativik Regional Police chief Brian Jones.

— Four communities in Nunavik will see $5 million worth of new social housing units built this summer.

— Kuujjuaq Airport gets a $13 million investment when Guy St-Julien, Nunavik’s member of parliament, launches work to improve the aircraft maneuvering area at Kuujjuaq Airport. The first phase of federally-funded improvements to the airport began in 1998, closing one runway until September. The second phase of this project, planned for 2000 and 2001, will renovate the main runway.

— More than 150 Junior Rangers, aged 12-18, from every community in Nunavik and from two communities in Ontario and Quebec’s Lower North Shore, attend an eight-day camp near Kangiqsujuaq. The camp is the only one of its kind in Canada.

— The Quebec government and the Makivik Corporation reach a deal for the clean-up of caribou carcasses found in June near Umiujaq. The animals, spotted by local hunters in June, are rotting in Minto Lake and along the lake’s shoreline. Biologists from Quebec’s wildlife service, who also visited the site, believe that the 500-1000 caribou perished while attempting to cross the lake, around 100 kilometers northeast of Umiujaq.

August

— A constable with the Kativik Regional Police Force in Puvirnituq is fired after he is caught killing caribou out of season. The constable was firing rounds with a 12-gauge shotgun, property of the KRPF, into a herd of caribou.

— Kuujjuamiut are treated to four evenings of non-stop performances by some of the best musicians in the Canadian North and Greenland at Kuujuaq’s annual Akpiq Jam.

— Less than week before classes start at Kiluutaq School in Umiujaq , there are still no teachers for its English sector students, and the school still needs one teacher for its French language secondary program. If no teachers are found, some students may end up sitting at home, instead of in school.

— A domestic argument in Kuujjuaq explodes into violence and results in the stabbing of Kuujjuaq resident David White. White’s common-law-wife, Susie Gordon, 37, is arrested in conjunction with the incident. The Kativik Regional Police confirm that alchohol was involved. Gordon is charged with aggravated assault causing bodily harm and held in preventive custody until her release following the weekend.

September

— On September 10 in Quebec City, Governor General Romeo Leblanc presents three Nunavik men with meritorious service medals. Peter Taati Airo of Salluit, Moses Idlout of Inukjuak, and Paulusie Padlayat of Salluit will receive the medals for their involvement in the 73-day “Suicide Awareness Journey” in 1997.

— A repeat offender receives 28 months for a violent attack. Kuujjuaq Quebec circuit court judge Daniel Bédard sentences Sammy Shennugnuk, 38, to 28 months after the accused entered a guilty plea to one charge of aggravated assault. This charge is connected to an violent incident that occurred in February, 1997 when Shennugnuk, despite being confined to a wheelchair at the time, managed to severely stab a close female relative with a knife. Shennugnuk has already served time in federal and provincial jails for five previous convictions for sexual assault, and one for sexual touching.

— The tenants of new prefabicated houses in Salluit have moved in, but now they’re asking “where’s the cupboard doors?” The 24′ by 28′ houses arrive off the sealift completely finished — except for cupboards in the kitchen and bathroom. Quebec’s housing bureau, l’Office de l’habitation du Québec, laater admits that the 42 tiny, new social housing units delivered to Nunavik in August should have been outfitted with cupboard doors. The SHQ will also pick up the tab for the new cupboard doors and their installation.

— The Kativik Regional Police manage to subdue an armed man in Akulivik who barricades himself and two others within the community’s co-operative store. Alashuak Aliqu, 26, has been charged with unlawful confinement, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, uttering death threats, mischief and using a firearm while committing a criminal offense. Aliqu will remain in detention and appears in court again in Puvirnituq in November.

— On a visit to Kuujjuaq, Quebec’s public security minister, Serge Ménard, is bombarded by requests from the Kativik Regional Government and Makivik Corporation. Those present at the meeting want Ménard to tell them when Quebec will deliver on the jail that the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement promised to build back in 1975.

— An epidemic of sawed-off shotguns in Puvirnituq is making unarmed police there extremely nervous, but the Kativik Police Force isn’t moving ahead with its plan to give Nunavik’s cops any sidearms. When the KRG holds its regional council meeting in Kuujjuaq, no one mentions authorizing sidearms for police — despite the growing unease of many constables in the region.

— The former community of Old Chimo welcomes some new residents, young researchers who are participating in a two-week trial run for the University of the Arctic. Since 1996, university graduate students in Northern studies have met every summer in a different circumpolar nation. This year their symposium is a pilot project of the U Arctic, to show what such this fledgling circumpolar institution can do. From September 6-24, the ‘Circumpolar Arctic Social Sciences PhD Network’ brings students and instructors from 12 countries to Quebec City, and then on to Kuujjuaq where they look at “self-government and political autonomy.”