IQALUIT - Inuit Sign Language will be on the agenda at the first Nunavut-wide language summit scheduled to take place in Iqaluit in February, according to Madeleine d'Argencourt, the director of official languages with the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.

Jamie MacDougall, a psychology professor at McGill University and president of the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute, has been working with sign language users across the territory. The group is researching Inuit Sign Language (ISL) to try to develop policy that would recognize and protect the language.

Sometimes it takes a near-death experience on the land to fully appreciate the value of the unspoken word. This is the lesson MacDougall learned when he first witnessed ISL in Baker Lake in 1997.

MacDougall travelled to Baker Lake to assess the sign language of a deaf man who was going to stand trial. Inuit Sign language was not yet recognized as a language outside of Nunavut, and MacDougall's job was to determine how much the man could communicate.

MacDougall spent weeks in the community trying to communicate in sign language with the man, but was unsuccessful.

"I had more or less given up," he said. "It just wasn't working and I was going to go home and say 'you've got me.'"

Then MacDougall and his wife were invited to go caribou hunting. The group left at noon and were expected back in town by supper time. But a Ski-Doo broke down and the group found themselves stranded on the land.

"I'll never forget watching the sun go down and the machine not working and it was 50 below," MacDougall said.

That's when he noticed the Inuit in the group using their own form of sign language to communicate.

"The next thing we knew there was all of this sign language going on," he said. "I was completely stunned."

That's when ISL was officially recognized by a southern audience, MacDougall said.

"It was just an amazing experience and it felt like something special happened and that was the start of this whole thing," he said. "That's how Inuit Sign Language was identified here, that's what did it. We were all communicating and this wasn't just a gesture system."

Since then, MacDougall and sign language users in Nunavut have been working to develop policy for ISL in the territory.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees interpreters for sign language users in court and other situations, but resources for Nunavummiut who communicate using ISL are virtually non existent, MacDougall said.

There are currently no provisions in either the Official Languages Act or the Inuit Language Protection Act that deals with sign language, according to Nunavut's Languages Commissioner Alexina Kublu.

The department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth provided $80,000 to fund MacDougall's research taking place in 2008 and 2009 after meeting with MacDougall and his focus group in 2006, d'Argencourt said.

"Out of that consultation it was recognized that is was necessary to document the use and history of ISL," she said. "Before materials and anything else could be developed, we needed to document what it was."

On Dec. 6 and 7, MacDougall and members of a focus group used two of Nunavut's communications networks to bring sign language users across the territory together.

"The goal of the demonstration was to show that sign language could be transmitted using the telehealth and the telejustice network from one community to another," he said.

The group is also working toward developing interpreter programs that would train Nunavummiut in both ISL and American Sign language.

Using Nunavut's communications networks and interpreters, sign language users in the territory would have a resource in place to assist them during court proceedings, doctor's visits and other instances.

Teaching sign language in Nunavut's schools is another goal of the group, MacDougall said.

"As part of this process we were able to get a regulation in the Education Act about teaching sign language," he said. "We think curriculum should be developed for that."

The Nunavummi Disabilities Makinnasuaqtiit Society has also been helping to fund the project under the assisted living program through the department of Indian and Northern Affairs, according to executive director Annie Quirke.

Quirke said developing services for Nunavummiut who use sign language is important.

"We just don't have established services for them and that's what this group is trying to do so there is a service that meets their needs," she said.