Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services
Monday, March 19, 2007

IQALUIT - Alicee Joamie is the first face many Iqaluit residents have seen.

The Apex-based elder has been delivering babies as a traditional midwife since she was 14 years-old, well before there was a hospital on the hill in Iqaluit.

When she was young, she helped her mother, but when she turned 21, she had enough experience to handle the task herself.

Joamie was at the Frobisher Inn for a conference of midwives last week, and she thinks that midwives are an asset in the birthing process.

'Yes, it helps. You have the midwife with you all the time,' said Joamie, through Martha Greig, who translated for the Inuktitut-speaking elder.

There isn't much Joamie has left to learn about childbirth, so she was at the midwives conference to share her wisdom.

'I want to help pass on my knowledge. Before the medical people came, I was one of the caregivers as a midwife,' said Joamie.

She's a storehouse of traditional Inuit knowledge. She remembers when the RCMP killed her family's sled dogs almost 50 years ago.

'The officer who just shot the dogs touched me and smiled when I felt most unhappy," said Joamie.

She also teaches sewing in her Apex home to anyone who wants to learn.