Year in Review: 2001 in Nunavut was the year of the artist

January

An outbreak of canine distemper strikes dogs in Nunavut, killing several in Iqaluit, Kimmirut and Kugluktuk.
A report by the Canadian Forces Northern Area headquarters in Yellowknife recommends that Nunavut’s rangers conduct regular exercises in the High Arctic to assert Canada’s ownership of that area.
The Nunavut Social Development Council prepares to seek intervenor status in a case to protect the practice of Inuit custom adoption. The case involves the custom adoption of a child by the birth-mother’s parents. The child’s adoptive mother, or grandmother, seeks financial support from the biological father.
Quttiktuq MLA Rebecca Williams is sworn in on Jan. 30 after winning a by-election on Dec. 4.
Forty-nine sexual abuse victims of Edward Horne enlist lawyers from Newfoundland and the United States to pursue damage claims against the governments of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. They assert government officials failed to protect them from Horne’s abuse and did not provide adequate care when the abuse was exposed.
February

The government of Nunavut creates an Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit task force to promote traditional Inuit knowledge.
In Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson’s speech from the throne, Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government promises to ensure the basic needs of aboriginal people, in jobs, health, education, housing and infrastructure.
Dene leaders of bands from northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan pledge friendship to Inuit, saying they will work together in the spirit of friendship.
Statistics Canada takes its first survey of residents of the eastern Arctic.
Nunavut’s liquor licensing board plans a review of the Liquor Act.
Health Minister Ed Picco unveils a multimedia suicide prevention campaign.
March

RCMP Const. Jurgen Seewald is fatally shot after responding to a call about a domestic dispute in Cape Dorset. Police charge Cape Dorset resident Salomonie Jaw with first-degree murder.
The Canada Council’s art bank gives artists the opportunity to buy back artwork at the original price plus 30 per cent. The offer is meant to benefit artists whose work has increased in value significantly.
Nunavut homeowners get a $450 rebate on the cost of heating. The one-time deal is available only to homeowners who make less than $125,000 a year.
Three inmates escape from the Baffin Correctional Centre. Randy Klengenberg is immediately apprehended by prison staff and two others, Herbie Janes and Joe Akpalialuk, enjoy about 90 minutes of freedom before being caught.
On March 13, Iqaluit launches a paper recycling program with a donation of 300 green boxes from Environment Canada. The boxes are distributed to businesses and government offices throughout Nunavut. However, a month later, almost no offices in Nunavut are taking part in the program.
April

Nunavut abandons Nunavut time in favour of three separate time zones.
Nunavut Power Corporation flips the on switch, taking over responsibility for providing heat to the territory from the Northwest Territories Power Corporation.
Kootoo Korgak goes on trial for the murder of Sarah Akavak, his common-law wife. Akavak died Feb. 10, 2000, in Iqaluit’s eight-storey high rise building. On April 10, Justice Mary Hetherington sentences Korgak to life imprisonment, with no chance of parole for 12 years. The jury takes just two hours to convict him of second-degree murder, rejecting a defence lawyer’s argument that Korgak should be found guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
May

Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat, the first feature-length Inuktitut movie, is screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Though not in competition for the festival’s grand prize – the coveted Palme d’Or – the film wins the Camera d’Or, awarded for the best first-time film.
Nunavut’s Legislative Assembly takes its show to Cambridge Bay.
Overcrowding in Baffin Correctional Centre forces staff to transfer six inmates to a facility in Yellowknife.
Japanese adventurer Hyoichi Kohno vanishes north of Ellesmere Island and is assumed to have fallen into a crack in the sea ice. Spotter flights over the area where his gear was found turn up no trace of Kohno, and the search is called off. His body was later found.
June

The University of the Arctic celebrates its official launch on June 12, with Sami songs and toasts to its future. The “university without walls” serves students throughout the circumpolar region.
Nunavut MLA James Arvaluk is found not guilty of a charge of assault causing bodily harm. Arbaluk, who represents Coral Harbour and Chesterfield Inlet, was accused of beating and injuring his girlfriend. The Crown later launches an appeal in the case, saying Justice Howard Irving made errors in fact and in law.
A study on Nunavut’s economy released by the Conference Board of Canada recommends improvements to health and education. The board’s researchers predict Nunavut’s gross domestic product would grow by an average of 2.32 per cent per year through 2020.
Paul Quassa resigns as president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. In the fall of 2000, Quassa had been caught misusing about $30,000 worth of NTI money, including nearly $13,000 worth of unexplained cash withdrawals from bank machines using NTI’s credit card. Quassa repaid the money that he owed.
Industry Canada rejects a $1-billion bid to provide telecommunications services by upstart firm Bird Satellite Communications Inc., allowing Telesat Canada to retain its monopoly on northern satellite communications.
The Department of Public Works takes charge of the sealift and begins overseeing the resupply of the eastern Arctic.
The government of Nunavut pledges to overhaul welfare, calling for job training and child care.
July

Health Minister Ed Picco announces a new bonus package aimed at recruiting nurses for Nunavut’s health care system. Any nurse who agrees to work in Nunavut for three years will get a $6,000 signing bonus, an extra $2,000 every three months for two years, and a $2,000 bonus at the end of his or her second year. Thirty Australian nurses take advantage of the offer.
Two Arviat men are finally arrested and charged with numerous criminal offences after a weeklong crime spree during which they attacked Arviat’s lone RCMP member with a metal pipe and piece of wood. Some Nunavummiut say they’re worried about the RCMP’s thin staffing levels in Nunavut.
The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board issues a report recommending Qikiqtarjuaq hunters create better rules to guide their annual narwhal hunt. They also say hunters and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans should improve how they communicate with each other.
The Nunavut Associa-tion of Municipalities tells Premier Paul Okalik that he must get more aggressive with Ottawa in seeking infrastructure development money for Nunavut.
Crown lawyers say they’ll appeal Nanulik MLA James Arvaluk’s June acquittal on a charge of assault causing bodily harm. Arvaluk was accused of beating and injuring Sophie Sangoya, his former live-in girlfriend, in a drunken fight Aug. 26, 2000, in Coral Harbour. The Crown says in its appeal that Justice Howard Irving made errors in fact and in law when he ruled that her injuries were caused by a “mutually consensual brawl,” and not a criminal assault.
High Arctic mayors are stunned when they find out that the Kenn Borek airline will stop serving their region in October. As a result, Arctic Bay residents must now make a lengthy odyssey through Iqaluit just to get to the nearby community of Pond Inlet.
Numbers released by Statistics Canada show Nunavut has the highest rate of violent crime in Canada, and the third highest overall crime rate. They also show that the number of people charged with criminal offenses in Nunavut shot up by 17 per cent between 1999 and 2000.
Two southern tourists who were attacked by a polar bear July 27 while travelling through Katannilik Territorial Park complain park wardens knew about the bear but didn’t warn campers. Alain Parenteau, 31, and Patricia Doyon, 25, both of Quebec, suffered multiple lacerations. The bear halted its attack when their fellow camper, 32-year-old Eric Fortier, stabbed it with a pocketknife.
August

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik announces that two once-powerful territoral bureaucrats, Katherine Trumper and Ken MacRury, are quitting their jobs. Trumper, the deputy minister of sustainable development, had presided over the Nunavut government’s controversial refusal to allow a Coral Harbour man to hunt a polar bear with a spear. Alex Campbell, a former executive director of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., replaces her. MacRury, the deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs, had been shuffled into that low-profile department after first serving as the deputy minister of health. The government has yet to announce a replacement for him.
Popular Inuktitut singer Susa Aningmiuq dies in Pangnirtung after a battle with cancer. Since the late 1970s, Susa and her husband Etulu delighted Nunavut music lovers with their gentle country-gospel ballads.
Premier Paul Okalik emerged from the premier’s conference in Victoria, B.C. in an effervescent mood, saying premiers understand Nunavut’s health and infrastructure funding issues better than ever, especially the shortcomings of the per capita funding formulae used to calculate federal payments in health care and the Canada infrastructure program. Federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion rejects the premier’s demands for greater federal spending in health care almost immediately.
Engineers begin work on preliminary studies looking at the proposed Bathurst Inlet road-port project. The $6 million cost of the research work is made up of a $3 million contribution from DIAND, and just over $1.5 million each from the government of Nunavut and mining companies such as Inmet Mining Corp. of Toronto, which owns the Izok Lake lead-zinc property. A port on Bathurst Inlet would be connected to Contwoyto Lake by a 200-km road.
The Canadian Arctic Resources Committee upsets pro-development Kitikmeot leaders by saying that the devleopment could cause problems for the 350,000 animals in the Bathurst caribou herd.
Nunavut Commissioner Peter Irniq calls for a Nunavut-wide anti-littering campaign.
Greenlandair announ-ces that by Oct. 1 it will end the Iqaluit-Greenland jet route that it operates with First Air. After a brief review, First Air announces that it can’t operate the route on its own and a major circumpolar transportation link dies.
Cambridge Bay throat-singer Tanya Tagaq Gillis performs with Icelandic pop singer Björk on a world tour organized to promote Björk’s Vespertine album.
Lawyers representing the Qikiqtani Inuit Association provide the organization’s embattled president, Meeka Kilabuk, with a list of 22 reasons justifying her dismissal.
Grise Fiord residents say they want more benefits from the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island, an experiment aimed at providing information that might be helpful in the human colonization of Mars.
September

Rankin Inlet’s Jammin’ on the Bay music festival, featuring 1970s rockers such as Trooper and Kim Mitchell, wraps up Sept. 3. It’s unclear if the festival earned any money for the Children’s Wish Foundation, since only about half the available tickets were sold.
Crown lawyers withdraw charges against Gary Hoag, a disgraced U.S. missionary accused of sexually exploiting a 15-year-old Iqaluit girl in 1995. Hoag and his wife had been popular leaders of the Northern Lights youth group at Iqaluit’s Anglican church.
Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat makes its Canadian debut at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival.
More than 70 throat-singers travel to Puvirnituq to attend the Arctic’s first throat-singers gathering.
Fifteen Inuit law students start their first academic year at the Akitsiraq law school in Iqaluit.
The horror of Sept. 11 reverberates throughout Nunavut as North American air space is closed and northern airlines are grounded. Emergency co-ordinators in Iqaluit scramble to prepare for the arrival of 15 trans-Atlantic jets and 3,000 stranded passengers, but the planes are accommodated at southern airports instead.
Nunavut residents grieve the loss of Christine Egan, a well-known northern nurse who went missing while visiting her brother on the 105th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Centre on Sept. 11.
The government of Nunavut finds money to hire another 14 RCMP officers through it policing contract with the RCMP.
Nunavut Tunngavik announces that it will sue the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs over DIAND’s position on the powers of the Nunavut Water Board. DIAND says water board licences aren’t valid unless the minister approves them, but the water board, backed by NTI, says ministerial approval isn’t necessary.
October

A new acronym strides boldly forth: the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada changes its name to Inuit Tapiriiksat Kanatami – from ITC to ITK.
The Qikiqtaaluk Corporation packs up 17 tonnes of ice from Pangnirtung and Clyde River and ships it to Pure Berg Canada Inc. to be melted and bottled for sale in Asia.
Community Government Minister Jack Anawak tells the Nunavut Association of Municipalities that the government plans to introduce new municipal legislation aimed at giving hamlets more powers and responsibilities. He also says the GN is thinking about giving hamlets the power to raise their own taxes.
Delegates at Nunavut Tunngavik’s annual general meeting in Pangnirtung approve a $2.5-million loan to the Kivalliq region’s floundering Sakku Corporation.
The government of Nunavut says it’ s looking at a new way of calculating polar bear quotas that may result in lower quota numbers across Nunavut.
Alexa McDonough, the national leader of the New Democratic Party, visits Iqaluit as part of an effort aimed at reinvigorating the NDP.
While praising the government’s decision to hire more RCMP officers, Nunavut mayors call for the recruitment of more Inuit police officers.
After taking a financial battering caused by the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, Northern airlines announce plans to hike cargo rates and air fares.
Nunavut’s commercial fishing interests suffer a big blow when the Supreme Court of Canada rejects NTI’s appeal of an earlier court decision that upheld Ottawa’s turbot quota allocations in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. Nunavut interests only get 27 per cent of the total allowable catch in waters off Nunavut.
The James Bay Cree announce a tentative deal with Quebec worth $3.5 billion to them over 50 years. In exchange, they will drop their opposition to hydro development in their territory and drop a long list of law-suits against Quebec.
Jeremy Kuuk, 29, of Baker Lake, is charged with second-degree murder in connection with Nunavut’s eighth homicide since April 1, 1999. Samuel Nagyougalik, 40, was found dead along a roadside in Baker Lake Oct. 2.
The Nunavut Wildlife Management board goes to work on a policy to govern the export of live animals from Nunavut.
November

Breakwater Resources Ltd., the Toronto-based firm that owns the Nanisivik zinc mine, announces it will shut the mine down by September, 2002, four years ahead of schedule. Breakwater is expected to follow an environmental clean-up plan set out in its water licence. A group of officials led by the territorial Department of Sustainable Development is to hold meetings in Arctic Bay next week.
The Nunavut Liquor Board recommends that the GN make it easier for residents to import liquor from outside of Nunavut.
Nunavut cabinet ministers easily fend off MLAs’ questions during a marathon 25-hour mid-term review of the government.
December

The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, renamed Inuit Tapiriiksat Kanatami, celebrated its 30th birthday with a seven-hour bash in Ottawa. ITK president Jose Kusugak honours the organization’s founding president, Tagak Curley, by giving him a bronze casting of Curley’s face. Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault is a last-minute no-show, and isn’t there to hear ITK’s request for an annual core funding grant from Ottawa.
Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik promotes the award-winning film Atanarjuat during a tour of the western United States.
The Auditor General of Canada says the government of Nunavut is spending too much money on office space and staff housing leases, and should look at owning buildings rather than leasing them. The Auditor General also criticizes the Nunavut Development Corporation for pouring $3.3 million a year into its territory-wide family of money-losing businesses with few few spending criteria or financial controls.
Cathy Towtongie defeats five other candidates to win the presidency of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. About 45 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. Paul Kaludjak of Rankin Inlet easily wins the vice-president of finance position, which is now a part-time job.
Federal Finance Minister Paul Martin’s budget contains little for northern Canada.