Camp provides a tool to strengthen ties
Three generations will work together on the land
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 14, 2014
KITIKMEOT
This year, the Kitikmeot Heritage Society and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association (KIA) have joined forces to organize a camp July 21 to 28 that will bring together six participants from each of the region's communities - Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Kugaaruk, Kugluktuk, Taloyoak and Ulukhaqtuuq.
"The heritage society has been running camps off and on for several years but since 2009 it's happened every single summer," said Brendan Griebel, executive director for the society.
Camps have focused on such areas as building a kayak - from hunting the seal to the construction of the traditional vessel - the use of fish skin for clothing, among others.
And from a KIA perspective, the on-the-land camps serve an important, active role in the lives of all generations
"Not only for youth, but for the middle generation, for those that have lost their language and their culture, it's very important," said Julia Ogina, programs coordinator with KIA.
"But also for the elders who, as they get elderly, start reflecting on what is it they are leaving behind. A lot of elders have said in the past that our language and our culture is dying. It's not as strong, it's not as fluent.
"From comments like that we've started to design programs and projects to regain, to revitalize, to enhance language and culture."
The camp is located on the coastline outside Cambridge Bay, near the gravel pit, at what is now referred to by elders as Qainniurvik in honour of the kayak building that took place at the camp in 2009.
Ogina explained that partnering will help to achieve many organizations' similar goals.
Partnering makes sense, she said, "not only because of the dwindling dollars towards programs, but more so to have a better outcome in reaching our goals.
"From the elders' perspective, from the communities' perspective, we're all working toward the same goals - wellness, identity, strengthening our culture and our language - from many facets, but it's clear we're not working together as much as we should be."
Organizers put out a call to each community, requesting that anyone with skills to teach or a desire to learn send in applications.
The hope was that each community would be represented by two elders, two middle-aged adults and two youth - one female and one male in each generation.
There were many applications, said Ogina. Though it turned out that some communities had more elders applying or more middle-aged or younger people, the goal of the camp remained in the choosing of applicants - which was how knowledge transfer occurs through the generations and genders.
"Who can be teaching and who can be learning, who will assist the men, who will assist the women, whose roles and responsibilities get passed on," she said.
There will be 30 participants at the camp, as well as people from the host community of Cambridge and staff from KIA and the heritage society.
"We have five main projects that we're gathering knowledge around," said Griebel.
Participants will be sharing knowledge about traditional amulet use, how they were made and how they were used, as well as using fish weirs, building them and fishing at them.
"We're collecting knowledge about qulliq making and using qulliq, all the tools associated with them and all the names the different pieces collected for them and all the names of the actions around them."
One big component of the camp will be about drumdancing and ajaya songs.
"We're trying to pull together a regional database of drumdance knowledge, figuring out what songs are known in which communities and which types of performance."
Griebel says the heritage society is trying to figure out how the songs and drumdancing can tie into language revitalization.
"So we're doing a lot of work around drumdancing this year, and songs - looking at ways to bring those into the school system," he said.
Finally, there will be a seal-hunting component.
"We'll be looking at how the meat is divided, the names for relationships around dividing meat, all the names of the tools."
Griebel explained that all the work the society does feeds into other society projects, which are numerous.
"We're really trying to gather as much knowledge as we can about these topics."
For Ogina, a camp like this is a good example of her thinking about community.
"If you look at the make-up of the community, everybody has a function to keep the community strong, thriving, to the best of their ability. Together they create a beautiful community.
"And the result is, the family unit, the individual, the kids, the youth, the women, the men, the elders, they all thrive based on what each individual in the community does to create a healthy community."
Ogina offers herself as an example of another practical aspect of the camp - how future teachers are made.
"I'm middle-aged. There are people older than me that I learned from. Twenty years ago, I could not see myself doing things like this.
"But I started getting involved and, now, there's a younger generation and if we keep our culture alive and well through camps like this, they learn the ropes of running programs."
