IQALUIT, Nunavut — P.J. Akeeagok was a teenager in a tiny hamlet on the tip of Ellesmere Island, watching with anticipation when Nunavut was officially born. Twenty-five years later, he is the premier of Canada's youngest territory.
IQALUIT, Nunavut — P.J. Akeeagok was a teenager in a tiny hamlet on the tip of Ellesmere Island, watching with anticipation when Nunavut was officially born."There was so much excitement, so much optimism in the air,” Akeeagok recalls of the time around April 1, 1999, when the map of Canada was redrawn to carve Nunavut out of the eastern half of the old Northwest Territories.
The creation of Nunavut -- which means"Our land" in Inuktitut -- was part of a land claim settlement, the first major change to Canada’s map since Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation in 1949. It extends from the 60th parallel to the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, about one-fifth of Canada's land mass.
Solomon Awa remembers he was out hunting in Pond Inlet, a small community on northern Baffin Island, when the territory came into existence six years later. Once the hunt was over, the impact of what was going on started to sink in.A quarter century later he is the mayor of Iqaluit, the territory’s capital city. A lot has changed in that time, Awa says, including rapid growth.Nunavut’s population, about 85 per cent Inuit, has been steadily increasing.
Awa’s brother Simon was Nunavut's chief negotiator of devolution. The mayor says their family faced many hardships, but their elders always instilled wisdom that pushed many of his siblings to serve the people of the territory. That future does not come without challenge. Both leaders say housing in the territory is at a crisis.
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