Community freezer renamed in honour of founder Max Winters

An Inuit group in Labrador is paying tribute to the man who created a way for elders to access country food.

NunaKatiget Inuit Community Corporation has renameda community freezer in Happy Valley-Goose Bay for Max Winters, who founded the project 10 years ago.

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It became the Max Winters Memorial Community Freezer at NunaKatiget'sannual meeting Tuesday.

'A wonderful legacy'

"It's a wonderful legacy to have of your parent," Marlene Wheeler, one of Winters's daughters, told CBC's Labrador Morning.

"It just goes, I think, to show [his] dedication and the respect that others had for him and the work that he did."

Another of Winters's daughters, Leanne Hill, sits on the NunaKatiget board her father used to head.

"We've gone fromhaving not just wild meat but also now there's vegetables that are grown locally," she said.

"This was something that he had dreamed up and brought it all to life and it's just flourishing."

Project impact

The freezer project in Happy Valley-Goose Bay feeds about 100 seniors every month, according to Hill.

The initiative has since expanded to Nunatsiavut's five communities: Hopedale, Postville, Rigolet, Makkovik and Nain.

Stock is seasonal and can varyfrom locally harvested moose, seal, partridge, char, cod and berries the kinds of foodmany elders would have grown up fishing, hunting, and collecting themselves.

"He knew that was important because that was the way of life," Hill said.

The idea, she said, mostly came from his "understanding as an elder who didn't have the physical capability that he would have had before his illness."

Wintersdied in 2015.

He was awarded the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2007 for his involvement with sports and was inducted into the province's Volunteer Hall of Fame in 2012.