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Inuvik
Organizers of Inuvik's Great Northern Arts Festival (GNAF) are breathing sighs of relief after the event was approved for funding through the Canada Council for the Arts, though the amount it will be receiving is lower than last year.

"The initial news from Canada Council was that we were highly recommended for funding, but they were not able to fund due to lack of funding on their part," said Sasha Webb, executive director of the festival,

However, festival organizers were told by Canada Council that it would be put under revision, which led to the eventual reversal in the decision and the festival will now receive approximately $25,000, down $5,000 from last year.

"The process to obtain project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts is a competitive one. As such, there is no guarantee that artists and arts organizations who received grants in the past will continue to be awarded grants each year," Gerri Trimble, acting co-ordinator for the Inter-arts office with Canada Council, stated via e-mail. "After competitions, we actively seek financial resources within the organization to fund highly recommended applicants as a regular part of our work. In this case, we are very pleased that there were funds available that could be used to support the Great Northern Art Festival."

The festival has been receiving grants from Canada Council for at least the last 15 years, said Webb, although she was unsure if they had ever been denied before.

Grants change often with Canada Council, she said, adding programs and amounts shift. The program that the festival is most eligible for, the Project Grant for Organizations, has fewer dollars available. In 2011 the festival received the full $30,000 available through the program. This year, it was only offered $25,000.

"The amount we will receive is slightly less than the $25,000, but because we were highly recommended, Canada Council was able to move things around after the year end," said Webb. "It is great, great news."

To be highly recommended for a program within the Canada Council is a process on its own. Trimble stated that peer assessors will evaluate and recommend applications for funding, however program budgets are limited and not all projects can be supported with funding.

"This is what is meant by "highly recommended' status - the peer assessment committee would have recommended funding for the project immediately if it had been possible," stated Trimble.

"We are really lucky to have excellent support from the regional Industry Tourism and Investment, the Inuvialuit regional corporation and the Gwich'in Tribal Council. We consult with all of these bodies on a regular basis and they would help us if we were in a dire situation," said Webb.

The Canada Council for Arts did not lose funding in the federal budget when it was presented on March 29.

"The government's decision to maintain the Council's funding gives us the opportunity to independently take actions that will generate savings that we can reinvest back into the professional arts sector," Robert Sirman, president and CEO of the Canada Council, stated in a press release. "It will also enable us to ensure our programs continue to be relevant, cost-effective and responsive to the changing needs of the community."

With the 25th anniversary for GNAF around the bend in 2013, the half-a-million-dollar festival knows that nothing is a guarantee. In order to last this long, flexibility and changes must be taken into consideration every year.

When the festival first started in 1988, there were between 20 and 30 artists attending on average, now it boasts approximately 75 artists every year.

Plans for the anniversary festival include making GNAF a circumpolar festival.

"We want to bring artist from Greenland, Russia, Alaska, and of course, the territories across the North. It will be bigger and better, that has really been the goal for a long time," said Webb. "There have been hard times in the past and the board has really worked hard to put plans in place to scale back or ramp things up as money allows. The budget changes a lot over the years. Within our past 24 years, there have been huge ups and downs, but it has steadily been on the up and up for many years now."

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