Three Nunavummiut honoured
Order of Nunavut recipients ask for focus on future generations
Northern News Services
Monday, March 6, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Historian Louie Kamookak, whose research was crucial to the discovery of the HMS Erebus in 2014, artist and filmmaker Ellen Hamilton, who helped found the Qaggiavuut Society, and entrepreneur and former Kugluktuk mayor and MLA Red Pedersen joined the Order of Nunavut Feb. 28.
The Order of Nunavut for 2016 was presented during a ceremony at the Legislative Assembly on Feb. 28. From left are Louie Kamookak, Nellie Kusugak, Ellen Hamilton, Red Pedersen and George Qulaut. - Beth Brown/NNSL photo |
Nunavut Commissioner Nellie Kusugak presented each member with a medal before a certificate-signing ceremony.
Each recipient gave a brief speech, with a common theme of looking towards the future by teaching the youth about their past.
"We as Nunavummiut must work to continue to pass on the knowledge and the culture of our elders to the younger generation," said Kamookak.
He thanked Parks Canada in his speech for their efforts to follow Inuit oral history when searching for the lost Franklin ships, and stressed that oral tradition should be trusted alongside science and technology.
Ellen Hamilton told the audience that it is Northerners' knowledge of their own home that will bring stability to the region.
"The south doesn't have any answers for the North. We have the answers, the people who've lived here all their lives are the only ones with the answers, with the wisdom," she said. "We have people here who are masters and they come up with the best practice for wellness in our communities."
For Hamilton, this means listening to elders.
"If there was anything I ever did that was helpful in any of the projects I ran, it was because I tried to insert something that I had learned from the elders."
These projects ranged from opening a daycare to founding a theater company and working with Inuit men in correctional centres.
She said many of these elders are now gone, but their grandchildren are still here.
"This is our greatest resource- it's not the minerals in the rock or the oil under the sea - it is our youth."
The third recipient, Red Pedersen showed his desire to support the younger generation by bringing along the youngest member of his family, his 38th grandchild Ivy, who was sleeping in her mother's arms when Pedersen received the prestigious medal.
"She is a nod to the future," he said of the baby.
He thanked members present for the honour and noted having been colleagues with parents of current members of the assembly.
"Anytime you are recognized by your peers, that is the greatest honour you can get," he said.
Members of the Order of Nunavut become so for life and the initials ONU can be placed following their names.
The ceremony was televised on community stations across the territory.
