Top 10 Nunavik stories in 2005

Maggie Emudluk: First woman to head the KRG
During its November meeting, the Kativik Regional Council elected Maggie Emudluk to lead the organization for the next two years.

Emudluk became the first woman to head Nunavik’s regional government, which employs about 300 employees in 14 communities.

Emudluk beat out Michael Gordon, the former mayor of Kuujjuaq, to replace the departing Johnny Adams. Emudluk, who admitted she’d never yet lost an election, said she was nonetheless surprised by the result.

“Its good for women,” Emudluk said, “and that I’m an Inuk.”

37 C in Kuujjuaraapik
Temperatures in the Eastern Hudson Bay community of Kuujjuaraapik hit 36.6 C on July 11, making Kuujjuaraapik the hottest place in Quebec that day and breaking the previous record of 29.4 C set in 1969.

But July 12 was even hotter. The day’s high climbed to 37 C, breaking the previous record high of 28.3 C set in 1998. These temperatures were much higher than the normal temperature range of 15 C.

Environment Canada meteorologist René Héroux said Kuujjuaraapik’s heat wave was extremely unusual.

“It was very unusual, and will it happen again? Well, we can certainly say that it’s another indication climate change is no joke,” Héroux said.

Huge bust smashes drug pipeline
On May 31, at about 6 a.m., police swooped down on 45 suspected drug traffickers in Nunavut, Nunavik and Montreal, breaking up a drug ring that netted $250,000 a week in drug sales.

The police round-up included Inuit and non-Inuit, old and young, men and women, husbands and wives, in 12 Nunavut and Nunavik communities and in Montreal.

Every week, local pushers sent their collected cash back south by cheque and money order. Sometimes they found a local courier who would carry down the money, taped to their bodies or stuffed into boxes.

The money, $125,000 to $250,000 a week, allowed the alleged kingpin of the operation, “Mike” aka Marcello Ruggiero, 39, and his buddies to acquire luxurious mansions and drive around in posh sports cars and SUVs.

Some 200 police officers from the Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit were involved in the special operation known as “Project Crystal.”

A year full of murders
In 2005 there were five homicides and a handful of attempted murders in Nunavik, making this a record year for serious violence in the region.

Among those who died violently, at the hands of others, was Claude Bourget, a long-term resident of Kuujjuaq. Bourget was an employee of the Kativik Regional Government where he worked as a senior accounting clerk in the finance department.

Bourget died from injuries he received during a beating and torture session, which cause an agonizingly painful death from a hockey stick thrust up through his rectum.

Three young Kuujjuaq men were arrested and two received life sentences in November. The third will return to court in January, 2006.

School violence shuts schools
Following a brutal attack on the principal on Jan. 13, Arsaniq School in Kangiqsujuaq closed down for three and a half days.

Then, a month later, Peter Keatainak, 18, shot an adult education teacher with the Kativik School Board in the neck. Hassina Kerfi-Guetteb, 43, was seriously injured. Keatainak then shot and killed himself.

Police investigators who traveled to Salluit following the incident concluded that the attempted murder-suicide was an act of desperate vengeance: Keatainak had been expelled from the adult education program earlier this year after he assaulted another student.

Quebec’s teachers’ union, the Fédération des sydicats de l’enseignement, passed a resolution in support of the demands of Northern Quebec Teachers Association and teachers in Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq, calling for “concrete solutions” to prevent more violence in the schools.

Beluga quota overshot
Salluit hunters landed 22 beluga whales on a single day last July in the Hudson Strait, double the quota that they had agreed to.

Nunavik’s mayors had decided to split the Hudson Strait’s beluga quota of 135 equally among the 14 communities, so each community would be able to hunt 11 belugas in the Hudson Strait.

In the end, Salluit recorded 23, Ivujivik, 37, and Akulivik, 28.

“The quota of 135 has now been widely overtaken,” wrote Michel Tremblay, the regional director of the DFO’s aboriginal fisheries division, to the mayors in November.

Another 21 belugas were hunted in areas lying outside the zones agreed on in the 2005 Beluga Management Plan — five in Ungava Bay, closed to all hunting; one from the Eastern Hudson Bay, also closed to all hunting; three more than the quota for Long Island and James Bay, and 12 from the Belcher and King George Islands.

ATV accidents raise concern over off-road vehicle safety
Horrific accidents involving all-terrain vehicles took place in Nunavik last summer, every week, at all hours of the day, in each community, causing serious injuries and death.

The Kativik Regional Government and Makivik Corporation called for action. The two organizations’ leaders handed Quebec’s transport minister a copy of a brief, entitled “Off-highway vehicles in Nunavik,” during consultations on off-road vehicles held in Kuujjuaq and Kangiqsualujjuaq.

This brief asks for Quebec’s law on off-highway vehicles and the highway safety code to be amended so police can start enforcing rules that are adapted to the region. It also called for a regional office of la Société d’Assurance automobile du Québec.

Nunavik lends help to tsunami victims
Nunavimmiut raised tens of thousands of dollars for those affected by the tsunami on Dec. 26, showing their generous spirit towards those in need.

A bingo in Kuujjuaq featured prizes donated by local businesses and airlines. The event raised thousands of dollars for the Red Cross. Students at Jaanimmarik School continued to fundraise until the end of January.

In Inukjuak, a garage sale, where items sold for $1 a piece, jumpstarted the community’s ambitious fundraising campaign, while in Kangiqsualujjuaq, efforts to help the tsunami relief drive brought back memories of the community’s lethal avalanche of Jan. 1, 1999 and the outpouring of concern after that tragedy.

Inuulitsivik teeters at the edge
Puvirnituq’s Inuulitsivik Hospital came close to collapse, strained by financial burdens, administrative chaos and conflicts.

With its top management gutted, essential medical positions vacant or in flux and a stressed and angry staff, many asked why Quebec’s health and social services department didn’t step in and help restore order in Inuulitsivik.

By the end of 2005, both the president of the board and the hospital’s executive director had been relieved of their duties.

The Inuulitsivik health board has 400 employees working at health and social services clinics in seven Hudson Bay communities, at the rehabilitation center in Inukjuak, and at the Inuulitsivik Hospital in Puvirnituq.

Nunavik claims offshore islands
In November, the Nunavik Inuit land claims Agreement for offshore regions was initialed in Montreal, although Nunavimmiut must now ratify the agreement and the federal cabinet approve the deal before it takes effect.

The agreement states that Nunavik would:

* own 80 per cent of all the islands in the Nunavik Marine Region;
* get $86 million in capital transfers and funds;
* participate in co-management regimes to address wildlife, land management and environmental issues;
* have guaranteed rights in northern Labrador;
* participate in the management and development of the proposed Torngat Mountains National Park;
* and earn a share in any resource royalties accruing to government from development activities in the Nunavik Marine Region.

The agreement also confirms overlap arrangements between Nunavik Inuit and the Crees of Eeyou Istchee, Labrador Inuit and Nunavut Inuit.

“We are glad to finally be able to say that we will now own 80 per cent of our islands, and though we will not own the other 20 per cent of the islands we will still have access to these islands,” Pita Aatami, president of Makivik Corporation, said in a news release issued after the signing.