Baker Lake (July 26/06) - Bobby Suwarak hasn't heard a thing since he was seven years old.

The Baker Lake resident was rendered deaf by a medical condition. He communicates, but not by using American Sign Language, which is fairly standard throughout much of Canada and the U.S. Instead he uses a repertoire of hand signals known as Inuit Sign Language (ISL).

Baker Lake's Bobby Suwarak uses Inuit Sign Language to tell a story about a snowmobile breaking down while he was out on the land. He attended the first territorial conference for Nunavut's deaf in Iqaluit July 13-15. - Derek Neary/NNSL photo

David Kautaq became Suwarak's friend while they were teenagers. He gradually came to understand what Suwarak was signalling, often only by watching him pick up or point to an object and make a corresponding sign. It's the same way Suwarak and his family have persevered.

Kautaq acted as his friend's interpreter at the first conference for Nunavut's deaf, held in Iqaluit last week.

It was at that event that Suwarak met fellow Nunavummiut with the same disability. Although some had formal training while others did not, they were able to effectively convey messages to each other.

It's a phenomenon that Jamie MacDougall has been documenting for the past few years. President and CEO of the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute in Montreal, MacDougall conducted formal research when Suwarak became entangled in a courtroom controversy. The Baker Lake man couldn't understand the proceedings because the only interpreters available used American Sign Language.

MacDougall obtained Justice Canada funding to travel to three Nunavut communities and video tape ISL users. Upon arriving in the next community, he played back the tape to deaf people and confirmed that they largely understood the hand gestures they were seeing.

Thanks in part to MacDougall's research and his credence that ISL is indeed legitimate, it was deemed that Suwarak couldn't receive a fair trial as no trained Inuit Sign Language interpreter was available (Kautaq admitted at the time that transmitting the legal complexities was beyond him).

Suwarak's case remains before the courts while another interpreter is sufficiently trained in ISL.

Legal obstacles represent just one challenge that deaf Nunavummiut face. Delegates at last week's conference felt strongly that the younger generation of deaf citizens should become literate in Inuktitut.

Other concerns pertained to safety, sign language training and public awareness. The recommendations will be forwarded to the territorial government, which is preparing to hold consultations on the Inuit Language Protection Act. That legislation could include ISL.

MacDougall deemed last week's forum "an historic event." With Kautaq translating, Suwarak signed that he was happy to be introduced to others who share his disability. Phillip Ugjuk, of Rankin Inlet writing diligently in a reporter's notebook, expressed similar sentiment as all around him people's fingers and hands communicated something that spoken words could not.