Uvagut TV launches Inuktut-language weather forecasts

Uvagut TV viewers can now watch weather forecasts in Inuktut, thanks to a new collaboration between the Inuit-led channel and The Weather Network.

Every hour, four weather reports delivered in Inuktut dialects specific to each of the four regions of Inuit Nunangat will be broadcast on the channel.

Uvagut TV is Canada’s first Inuktut-language television station.

Three-minute local weather forecasts have been airing for a few weeks now. They air 16 times per day and include important updates on Arctic weather like winter ice conditions and mosquito conditions in the summer.

“The original concept was basically, just take what we already do on The Weather Network — we have forecasts for northern regions already — and substitute the English or the French word with the appropriate Inuktut word,” said Kurt Eby, director of government and affiliate relations at Pelmorex, which owns The Weather Network.

He said that after some trial and error, the team realized the length of certain Inuktut weather terms would require a different approach in order to fit all the important weather information on the screen.

“Just doing a straight replacement was not going to work, so then our team had to build new storyboards to make sure that all the communities in each region would be seen at some point in the three minutes,” he said.

On the screen, viewers will see place names and weather terminology written in Inuktut dialects and syllabics on the map.

Along the sidebar and bottom section of the screen, the “L frame” Eby called it, weather information in English and French will also be shown.

This project marks the first time Inuktut weather forecasts will be broadcast on Uvagut TV, according to Eby.

Lucy Tulugarjuk is the executive director of Uvagut TV and Nunavut Independent Television, which owns and operates the station.

Tulugarjuk led a team of five translators who worked on Inuktut translations of specific weather terms for the four Inuit Nunangat regions of Nunavut, Nunavik, Inuvialuit and Nunatsiavut.

They took care to cater broadcasts to the various Inuktut dialects spoken across the regions.

“Inuit have a right to have weather channels [that] they are able to read in their own language, and their own dialect, too,” Tulugarjuk said.

She noted that having weather forecasts in Inuktut dialects will help hunters better prepare for weather conditions and make accurate forecasts more easily accessible to people who only speak Inuktut.

“I absolutely thank the translators that contributed to beginning these beautiful words into the present and the future,” Tulugarjuk said.