Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Pelly Bay (Mar 20/00) - Thanks to a $77,000 grant from the government of Nunavut, Kiviuq's journey will continue.

The Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth has breathed new life into the Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) marionette project featuring the tale of Kiviuq -- an internationally renown Inuit legend,

"It's fantastic," said Marla Limousin, the spark behind the project.

"It felt like we were in a holding pattern for the last year, but now we're ready and everybody is really excited about it again," she said.

Originally organized as a small theatre production meant to preserve and promote the use of Inuktitut between the Kitikmeot hamlet's youth and elders, the marionette project garnered tremendous publicity when Kiviuq and his cohorts were seized at the border by U.S. Customs officers last summer. The marionettes were en route to American puppeteer Dan Butterworth for fine-tuning.

Composed of sealskin and whale bone, the puppets violated Marine Mammal Protection Act regulations when they crossed into the United States.

They were eventually returned to Canadian soil, but not before Limousin and her colleagues saw the project's potential grow exponentially.

With plans expanding, Butterworth travelled to Kugaaruk last fall, and after hosting a week-long series of workshops on script writing and marionette making, it was decided to seek funding to finance a filmed production of Kiviuq's adventures.

Part of that funding came through with the recent announcement.

"We've thoroughly researched the legend. The preservation of the dialect will occur and the preservation of a Northern hero in video format will occur," said Limousin.

"A lot of Northern people will be excited."

Butterworth, who was reached at his Rhode Island home, said he was ecstatic at the news, and that his next step is to completely finish the script and prepare for the actual filming in Kugaaruk this August.

"The marionettes also have to be finished and the sets -- we have to get some materials to Pelly Bay so they can be built," said Butterworth, adding that he's become more than professionally attached to Kiviuq since the project started early last year.

"This project is important to the community. I made friends with these people and all of it became important to me too," he said.

Hamlet senior administrator Quinn Taggart also stressed the importance of the project -- particularly for its economic development opportunities -- and said the hamlet would continue to await news of further funding from the federal Millennium project and the National Film Board of Canada.

"We're quite optimistic that now that we've got the one contribution, the other two should fall into place without any fuss," said Taggart.

"For us, like Kiviuq, it's been a long journey. We're finally making some headway. Part of that $77,000 will leave, but the bulk of the money will stay within the community. That's important to us," he said.