Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Monday, August 27, 2007

IQALUIT - The Canadian sealing industry may have taken a beating in recent years from protests, but that hasn't affected Nunavut's interest in its continuation.

Nunavut Arctic College (NAC) announced this summer it will be offering a new fur production and design program in the fall, and public interest suggests it may take off in coming years.

The three-semester program begins on Sept. 10 in Iqaluit. As of last week, seven full-time students had been accepted and several more will wait until the second semester to enrol, skipping the lessons on the traditional aspects of sealskin use.

"We have a lot of Inuit seamstresses who already know traditional preparations and all that, but they want to move on now into the commercial industry, the fashion industry," said Cindy Cowan, director of academic studies at NAC.

Once the traditional and commercial aspects of the industry have been covered, the third semester will get creative with some hands-on work.

"Each student will be in a studio environment and they will be preparing what we will call the Nunavut collection," said Cowan.

The work done in semester three will be featured in a trade show, in which NAC partners with Kiluk.

The program is not about reviving the sealing industry, Cowan said. The program will be focused on a Northern market - not the European market which hasn't been as receptive to the sealing industry in recent years.

"I think it's to continue building up on traditional knowledge and skills and artistry... to build a Nunavut market to identify those industries within Nunavut or within the circumpolar world who are interested in wearing garments made of sealskin," she said.

The need for such a program was discovered during a series of studies over the past few years, according to Wayne Lynch, director for the department of fisheries and sealing in Nunavut. He said there is an increasing interest in sealskin clothing in the North.

"There's been a constant demand, a steady demand," he said. "The problem is just trying to get skilled workers to reproduce those coats," he said.

Lynch said he has his fingers crossed that the course will be a success.

"All the studies we've done, the reports say this area is lacking," he said. "I think that the opportunity is there to do more and I'm hoping that it will take off."