The eternal flames

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Windeyer/Nunatsiaq News

While cities like Vancouver are examining high-efficiency incineration as a way to avoid landfilling, the citizens of Iqaluit, who can’t bury garbage because of permafrost, are finding out that considerably lower-tech and unintended incineration can be a problem. A dump fire that started on Sept. 24 has continued to smoulder for over three weeks. The fire is composed mainly of construction debris, including metal and plastics, and toxic smoke forced the temporary closure of a nearby school after both students and teachers complained of headaches.

After initially trying just to contain the fire at the dump, the local fire department managed to extinguish a large portion of it; the fire is now relegated to a small, isolated area and “burning in a very controlled manner,” fire Chief Walter Oliver told Maclean’s, although there is “still a fair amount of fuel left” and weather conditions will determine how much longer it will burn. There are often small fires that break out at the dump, but high winds on the night of Sept. 24 allowed this one to “get too deep-seated,” says Oliver. The department had limited access to heavy equipment, as the few machines in the town with a population of over 6,000 were already delegated to infrastructure projects.

The Iqaluit dump did practise controlled burning until 2002; the current public works superintendent, Frank Ford, told the Nunatsiaq News that the risk of uncontrolled fires like the current one will remain unless the practice is resumed.

Not fit for employment

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

CP Images

As the business development arm of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, Kitikmeot Corp. was expected to bring economic life to one of the most sparsely populated regions of Nunavut. The company dabbles in everything from real estate development and travel planning to serving the region’s mining industry through road-building and catering. But according to Kitikmeot Corp. president Charlie Lyall, escalating rates of substance abuse among residents, as well as generally low levels of education, is hampering the company’s efforts to deliver work to the region.

“We’re having a hard time finding Inuit educated enough to train,” Lyall said at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association’s annual general meeting earlier this month. It’s a troubling state of affairs given the rapid growth of the mining sector in Canada’s Far North, an industry Kitikmeot Corp. documents identify as the one with “the most potential to provide training and employment opportunities for the Inuit of the Kitikmeot.”

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Canada's shame

By Cathy Gulli with Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Windeyer/Nunatsiaq News

Talk to people living in the North about why the violent crime rate is so high compared to the rest of Canada and you’ll hear about the “complex” or “unique” problems “up here.” But it’s not until you listen to Peter J. Harte, a lawyer in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, tell the unimaginable story of a young woman he knows that you can begin to understand what that means.

At 13, the girl was sexually abused by her brother. This only came to the attention of police when they questioned her about why she was trying to put her little sister into hiding. Her brother wound up in jail, and the teen was placed with a foster family in another community.

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An Arctic accident

By Kathleen Winter - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

REUTERS; PABLO S./ DANNY CATT

To distract my fears when the Clipper Adventurer ran aground on Aug. 27 on an uncharted rock in Nunavut’s Coronation Gulf, I asked on-board geologist Marc St-Onge if he knew what kind of rock it was. As an instructor with the Canadian tour company Adventure Canada, St-Onge had told passengers the history of every rock we had encountered in our expedition through the fabled Northwest Passage. This was a gabbro sill, a submerged version of formations that rose around us onshore. “I think,” he said, “this one will be well charted after this little incident.”

As it turned out, the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen, deployed to rescue us from 500 miles west on the Beaufort Sea, was full of geologists mapping the ocean floor to assess the environmental impact of proposed deepwater drilling. They had barely begun when they got our distress call and found themselves drafted to rescue duty. While they shared their couches and chowder with us, they conducted soundings and began mapping the rock that had until now evaded every Arctic chart leading back to Lord Franklin and beyond. Research team member Steve Blasco told Clipper Adventurer passengers, “You’re part of the charting.”

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One more for the list

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 10:37 PM - 0 Comments

The government of Nunavut opposes the new census.

Peterson said the Nunavut government needs information gleaned from the long form so it can plan how to spend millions of dollars every year on new housing construction. Nunavut has the highest rate of overcrowding — more than one person per bedroom — in the country, at nearly four times the national average.

The census information, Peterson said, helps guide decisions about what kind of housing to build to combat such issues. “To me, that’s valuable information we would have at our fingertips.”

Summer Getaways: The North

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

(Grambo Photography/Corbis)

YUKON TERRITORY
Yukon River Quest (June 30-July 4)
The world’s longest canoe and kayak race brings together paddlers from all over the globe to battle the elements and each other in a 742-km race that follows the same route explored by the gold-seeking prospectors of the 1890s. Except for two rest stops, competitors are in constant race mode. Spectators, on the other hand, can take in the same breathtaking Yukon scenery without the pressure to perform. The race starts at the Whitehorse waterfront, moves along the Yukon River to the Carmacks—an area rich in coal, copper and gold—and wraps up in Dawson City, once the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush, now known for its frontier-style wooden boardwalks, saloons and summer festivals.

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Folk on the Rocks (July 16-18)
This festival has come a long way in the 30 years since founder Rod Russell and his band of folkie go-getters played a small outdoor gig on the shores of Yellowknife’s Frame Lake. Today, the annual event draws visitors and musicians from across the country. Set in a natural amphitheatre on the sandy shores of Long Lake, near Yellowknife, this year’s musical lineup includes Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Justin Rutledge and performances from numerous Aboriginal artists, including Lucie Idlout (see below). Along with the music, crowds can quench their thirst at the beer garden, chow down on a buffalo burger at the food fair, or buy a piece of the local culture in the Art on the Rocks area.

NUNAVUT
Ukkusiksalik National Park
Named after the soapstone found within its boundaries, Ukkusiksalik National Park is located just below the Arctic Circle, on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay. The 22,000-sq.-km park features a 100-km long inlet, eskers, mud flats, cliffs, rolling tundra banks, eight-metre tides, waterfalls, as well as 500 archaeological sites. The parkland is home to bearded and ringed seals, beluga whales, polar bears, caribou, wolves, Arctic foxes and more than 125 different species of birds. Visitors can access the park from Repulse Bay (via Winnipeg), and touring companies offer camping, hiking and sea kayaking expeditions.

To see what Lucie Idlout picks as her favourite spots, go to Where famous Canucks go to play

For more information on events and travel in the Territories, see www.nunavuttourism.com; www.spectacularnwt.com; travelyukon.com

RELATED ARTICLES
Where famous Canucks go to play
Ontario – Sandy beaches, big city sights
Saskatchewan – Look, Up in the sky
New Brunswick – Jazz riffs and tidal raves
Alberta – where to find your inner cowboy
Manitoba – Birdies, belugas and broadway
Newfoundland and Labrador – Enjoy the rocky roads
Prince Edward Island – Swings, sails and celebs
British Columbia – plenty of sights and sounds
Quebec – When the cirque comes to town
The North – An amazing race
Nova Scotia – Taste, the adventure

Hope in a sea of 'globish'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment



Jeff McIntosh / CP

Robert McCrum’s new book, Globish, documents the Internet-fuelled rise of English to become the global language. But the same Internet that seems to endanger the world’s minority tongues may yet turn out to be their salvation. Nunavut, with a population density of one person per 70 sq. km—some 30,000 people scattered across two million sq. km—needs Internet services as much as downtown Toronto. But it wants them in its own language: Inuktitut, a language that, at the time of Nunavut’s founding in 1999, lacked not only software, but even a keyboard that could display its syllabic alphabet.

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Mitchel Raphael on who Harper hugged at the Olympics and Ambrose’s grateful date

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 7 Comments

A wet PM Stephen Harper waited for almost an hour in the cold rain—without an umbrella—to congratulate moguls skier Jennifer Heil, who won Canada’s first Olympic medal at the Vancouver 2010 games. The PM could have waited inside, but chose to remain outdoors. He was with his daughter, Rachel Harper, and in a tender moment explained to her that Heil had done the best she could and won silver. When Heil won a gold medal in Turin in 2006, she came to Ottawa and got to meet Harper in his office. On Saturday night, the PM hugged Heil and said, “I got to see where you work today.” Watching the skiing events for eight hours in the rain was Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose, who brought her mother, Colleen Chapchuk, as her Olympic date.

Chapchuk bought them both matching official Olympic mitts, scarves, and toques. Heil is from Spruce Grove, Alta., which is in Ambrose’s riding. Ambrose is also taking her mother to other events. “She loves figure skating. This is her birthday and Christmas present.” Ambrose scored best-daughter-ever points when she brought her mom to Michaëlle Jean’s reception for heads of state; among the guests were U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and Princess Anne. But the guest everyone wanted photos with was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he arrived, there was an empty seat next to Ambrose’s mom and he plunked himself down beside her.

Photograph by Ron Joyce (Left) and Jason Ransom (Right)

And the medal for best staffer goes to…
Heritage Minister James Moore accompanied the Olympic torch in B.C. as it went through his riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam. Accompanying the minister was his director of communications, Deirdra McCracken. But there was no room in the official torch vehicle (especially with the sponsorship Coca-Cola girls), so she had to run seven kilometres to keep up. “It was a good thing I chose to wear running shoes and not heels that day,” quipped McCracken. At the opening ceremonies, Moore, whose portfolio includes the Olympics, heard a man behind him shout, “Good job!” He turned around and saw that the fellow, who was holding a beer, was Jean Chrétien.

NEW ARRIVAL AT 24 Sussex
Laureen Harper finally got the igloo she’s been wanting at 24 Sussex with the help of David Serkoak, who teaches Inuit culture at the Nunavut Sivuniksavut training program in Ottawa. He was recommended to her by Inuit leader Mary Simon. Mrs. Harper and a few of her friends were the igloo-building assistants; it took the team about four hours to complete the project. The snow was icy and difficult to carve: “We were going to do something bigger but the snow wasn’t right,” said Mrs. Harper. They used a saw and a knife that Serkoak made himself to carve out the blocks. “David was amazing with his knife, and once he was finished he was entombed in his creation and he dug from the inside and we dug from the outside and we created a door at the bottom,” noted Mrs. Harper. The plan now is to furnish the igloo with seal and caribou skins along with a dog sleigh. While building the igloo, Serkoak told the team stories about surviving in the North. His family spent their winters in an igloo until 1961. Farley Mowat wrote about the area he is from, which is west of Hudson Bay, in his book People of the Deer.

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That, and they look kind of silly, TV to the rescue and Semi-naked ambition

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 29, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 3 Comments

That, and they look kind of silly
Russian champion ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin wowed European judges with their program based on Australian Aboriginal music and dress, but they face an uncertain welcome at Olympic competition in Vancouver. Their costumes, dark-toned bodysuits decorated with paint, eucalyptus leaves and red loincloths, have enraged Australian Aboriginal leaders. Spokesmen for the four Olympic host First Nations in B.C. have already said they want to meet with the skaters to discuss issues of cultural sensitivity.

Dream job
The photo of sleeping Toronto Transit Commission fare collector George Robitaille has become, it must be said, the sleeper hit of the Internet. Since the picture taken by Jason Wieler was posted online and then displayed on the front of Friday’s Toronto Sun, Photoshoppers have had a field day with the “TTC Sleeper”: having him nap with Homer Simpson at the Springfield nuclear plant, inserting him into the iconic painting of the Last Supper, replacing his head with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s. Robitaille blamed medication for a heart procedure and said he was sorry if he embarrassed his fellow workers and the TTC.

Every Rose has his thorn
Has Axl Rose taken his feud with ex-bandmate Slash to a new level? The gossip site TMZ reports fans attending a Guns N’ Roses concert in Regina last Wednesday were told by security to turn Slash T-shirts inside out, and to leave his signature top hats outside. Later, Rose’s camp issued a denial that any sort of apparel was banned. Still, there’s bad blood aplenty. When Slash recently floated the idea of an earthquake relief fundraiser, an angry Rose twittered: “Pretty low n’ selfish usin’ the devastation in Haiti 2 start (false) reunion rumors.”

Lost, and found
David Idlout has a missing snowmobile and a big satellite phone bill, but odds are he won’t complain. The Inuit hunter from Resolute, Nunavut, spent almost four days on a crumbling ice floe drifting toward the Northwest Passage. He’d set out to retrieve a snowmobile that broke down while he was scouting for seals when the floe broke away from the ice pack. He used a satellite phone to reach his wife, who called search and rescue. A military plane dropped supplies, but equipment problems and bad weather delayed the rescue by a helicopter crew from CFB Greenwood, N.S., until Monday.

Tinker, Taylor, diplomat, spy
Those Austin Powers-style glasses should have been a clue. Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, was hailed as a hero for sheltering six Americans in his official residence after they avoided capture when militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Now it turns out Taylor’s role went far beyond smuggling the Americans out of Iran in 1980 on false Canadian passports. He also spied for the Americans, gathering intelligence for a planned U.S. rescue of hostages trapped in the U.S. Embassy, according to Our Man in Tehran, a new book by Robert Wright. Taylor served “as the de facto CIA station chief in Tehran,” says Wright. “It was extremely dangerous work,” he writes.
TV to the rescue
American network medical correspondents, at least those who are also certified doctors, have pulled double duty while covering the earthquake in Haiti. Dr. Nancy Snyderman of NBC treated a man with an infection, trying to keep him alive until a necessary amputation could be performed. And CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, treated several patients, even operating to remove debris fragments from a 12-year-old girl’s brain. “Yes, I am a reporter,” he said, “but a doctor first.” In a different vein, actor and Scientologist John Travolta, another camera-friendly face, underwrote the cost of a plane to Haiti, staffed with food, medics and 80 volunteer Scientology ministers to assist with “spiritual first aid”—and maybe administer some of those personality tests.
Maybe Don Cherry can make peace
Ron MacLean is supposed to be the reasonable half of the Hockey Night in Canada tag team. But his Jan. 16 attack on Vancouver Canuck forward Alex Burrows inspired the entire team to boycott CBC on-air interviews last Saturday night. MacLean accused Burrows of being a chronic diver to draw penalties, and discredited Burrows’s claim that referee Stéphane Auger threatened to take revenge on Burrows for making him look stupid with a previous call. MacLean declined to apologize, so when Vancouver hammered the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 last Saturday, none of the three stars, Canucks Roberto Luongo, Henrik Sedin and Ryan Kesler, would be interviewed. It’s not clear if they’ll carry their boycott to Toronto on Saturday, when they play the Leafs as part of CBC’s Hockey Day in Canada.
A Cardinal? A Padre? Nope, a priest.
Outfielder Grant Desme was a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, with a solid reputation as a home-run hitter despite a plague of injuries. But Desme is aiming higher than the outfield fence. Last week the 23-year-old announced he was quitting baseball to enter a Catholic seminary. He now sees his injuries as “blessings” that helped sort out his priorities. His theological studies will take about 10 years, he says. “I desire and hope I become a priest.” The sudden career change is a bit, he added, like “re-entering the minor leagues.”
Semi-naked ambition
Senator-elect Scott Brown arrived in Washington carrying the weight of Republican expectations, but perhaps not so many clothes. Brown, who toppled the Massachusetts Democrat dynasty of the late senator Ted Kennedy, famously posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine as a law student in 1982. His equally photogenic wife, Gail Huff, strutted in and out of a microscopic black bikini in a 1984 music video. The leaked images only helped his cause with voters. Also generating bipartisan interest among Americans is a skin-intensive Internet photo of Brown’s bikini-clad daughters Ayla and Arianna—though calling them “available” during his acceptance speech was a bit over the top. “I want a chastity belt on this man,” said right-wing broadcaster Glenn Beck. “I want his every move watched in Washington. This one could end with a dead intern,” he said, cryptically.
And for his 21st, a small country
Rapper Sean “Did­dy” Combs has set a scary new standard for 16-year-old birthday bashes. He rented a hot New York bar for his son Justin Dior’s party and invited 1,000 friends. Guests included cast members from Jersey Shore and performances from the likes of Lil’ Kim and Trey Songz. MTV cameras filmed the event for an episode of My Super Sweet 16. As for prezzies, they included US$10,000, and a chauffeur-driven Maybach car worth $360,000. In a classy move, Justin donated the cash to Haitian earthquake relief.
Local hero
Li Shiming was a much unloved Communist party official in Xiashuixi, China, who used corruption and hired thugs to grow rich and hold power. When he was stabbed to death in 2008, the village set off fireworks in celebration. But last Wednesday his admitted killer, Zhang Xuping, 19, was sentenced to death. Zhang was paid about $150 to do the killing by a farmer whose land was stolen by Li. A petition of 20,000 signatures asking for leniency was ignored during sentencing. Zhang’s lawyer has filed an appeal. “I wanted to kill Li myself,” said one villager, “but I was too weak.”
All the news  that fits, in a D cup
The New York Times has admitted it did Mad Men star Christina Hendricks wrong. Its fashion writer had said of the low-cut, ruffled gown Hendricks wore to the Golden Globe awards: “You don’t put a big girl in a big dress.” It compounded the sin with a photo that made her even more voluptuous than the reality. It later conceded the photo was distorted “due to an error during routine processing.” No word, though, about its swipe at the “big,” all-natural Hendricks, though several siliconed starlets escaped a similar slagging.
Vlad the paler
Russian PM Vladimir Putin may be the very image of a macho man of action, but it wasn’t always so, says Tatyana Yumasheva, the daughter of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Yumasheva, a former presidential aide, says in her increasingly popular blog that Putin was nervous and “troubled” when Yeltsin said unexpectedly he would hand over power to him on New Year’s Eve in 1999. “It was not easy for Putin to become accustomed to the thought that in two days the responsibility for the whole country would be on his shoulders,” she says. Yumasheva may be building her profile for a return to politics. She is almost certainly enraging Russia’s most powerful man.
Trouble down under
Tennis phenom and clothing designer Venus Williams came close to stepping over the line at the Australian Open this week, but it wasn’t her feet at fault. It seemed that Williams had broken the event’s prohibition against revealing clothing by playing in a low-cut outfit without underwear. Closer examination by, oh, about every male tennis fan on earth proved she was more modestly dressed than first impressions indicated. “My dress for the Australian Open has been one of my best designs ever,” she said. “It’s all about the slits and V-neck. I am wearing undershorts the same colour as my skin, so it gives the slits in my dress the full effect!” Play on.

No way to treat a dog

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 11 Comments

When Carla Baker’s dog got sick a few years ago, she knew it was serious. Atuli, a 14-year-old husky, was suffering from bloat, a painful contusion of the gut, which, if left untreated, can cause the stomach to rupture. So Baker, who was living in Nunavut, where there are no veterinarians, called an animal hospital in Ottawa. But when the vet learned it would take days—not hours—for Atuli to reach an animal hospital, “her tone changed,” Baker recalls. “She told me that I had to put him down immediately.” Baker, now 29, became hysterical. “I didn’t want him to be shot,” she says. “But it had to be done.”

Baker is not alone. Despite the fact that Nunavut has a staggering concentration of dogs—a 2007 survey found that in Iqaluit, there were nearly half as many canines as the city’s 7,000 people—there is not a single veterinarian. The lack of access to sterilization has led to overpopulation, and euthanasia (by gun) is seen as a necessary evil to control numbers and disease. Common illnesses, easily preventable with vaccination, often run rampant. In Iqaluit, a recent outbreak of canine parvovirus, which leads to vomiting, diarrhea and possibly death, prompted council to pass an emergency measure: unclaimed strays could be destroyed by bylaw officers after 12 hours, rather than the standard 72. Says Janine Budgell, who runs the territory’s only humane society, in Iqaluit, “People don’t know how under-resourced we are, and how primitive the measures [that are used].”

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It happens to the best of us

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 1:43 PM - 10 Comments

David Akin, National Post, August 18. But the day wasn’t without a snag. A release from the PMO spelled the Nunavut capital as Iqualuit — rather than the proper Iqaluit. The extra ‘u’ makes an Inuktitut word that translates roughly, according to media reports, to “people with unwiped bums.” The typo was later corrected.

Rudyard Griffiths, National Post, September 8. Having recently returned from two weeks on Baffin Island I am struck by the profound disconnect between this summer’s Arctic chest-thumping by our professional political class and the realities of life in the far North. For starters you can’t visit a town such as Iqualuit (population 7,000) and not question the sustainability of large-scale human settlement along the Arctic Circle.

He doesn't believe any taxes are good taxes

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 24, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 34 Comments

Except maybe for those taxes that pay for cool stuff like this. (Video courtesy of David Akin.)

So what was that all about?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 24, 2009 at 1:44 AM - 57 Comments

The Nunatsiaq News calls it “the most expensive photo op you’ll ever see.”

Torch blogger Mark Collins laments the “jingoistic nonsense” of it all.

And then there is what our own Andrew Coyne wrote. A year ago.

In fact, Canada’s Arctic sovereignty is getting along just fine, thank you. For all the emphasis the Conservatives have placed on it — “use it or lose it,” in Harper’s famous formulation — and for all the reams of hyperventilating, the-Russians-are-coming reportage it has received in the media, no one is actually threatening to invade Canada’s frozen North. Neither is there much dispute over Canada’s territorial waters — the ribbon of sea along our coast, 200 nautical miles wide, that international law acknowledges as ours. Even the much bolder claim we have lately advanced to the waters beyond the 200-mile limit, reaching as far as the North Pole, is for the most part uncontested…

It can’t hurt our case, and may help, if we bolster our physical presence in the North. Certainly we should hope that the Arctic spoils are divided by something resembling a legal process, rather than by military force or international free-for-all. And there are good reasons — environmental, security — why it would be in everybody’s interest for Canada to continue to police the passage. But on its merits, the question of Arctic sovereignty would not seem to warrant anything like the attention it has received from this government.

It does, however, serve an important political objective — namely, as part of the Conservatives’ efforts to rebrand themselves as the Canada Party, or perhaps to redefine Canada itself: to devise an alternative language and symbology of patriotism to the one so successfully exploited over the years by the Liberals.

Stephen Harper takes brave stand against vegetarianism

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:14 AM - 46 Comments

Having sampled seal, the Prime Minister will now eat only that. And is forcing his eating habits on others.

Harper arrived in Iqaluit, Nunavut on Monday night with a planeload of the cabinet ministers that sit on cabinet’s Priorities and Planning Committee. P&P held a meeting in Iqaluit Tuesday. At lunch, at Harper’s request, cabinet was served a menu of boiled and raw seal livers and ribs.

On Wednesday, as he bantered with reporters aboard the HMCS Toronto while sailing on Frobisher Bay, Harper noted that even Transport Minister John Baird, a vegetarian, tried some seal meat at lunch. ”I’m tired of John’s vegetaranism,” Harper joked.

But lunch on Tuesday did not, apparently, quench Harper’s appetite for seal. For dinner Wednesday, Harper requested seal steaks and encouraged his staff to try a bit. We have been told that journalists travelling with the prime minister this week — I’m one of them — will see seal in some form or another on the menu Thursday.

Today, we are all poor spellurs

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 6:03 PM - 98 Comments

CBC reprints an e-mail distributed by PMO implicating almost everyone in that inadvertent reference to improper hygiene. Note that our Kady is nearly identified as her own independent media outlet.

Stephen Harper eats seal. Or something.

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 5:50 PM - 29 Comments

Perhaps to stifle today’s fevered speculation, the Prime Minister’s Office has released the official portrait of Stephen Harper and various cabinet ministers eating what they claim to be seal meat. But, wait, Vic Toews, Peter MacKay, Lawrence Cannon and Lisa Raitt don’t appear to be joining in the feast. Scandal!

Wimps?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 5:22 PM - 5 Comments

More from David Akin.

Just in: PM & cabinet eating seal ribs and liver, both raw and boiled. First time PM has eaten seal. Sadly – no photos!

'People with unwiped bums'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 12:17 PM - 53 Comments

The Prime Minister’s team learns that spelling is hard. And important.

An unfortunate blunder by the Prime Minister’s Office has residents of Nunavut alternately chuckling and cringing. A news release sent out Monday outlined Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s itinerary as he began a five-day tour of the North.

The release repeatedly spelled the capital of Nunavut as Iqualuit — rather than Iqaluit. The extra “u” makes a world of difference in the Inuktitut language.

Iqaluit, properly spelled, means “many fish.” Spelled with an extra “u,” the Nunavut language commissioner’s office says the word translates as a derogatory reference to “people with unwiped bums.”

The Prime Minister’s Office calls to say they’ve corrected the mistake on the PM’s website and note that various media outlets have published the same error—including, well, this one. “So hopefully our collective typos … will help better inform all of us to not make the same mistake twice,” says Dimitri Soudas, Mr. Harper’s press secretary.

Never mind all that

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 29, 2009 at 12:43 PM - 2 Comments

Doug Saunders suggests all that blustery talk of The North is a bunch of hooey.

In fact, it is emerging that the North never really has been a major part of the Canadian identity. A more accurate representation was outlined two years before Confederation by British Liberal leader and future prime minister William Gladstone. He stood in the House of Commons, during an 1865 debate about whether to grant semi-independence to the colony, and dismissed Canada glibly as a “long and comparatively thin strip of occupied territory between the States on one side, and the sterility of pinching winter on the other.”

Lawrence Cannon carries on undaunted.

Summer Travel '09: The North

By Brian Banks - Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 8:55 AM - 1 Comment

Nunavut

Auyuittuq National Park, Nunavut Auyuittuq, Inuktitut for “land that never melts,” is a national wonder. It’s home to the meeting point of glaciers and sea ice, the Canadian Shield’s highest mountains, and coastal fjords leading to a unique marine shoreline. Visitors can scale the park’s craggy peaks, ski across its icefields, and hike 100 km through the Akshayuk Pass—a walk the Inuit have been making for thousands of years. Located in the eastern Arctic on Baffin Island, Auyuittuq National Park is the perfect gateway to the Arctic experience.

Alianait Arts Festival, Nunavut During the 10 longest days of the year, the Alianait Arts Festival starts early and carries on through the night underneath the midnight sun. This year’s festival will be drawing people from all over the world to participate in art, music, film, storytelling, circus, dance and theatre events. The theme is Arctic winds, and will incorporate such wide-ranging acts as Brazilian drummers, traditional Inuit bands, Canadian folk stars and an African/Québécois circus troupe. The festival takes place in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, on Baffin Island near the mouth of the cliff-lined Frobisher Bay. It is an experience rich in tradition, beauty, and diversity. Continue…

How's this for an encore?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 11:26 PM - 6 Comments

The Governor General is going on a seal hunt.