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The Rover •

Nunavik Police Get a Pay Raise Amid Community Concerns – The Rover

Every police officer in Nunavik, from rookie to veteran, is getting an approximately $30,000 pay raise this year.

That means officers in the Nunavik Police Service (NPS) will go from being among the lowest-paid regional police in Quebec to among the highest.

With officers who patrol Quebec’s 14 Inuit villages about to see a massive increase in compensation, activists in Nunavik point to the waning trust between the communities and police. Four Inuit have been killed during police interventions since Nov. 2024, and people in the territory say more efforts should be made to mend that relationship.
The Link Newspaper •

The perfect storm of ‘catastrophic’ potholes | News

The first month of the year in Montreal was marked by unploughed streets, frozen sidewalks and potholes large enough to give the new mayor, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, two flat tires.

Meanwhile, Montreal's blue-collar workers went on strike on Feb. 4, and nearly a fourth of the specialized vehicles required for these services have broken down. The new administration is now pivoting to patch the holes.
Nunatsiaq News •

Kinngait carver Koomuatuk Sapa Curley exhibits work in Montreal

Kinngait artist Koomuatuk Sapa Curley’s new body of work explores the Inuit understanding of animism — the belief that all natural things have a soul or spiritual essence — through lifelike carvings.

Curley arrived at the opening of his art exhibition Jan. 29 at La Guilde gallery in Montreal by pulling the final touches of his project — walrus tusks and a flying owl — out of his pockets.
Nunatsiaq News •

Air Inuit’s Montreal-Kuujjuaq route plagued by continued delays

Since taking on the Montreal-Kuujjuaq route from Canadian North four months ago, Air Inuit has faced consistent delays the airline says are caused by “complex scheduling realities” and climate change.

Isabelle Gordon says she was going home to Kuujjuaq on Nov. 28 from a work trip in Montreal. She got to the airport at 7:45 a.m. for the 9:30 a.m. departure time for the daily Air Inuit flight that services the biggest community in Nunavik.
The Rover •

Becoming Ballers: How Nunavik’s Youth Built a Community Around Basketball – The Rover

Over 90 boys from Nunavik line up in front of the backboard at the Great Whale River Triple Gymnasium.

They’re in the middle of a free-throw competition. They have two attempts to make the throw; if not, they’re eliminated.

Seventeen-year-old Salluit athlete Nicolas Cameron steps up to the line. He is sporting his Ray-Ban glasses indoors, his white T-shirt draped over his shoulders like a cape, headphones in his ears, wired in, eyes focused on the rim. The gymnasium is loud with screams of encouragement, but also with those trying to psych out Cameron.
Nunatsiaq News •

Nunavik’s ‘political dissidents’ remain opposed to JBNQA

Puvirnituq is Nunavik’s only community that has not signed the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement that some consider Canada’s first modern treaty. And the political group behind the dissidence lives on, remaining at the forefront of the village’s mindset, 50 years after the treaty.

Puvirnituq elder Harry Tulugak has been a consistent voice, advocating for the ideals promoted by Inuit Tungavingat Nunamini, the political group that refused to sign the JBNQA.
Nunatsiaq News •

Looking back to see what comes next with Charlie Watt

In the early 1970s, Charlie Watt and Zebedee Nungak, two young Inuit, attended an Indian Quebec Association meeting. There, they were discussing how the Crees could take on the government of Quebec, which was building a hydroelectric dam on their land.

“We were not necessarily welcomed,” Watt said in an interview. When he and Nungak were participating in the meeting, the Indian Quebec Association lawyers were reacting to what they were saying. Eventually, Watt and Nungak were asked to leave.
CIM Magazine •

North star

In the early 1990s, Charlie Arngak, the then mayor of Kangiqsujuaq, an Inuit community in Nunavik, Quebec, took a stance for his people by travelling to Toronto to meet the CEO of Falconbridge, a Canadian mining company that was looking into mining nickel in the region at the time. What came of that initiative was a groundbreaking agreement that, 30 years later, remains world-class at improving relationships between mining corporations and Indigenous communities.
Nunatsiaq News •

‘Fear of heights is not a thing’ for Inukjuak climbers

Samwillie Tullaugak and Daniel Samisack found their passion for rock climbing during a class in Inukjuak. With fellow climber Audrey Haché, they convinced the municipality to provide funding to create a climbing cliff.

Within two years, in August 2022, Haché and her group created the Inukrock Climbers Club. Where Tullaugak and Samisack have become climbing animators, hosting climbing events in Inukjuak and at bigger hills down south.
Nunatsiaq News •

Nunavik Police Service aims to reinvent itself with funding increase

The Nunavik Police Service hopes to reinvent the way it serves the region after receiving a five-fold increase in its funding through an agreement between Kativik Regional Government and the Quebec and federal governments.

The deal provides Nunavik police with $562 million to carry out its operations, spread over a five-year period from 2024 to 2029. That dwarfs the previous agreement, signed in 2018 and in effect until 2023, which totalled $115 million.
Nunatsiaq News •

Kuujjuaq’s veterinary clinic is a community effort

After opening just over a year ago with an office but no permanent veterinarian, Kuujjuaq’s veterinary clinic is finding its footing with a regular veterinarian presence, and housing.

“It is the first of its kind, so we had all the growing pain,” Liam Callaghan said.

Callaghan has been spearheading the project at Kuujjuaq’s Northern Village for more than a decade to provide consistent veterinary care in the community.
Nunatsiaq News •

Federal apology for dog slaughter 25 years in the making

Emotions were high in Kangiqsujuaq’s community centre Saturday when the official apology came.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree flew into the community over the weekend to begin to make amends for the “unjustified killing” in the 1950s and 1960s of more than 1,000 sled dogs primarily at the hands of RCMP and Quebec police, although other community members including teachers and Hudson Bay Company employees took part in some communities.

The practice led to food insecurity and loss of Inuit traditions.
Nunatsiaq News •

Kuujjuaq protest demands justice after police shooting in Salluit

For the second straight day, about 50 people angered by a police shooting that killed one person and injured another protested the Nunavik Police Service’s actions.

Outside the Kuujjuaq police station on Tuesday, protesters carried signs saying “justice for Joshua” and “justice for the twins.”

There was a similar scene in Salluit Monday where the shootings had occurred earlier that day.
Nunatsiaq News •

Residents protest, police watchdog investigates Salluit shooting death involving police

Quebec’s independent police watchdog is investigating a shooting death in Salluit Monday during an incident involving Nunavik police, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes said.

The incident, which left a second person injured, occurred early Monday morning, a Nunavik Police Service statement said.

By the afternoon, about 50 people had gathered outside the Salluit police office, some carrying homemade signs or calling out “justice for Joshua” or “justice for the twins” and passing drivers honked their horns in support.
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