Urban Inuit find their roots

DENISE RIDEOUT

Next month, for the first time, young Inuit living in Ottawa — some of whom have never even seen Nunavut — will begin to delve into Inuit history lessons and workshops on land claims.

The Inuit youth who usually visit Tungasuvvingat Inuit, the Inuit community centre in Ottawa, to practice sewing and take guitar lessons, will explore their culture and history in two workshops planned for July.

It will be an eye-opener for Ottawa’s ‘urban Inuit,’ says Steven Lonsdale, the director of youth programs at Tungasuvvingat Inuit. Many of the youth Lonsdale sees at the centre left Nunavut at a young age with their parents, while others were born in Ottawa and have never travelled to the territory. He estimates there are more than 800 Inuit now living in the country’s capital.

Lonsdale, a 25-year-old who grew up in Iqaluit, said some of the young Inuit in Ottawa are missing out on their culture, traditions and language. He wants to help them find their roots.

“The urban Inuit down here don’t have a chance to learn about that,” Lonsdale says in an interview from Ottawa. “I wanted to bring that to them and I’ll be able to do that next month.”

Lonsdale is now gearing up for two workshops in July, one on Inuit history, the other an introduction to land claims in Nunavut and Labrador. Instructors from Nunavut Sivuniksavut, a training program in Ottawa, will teach the courses to Inuit aged 13 to 30.

In the history lessons, Lonsdale says, students will hear about how Inuit lived, their traditions and their encounters with the qallunaat who explored their lands.

“They’ll find out where they came from. And why things are the way they are,” he explains.

“I want them to have a broader awareness, like how come we square dance and how come we have bannock.”

Following the history workshop, Tungasuvvingat Inuit will host a course on land claims, with a focus on Nunavut’s land claim and the agreement-in-principle the Inuit of Labrador have signed. “A lot of them [Inuit in Ottawa] are beneficiaries even though they don’t live in the actual territory. But they should really know their rights,” Lonsdale says.

Each year Tungasuvvingat Inuit, a five-year-old community centre that counsels Inuit on health, social and employment issues, offers courses to youth. “I try to do a lot of cultural and educational programs, which includes history as well as language,” Lonsdale says.

The amount of money available dictates which courses the centre will run each year. Most of the funding for Lonsdale’s youth programs comes from Heritage Canada. The mainstay of the youth program is the drop-in centre, which runs three times a week and sees 10 to 15 teenagers hanging out there at a time.

Lonsdale started the drop-in centre — which boasts a pool table, entertainment centre with video games and a DVD player, and a computer lab where youth can e-mail friends and family in Nunavut — two years ago.

“I think it comes back to when I was living in Iqaluit and there was a youth centre there. I remember how great that was and how much fun it was. It kept me busy and productive. So, it just popped in my head one day that we need that kind of environment here too in the city,” he says.