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IQALUIT - Nunavut Arctic College is playing a greater role than ever before in publishing learning materials developed for and by Nunavummiut.

Pelagie Owligoot, the college's curriculum development manager, is the project co-ordinator for a new learning materials centre that will gather and distribute culturally relevant materials, making them available for use throughout the territory as an online collection.

The youth magazine Kaakuluk is one of four publications Nunavut Arctic College is supporting this year. - image courtesy of Neil Christopher

"This material-development centre is focused to be used by the college students as well as the University of the Arctic, and for adult basic education programs that all the communities have," Owligoot explained. "All the schools for many years have lacked Inuktitut materials, and this is one of the best options – that we have to try to produce as much as we can that they could use for health and science and teacher education programs and other programs."

Hand-in-hand with the development of the centre, which was recently allotted $200,000 in International Polar Year (IPY) funding, is a more co-ordinated effort by the college to publish materials with a distinctly-Northern feel and approach. Developing and supporting the publication of materials created in the North is an indication the college is maturing, said Neil Christopher, an instructor with the Nunavut Teacher Education Program.

"I think it's important politically, and I think it's important when we look at education that we start valuing our own knowledge and our own abilities," he said. "We're not going to complain that all the resources are southern-focused. Now is our chance to start doing something about it."

The emphasis on publishing began with the desire to communicate some of the results of polar year research being done in the territory, Christopher explained.

This year, the college is supporting four publications, including Pivut and Kaakuluk – both magazines for youth that have begun to incorporate IPY research – a book of stories and illustrations by Arviat's Mark Kalluk, and finally, a cross-cultural ecological studies textbook.

"The idea was to put together a textbook that was Northern-focused," said Christopher. It's "a place to put a lot of the IPY findings in there to communicate it to students, but also a place to begin trying to take a look at kind of traditional knowledge in the area and science knowledge."

The textbook, which will be piloted as a digital version for one year, will be developed with the help of students at the college, primarily those in the environmental tech program and the teacher education program through its ecology course. After it is piloted and revisions have been made, the textbook will be published in print and become part of the college curriculum.

"The NTEP program, when they take the ecological studies course, part of their assignments now will be geared toward taking a look and making some decisions with regards to formatting, and how they think knowledge should be represented in the text, as well as conducting traditional knowledge interviews," said Christopher. "It's made by Nunavummiut for Nunavummiut and that's the primary focus."

In maintaining a Northern approach, the textbook will include biographical information about its sources, from elders to researchers working out in the field.

"Inuit knowledge is much more place-based," explained Christopher. "So like a lot of times when we're talking in class and I will suggest something that I had heard, students want to know which elders said that and where it's from.

"We want to give (the text) a geographic and a social context all this knowledge, which we think is much more appropriate for the way the knowledge system works up here."

Owligoot said she is pleased that with publishing initiatives and the new centre, there will be an opportunity for Nunavummiut to access information that was previously hard to come by.

"Like in the past, there was a tremendous amount of scientific research, but very little information is accessible to Nunavummiut," she said. "The goal of the centre is producing and distributing culturally-relevant learning materials online and in print, and hopefully, it will be available to Nunavut residents ... and people all over the world will be using this as well."