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Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
The atlas will plug a gaping geographical hole, according to project co-ordinator Kim Crockatt, president of the Kitikmeot Heritage Society.
"Aside from the usual place names, there are significant sites where people might have gone hunting or where the best place on such and such a lake where people caught fish and dried them," said Crockatt.
The project is currently in its first phase and awaiting major funding from the Department of Culture.
Crockatt said they need $50,000 to complete the first phase, which involves compiling massive amounts of information from previous research and interviews with elders to mine oral traditions.
The five-year project will cost around $200,000, said Crockatt.
The project is two years in the works and began after Crockatt and other society members noticed interviewed elders placed great emphasis on their birth places and hunting grounds that did not show up on mainstream maps.
Crockatt cites Iqaluktuuq -- a stretch of coastline between Ferguson Lake and Wellington Bay around 30 kilometres west of Cambridge Bay -- as an example of an important location not highlighted in most maps.
"It is extremely significant and used for thousands of years where people would not only fished but it is also site of one the oldest and largest caribou drives," said Crockatt.
Hunters herded caribou in the region through a series of cairns that created an ideal hunting range. Inuit set up blinds that allowed them to bring down caribou with bows and arrows.
The University of Toronto is now conducting an archaeological dig in the area.
Cambridge Bay resident Rosie Evetalegak said she hopes the finished atlas will help students learn more about their region.
"High school students should know about their land and their Inuit tradition," said Evetalegak, currently employed with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. "It would show kids how Inuit used to live."
Evetalegak said she hopes the atlas will go to elementary and high schools in the region.
Sam de Beer, a consultant with Kitikmeot Corporation, said the atlas will fill a gap in most mapping programs.
"There is such limited information about the region," said de Beer. "If you look at (digitized maps), Cambridge Bay is nothing more than a dot and a line."
De Beer is currently working on a bird atlas with the Canadian Wildlife Service.
For now Crockatt is keeping her "fingers crossed" that the territorial government sees the importance of the project.
"I think it is going to be and excellent resource and a great way to preserve stories," she said.
