Finding their voices
Arviat group to show Canada the uniqueness of community
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
ARVIAT
With two full meetings under their belt, youths from the Arviat Film Society and John Arnalukjuak High School (JAHS) working on Canada 150: Voices of Nunavut are totally focused on the task at hand.
Ethan Tassiuk and Shelton Nipisar, right, work on translating questions into Inuktitut that the team will ask elders during work on Arviat's contribution to Canada 150: Voices of Nunavut in Arviat this past week. - photo courtesy of Gord Billard |
JAHS is the only Kivalliq school selected to take part in the project, which will help Canada celebrate its 150th birthday with video clips from across the country.
Drama teacher Gord Billard leads the team and said eight solid people showed up for the first team meeting.
He said the eight were paired into four teams before going through a list of questions and preparation instructions to identify the tasks they were going to undertake for the project.
"Everyone received a Tshirt, Canada 150 pin and Canadian flags," said Billard.
"We were given $500 worth of Northern store gift certificates to give to people who participate in the project, and to have a little party when it's completed.
"We decided one thing we're going to do is interview at least six elders, because one of the big things that makes Arviat different from many communities is its focus on language.
"You hear Inuktitut in the streets here more than English, unlike most Nunavut communities."
Billard said the questions include what makes Arviat so special, and what should people remember about the town when they leave?
He said to date, four elders have been interviewed, and the JAHS team also wants to interview a number of students at the high school.
"We're going to do a kind of Street Talk like you see in our popular regional newspaper, with answers of a few words, and also send that into the organizers.
"That should give us a fair idea of what our young people think makes Arviat different, why communities are important, and other questions we were asked to prepare.
"We're focusing on people, what they think about communities, and what they think makes our community special, and we'll fill in the blanks by collecting some B roll from around town that, hopefully, will be used in the video to give people an idea of what it's like to live here.
"We also filmed rehearsals for A Christmas Carol due to our strong theatre tradition of the past 15 years, which also makes Arviat a bit different than other communities."
The Arviat team may try to explore another avenue or two at the last minute, with the deadline for submissions being today, Nov. 30.
Billard said the team wants to produce the best snapshot of Arviat it can for the Canada 150 project.
He said to that end, he's looking at a few more days to work on the project.
"I've been told by the project leader in Iqaluit, Dawn Loney, that she could give us a bit of an extension if we need more time, but we're hoping we won't go too far beyond that.
"We may take up until Dec. 3 to give the kids time on the weekend to go around during the day to collect additional footage."
Billard said one interesting situation emerged from Arviat's work on Voices of Nunavut for the Canada 150 project.
He said while interviewing the elders, the children came across one woman with a
very special interest in the project.
"Joy Suluk remembered the celebration for Canada's 100th birthday back in 1967 and all the "fuss and excitement" that surrounded that celebration.
"So, she was pretty excited to be asked to participate in an activity that celebrated Canada's 150th birthday.
"Joy's been here in Arviat for the country's two big milestone birthdays, so I'm glad we caught her for this project to connect the celebration from 50 years ago.
"The students who are participating in this make up the core of our Arviat Film Society, and they were very excited and eager to take part in the project, which they took ownership of and made it their show."
