Nunavut turns 20: Reflections on the capital's close ties with the North

As Nunavut marks its 20th anniversary, the significance oftoday's milestone will be felt particularly stronglyhere in Ottawa.

• 'We've done good': Nunavummiut see progress, more work as territory turns 20
• FROM THE ARCHIVES: The creation of Nunavut

Outside of the three territories, Canada's capital is home to the largest Inuit community in the country.

The city is an important hub for Nunavummiut as residents of the territory are known with flights between Iqaluit and Ottawa, health services that provide more comprehensive care than what's available up north, and the headquarters of advocacy organizations like Inuit TapiriitKanatami (ITK).

It's perhaps also no surprise thatthe Nunavut flag went up at Ottawa City Hall on Friday.

"It's the directness with transportation. It's the ... social, economic and political structures that are needed to service Inuit," said AlyssaFlaherty-Spence, the president of the board of directors for the Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre (OICC) and alegal policy advisor to ITK.

"Medical treatment, health care professionals, education those are some of the things that I would say are not [as available] in the North. And I think that is an important part of where Canada should be investing."

Here are the reflectionsof three people who have one foot in Nunavut and the other in the nation's capital.

Maggie Qillaq

Maggie Qillaqdoesn't get to return home that often, but when she does, it's visceral.

"It's the fresh air, the crisp air. There's no trees where I come from. You can see forever," says Qillaq, who moved from Pond Inlet to Ottawa in the early 2000s, a few years after the territory came into being.

It took some adjusting to get used to life in the city,from handling the hot summersto figuring out public transit.

But Qillaq says that having a decent-sized Inuit population, with the resulting support networks, certainly helped.

"[In] Inuit culture, people in general are very close and connected. And when you come here, it can feel so lonely if you don't know anybody," she says.

Fluent in both English andInuktitut, Qillaq is now working on a project with the OICC, recordingstories from the predominantly monolingual elders living in the nation's capital so that they can be shared and preserved.

She says Monday is a "day to celebrate" and has her own hopes for the territory's next 20 years.

"I'm hoping for the future of Nunavutthat mental health services and medical services are more available within the territory that [people]should not have to leave the territory to seek these services," she said.

"That alone can be traumatizing."

Radha Jetty

When Dr. Radha Jetty speaks Inuktitut to her patients, they're sometimes left a bit stunned.

Jetty is a pediatrician at CHEO, eastern Ontario's children's hospital, andheads up the hospital's Inuit child health program.

Those responsibilities mean she's spenta fair bit of time in the north particularly in the capital Iqaluit, where she lived and worked for four years,and in Igloolik, which she visitstwice annually to conduct general clinics.

• Inuk boy's wish to fly grandparents to Ottawa for visit comes true

"They don't expect to see Inuktitut, I think, flowing out of my mouth!" said Jetty.

"But it's the most effective thing that I think I've done to try to prove myself to prove that I'm someone to be trusted."

That lack of trust, Jetty says, stems from Canada's "strong history of colonization" in the North.

And it can be a hard thing for doctors, especially ones starting their careers, to deal with.

Even those with the best of intentions can still face difficult ethical dilemmas,particularly when a child has to be separated from their parents for long-term medical treatment in Ottawa.

Doctors need to know history, culture 'to do our job well,' pediatrician says

6 years ago

Duration 0:59

Radha Jetty, a pediatrician at CHEO, heads up the hospital's Inuit child health program and says an understanding of history and culture is vital in providing proper care.

"If you don't invest the time in understanding the history of what the Inuit people of Canada have experienced especially when it comes to colonization I think you'll be missing a lotin terms of how to provide care that is safe and culturally sensitive," she said.

"I can't believe that it's been 20 years already. In some ways, it seems so short. But in other ways it also seems so long."

CecileLyall

Cecile Lyall always figured that, sooner or later, she'd end up in Ottawa.

The Taloyoak, Nunavut resident is in her third year of studies with Nunavut Sivuniksavut (NS), which gives young students from the North an academicgrounding in Inuit history, culture and politics.

• College program to encourage growth of Inuit in Nunavut government

"Growing up I knew quite a few alumni from NS, so I always knew that I was gearing toward Ottawa," Lyall said.

"My older sister attended, and she would always talk about how it's really shaped her as a person, and the positive impacts it has had on her life."

Lyallbegan the Inuit studies programin 2012, and then after a few years in Winnipeg returned to Ottawa to begin the Academic and Career Development Program, a university certificate program run in collaborationwith Carleton University.

She said she now experiences a form of "reverse culture shock" when she heads home.

It's particularly sharp, she said,when it comes to Nunavut's housing crisisand the sense that substandard housing conditions have become "normalized" in the territory.

"I like to think about it as, you can't see a mountain from the top. You need to walk away and come to the side and really get a clear understanding," Lyall said.

Even so, with the territory turning 20,Lyall's reflecting on the pace of cultural and political change.

"In the very recent past, our grandparents, our parents were sent to residential schools. And they had no hunting rights. And then now, we come to today, and my generation [has the] NunavutLand Claims Agreement. We have boards set up to help co-manage the land with Inuit and different governments and companies," she said.

"It's kind of amazing to think that it's only been 20 years. The growth of the people and the territory as a whole has come so far."