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IQALUIT - Aaju Peter loves singing.

Her songs, sung in Greenlandic, Inuktitut, English and Danish, address themes of womanhood, parenthood, peace and cultural sovereignty.

She recently released her first CD, The Third Age, which features a poem read by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

Aaju Peter says singing has been her salvation and has let her express herself about sealing, sovereignty and violence. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

The songs include a lullaby in Inuktitut from the perspective of a child with FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) addressing a mother and a song in English and Inuktitut in memoriam to the women killed at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.

Peter's music encourages people to heal. Song has helped her to heal, as well.

"I think singing is what saved me from everything," Peter said. "I had a very tough childhood. The kind of colonization that I went through and assimilation can lead to so much destruction of a people - can lead to so much destruction of a person. Singing has been, I think, my salvation."

Born in northern Greenland, Peter experienced the loss of her language and culture at an early age.

"We were colonized by Denmark," she explained. "So, I was sent off in 1971 and I came back to live in Greenland in 1978 but by then, because I wasn't taught my own language and my own culture, I couldn't speak Greenlandic. I had to relearn my language.

"Regaining my language, taking ownership of it, meant so much to me. I think singing is a really great way to express that gratitude and pride in the language."

After moving to Iqaluit, Peter worked with other musicians to start the coffeehouses that still continue to this day, usually held at Inuksuk high school.

Although she doesn't describe herself as a performer, she has performed on stage in other parts of the North as well as in Denmark and Greenland.

"Music is so wonderful," Peter said.

"You listen to words from another singer and you know exactly what they're singing about. You felt that same grief or hardship and it just brings feeling. I sang at healing sessions. It's time for people to let go of the pain that they're carrying or to remember a father or a mother.

"It's also reminding us that we need to be nice to other people and we need to be nice to our parents, to our children."

When Peter is not singing she's a strong advocate for Inuit sealers and for Arctic sovereignty.

Peter completed the first law program, started in 2001 through the University of Victoria in partnership with the Law Society and was called to the bar this summer after articling in Ottawa.

"We incorporated traditional Inuit law and we incorporated Inuit language," she said.

"For example, when we were learning property law - remember this whole western law is foreign to us - so we really had to try to wrap our head around the concepts and having an elder there explaining our traditional concepts made much more sense."

The singer designs sealskin garments and has spoken out against the anti-sealing lobby in Europe.

"I love sealing," she said.

"I've actually gone to Europe and faced the anti-sealing groups dressed all in seal and told them to go to hell because they don't get it. They are attacking our rights."

Peter also concentrates on supporting Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic.

"The Northwest Passage runs right through our territory and Canadian sovereignty of the Northwest Passage is not recognized by other countries," she said.

"They're telling us this is not our country? No way. We know better than anyone how to protect our land and how to protect our animals and we'll tell you."