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Oct 11, 2023 · Advertising. Surviving among the icebergs of Greenland's Scoresby Sound, one of the toughest and most remote places on the planet, has never been easy. But their unique way of life is now in grave ...
Mar 6, 2018 · 6 March 2018. At the entrance to the world’s largest fjord system, Scoresbysund, lies the small village with the long name Ittoqqortoormiit. Ittoqqortoormiit is home to some 450 Greenlanders who live mainly of fishing and hunting. It is the only settlement in Northeast Greenland, located 500 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
Mar 15, 2024 · How does music and dance reflect the Inuit connection to the environment? Inuit music and dance are deeply influenced by their natural surroundings. The rhythms, melodies, and movements often imitate the sounds and movements of animals, the wind, and the sea.
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What is it like living in Ittoqqortoormiit?
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What is the indigenous music renaissance?
Is the indigenous music renaissance a symptom of cultural change?
East Greenland has some of the most breathtaking surroundings with rigged mountains and deserted-ness. This is very much the case in the area of Ittoqqortoormiit, where isolation is just part of the everyday life. Nonetheless the locals are very friendly and smiling people who love visitors from the outside world, welcoming them with open arms.
- Overview
- Hometown: Iqaluit
- Hometown: Panniqtuuq
- Hometown: Rankin Inlet
Inspired by traditional throat singing and contemporary artists, these musicians offer a modern take on Inuit life.
On April 1, 1999, the world’s attention turned briefly to the Arctic village of Iqaluit. At midnight, as green flickers of the aurora borealis danced across the sky, fireworks exploded into the frigid air. The Inuit of Canada were celebrating the enactment of the Nunavut Agreement, which established their ancestral land—an icy tundra the size of Mexico with just 25,000 inhabitants and almost no industry, roads or other infrastructure—as a self-governing territory. Under those glowing skies, Canadian Inuit embarked on what is still one of the greatest experiments in indigenous autonomy, one that offers a roadmap for other nations seeking to emerge from the dark history of colonization.
Twenty years after the territory’s inauguration, much has changed. Many of the people who fought for sovereign recognition experienced Canada’s notoriously abusive residential school system: Children were spirited away to distant boarding schools, while parents were forced from their traditional nomadic existence into poorly built government housing. Now young people in Nunavut come of age differently, with one foot in traditional culture and the other in the same Instagram feeds as millennials everywhere else.
Self-governance, while a victory, has not erased the obstacles to building a healthy, prosperous Arctic society. The suicide rate of young Inuit men in Nunavut is 40 times the Canadian average; substance abuse is epidemic; households made up of a dozen or more relatives, few of them fully employed, are not uncommon. Structural racism has by no means disappeared.
But the children of Nunavut, now in their twenties and thirties, refuse to be defined by sorrow or oppression. Young musicians have established Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital, as a cultural hotspot, where they perform songs marked by a spirit of self-determination and new, modern takes on Inuit life. One of the groups, the internationally acclaimed Jerry Cans, founded Aakuluk, the first record label based in Nunavut.
Below, a few of these ground-breaking musicians tell, in their own words, the story of Nunavut and of their own struggles and victories.
Josh Q has pioneered an “Arctic soul” sound, belting the blues like he’s from Mississippi but singing of hardships that are specific to Nunavut.
It can be really dark here in winter. But it’s not only the weather—we have a lot of darkness in our lives and a lot of suicide. Last year my buddy took his life. It’s ingrained in so many of us, which is crazy. A lot of my songs are about the dark days in my own life. But I have a song called “Qaumariaq,” which means brighten up, or lighten up. It’s about trying to get away from that darkness. Music has helped me so much; if I don’t play often enough, I feel depressed.
Riit has brought her electropop sounds to the global stage, once performing for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. A survivor of an abusive relationship as a teenager, she’s increasingly using her platform to bring the #MeToo movement to the Arctic.
It’s been really eye-opening for me speaking out and seeing how it makes other people more open and honest about it, too. My generation is not afraid to speak out about what’s wrong. We’re getting pretty good at standing our ground.
Iva blends Celtic-tinged fiddling with throat singing and poetry in her album Ice Lines & Seal Skin.
In Nunavut, the parents of many people my age were born on the land, and almost certainly their grandparents were. Within three generations our way of life has changed forever and that very recent colonial history continues to affect all of us. Still, there is a generational divide—my generation is immersed in the interwebs and has more of a global perspective.
Dec 22, 2005 · Nootka Sounds. In March 1778, British Captain James Cook sailed into Nootka Sound where, he noted in his journal, the Nuu-chah-nulth villagers (on today’s Vancouver Island) greeted them with songs “in which all joined with a very agreeable harmony” (Langlois). Crewmember Lt. James King wrote how the two groups of strangers shared music ...
Feb 21, 2020 · Tanya Tagaq is part of a generation of Indigenous artists making waves in 2014. This piece was originally published in 2014. "My people will sleep for 100 years, but when they awake, it will be ...
