Who pays for music any more?

Used record stores are staying alive through the digital age but the closing of HMV means change for the future of new music sales in Canada John Westhaver, owner and sole employee of the Glebe record store Birdman Sound, likens songs to brussell sprouts when he describes the discomfort he notices some customers have when …

Gay in Nunavut: New film to be screened at Capital Pride event

By Courtney Edgar Originally published at Nunatsiaq News. The concept of “Pride” in Nunavut is sometimes lost in translation. According to a new documentary film, a principle of Inuit culture is not to show too much pride. The word “pride” in the lesbian and gay sense may be new to the North but that doesn’t …

Nunavut patient boarding home has room to grow in Ottawa

Originally published at Nunatsiaq News.   A 25-year-old man plays guitar in the common room while several others — patients, escorts and employees — move about in the new Larga Baffin facility on Richmond Rd. in Ottawa. A younger woman in a wheelchair sits around the corner a few metres away with an older woman, …

Helping hands: Remembering Suzanne Signoorie

Originally published at Nunatsiaq News.   Janice Oolayou remembers her hands the clearest. These were hands used to sew tents; hands that lit the qulliq. When they first met at Tungasuvvingat Inuit, where Oolayou works, Oolayou had told Suzanne Signoorie about her own grandmother’s similar hands, and how when Oolayou was a child she would …

Aboriginal kids were healthy before residential schools: new study

Originally published at Nunatsiaq News.   Like most survivors of residential schooling, Piita Irniq remembers the food well. It was different from the caribou, seal and maktaaq he ate while growing up. At residential school, children ate mostly porridge but on Saturday mornings there were Corn Flakes, which was one of the only foods which …

Backstage with dynamic throatsinging duo Tarniriik

By Courtney Edgar Originally published at Nunatsiaq News Cailyn usually wins. When she throat sings, all she’s thinking is, “who’s gonna win, who’s gonna win.” Samantha finds it harder to keep a straight face. The two girls, Cailyn Degrandpré, 11, and Samantha Kigutak-Metcalfe, 12, who now perform as the throat-singing duo Tarniriik, have performed traditional …

Ottawa Inuit share traditional and new art forms at solstice festival

By Courtney Edgar Originally published at Nunatsiaq News Barry Pottle, an Inuk photographer, used two million Zeller’s ClubZed points to purchase his first 35mm Canon film camera. Inspired by Cape Dorset’s Jimmy Manning, Pottle chose photography because he says it remains an art form that few Inuit artists have explored, at least in comparison with …

Building consent culture

By Courtney Edgar Originally published in The Algonquin Times Otters hold hands in rough waters so they don’t drift apart. They are self-care advocates and they are a symbol for what is needed to do the work Farrah Khan does. Khan, who was the keynote speaker at the FREE TO LEARN: Confronting Sexual Violence at …

Inuit 101: Ottawamiut school southerners in Inuit history, culture

By Courtney Edgar Originally published at Nunatsiaq News It was almost 53 years ago that Sytukie Joamie, now an Inuit traditional knowledge researcher, sat in his first kindergarten classroom in Niaqunnguu and was told by his teachers not to speak his language. He’s been living in Ottawa almost two years now and he says that …

Ottawa feast draws Inuit, presentation on bullying, child rights

By Courtney Edgar Originally published at Nunatsiaq News The basement of Ottawa’s Knox Presbyterian Church drew crowds May 19 for the sweet comforts of country food and the even sweeter lure of community. Once a month, Tungasuvvingat Inuit holds a community feast where friends and family can gather to stay in touch, enjoy a hearty …