 |
|
|
|
|
  
|
Digitizing the past, for the future Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison Northern News Services Published Monday, September 12, 2011
The online database, completed this past summer, contains countless hours of stories, songs, chants, pictures and interviews collected from the community's elders over the past decade. Kudlak said the project, which she completed with Tristan Pearce, a climate change researcher from Ontario, is an attempt to preserve the past. "We're seeing so many changes in the language. Some of the old language that the elders speak is deteriorating so fast," she said. "We're trying to figure out ways we can put it out there for the public so they can hear it, see it." Although the community has been collecting elders' stories on tape since Kudlak became language officer in 2001, it was only last year that the idea of creating a digital catalogue took shape. Kudlak and Pearce began downloading the tape recordings and transferring them to the website, Nauvikhaq, and then organized them by topic, elder, song and date. They named it 'A place to go' with the hope that new stories will continually be added and shared with others. "Being able to see the elders' words in written form, computerized, was really amazing, because in their words it was an oral tradition. Everything was stories and songs. Nothing was written," Kudlak said. The topics range from Arctic char and art to weather and wolves; more than 25 Ulukhaktok residents have had their stories digitized so far. "It's for the generations to come, for the ones that don't know anything about life on the land long ago, for them to be able to see and hear it," she said. Nauvikhaq is one of many projects Kudlak runs out of the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre with the goal of promoting and preserving the Inuvialuit's three dialects - Uummarmiut, Siglit and Inuinnaqtun - that make up Inuvialuktun. She just completed a book on the trails elders used to walk on Prince Albert Sound when following the seasonal hunt, and hopes to revive the community's traditional language radio show - Tuhangnarvik. In addition, she is working in partnership with the NWT Literacy Council and the University of Lethbridge to reproduce traditional clothing with elders. They are currently researching the clothing, how to get the materials needed and Kudlak said they hope to have some pieces completed by the end of the year.
|
