Inuktitut

Like an iceberg: reprise

/ Jane George / 2 Comments

Did you miss my Like an iceberg series on being a journalist in the Arctic during the 1990s?

It’s been five years since I started this Date with Siku girl blog, and I’m sure many have no idea this series which I wrapped up in the spring of 2013 exists.

In Like an iceberg, I talk about an exorcism, brain surgery with a hand drill, robins in Iqaluit and a visit to the High Arctic’s fossil forest — as well as some big issues like censorship of the press, sexual abuse and violence.

There are also many photos you won’t see anywhere else…

So, here are all the links — and relive those times with me.

Like an iceberg: on being a journalist in the Arctic

Like an iceberg, 1991…cont.

Like an iceberg, 1991…more

Like an iceberg, 1992, “Shots in the dark” 

Like an iceberg, 1992, “Sad stories”

Like an iceberg, 1993, “Learning the language of the snows”

Like an iceberg, 1993 cont., “Spring”

Like an iceberg, 1993 cont., “Chesterfield Inlet”

Like an iceberg, 1993 cont., more “Chesterfield Inlet”

Like an iceberg, 1994: “Seals and more”

Like an iceberg, 1994, cont., “No news is good news”

Like an iceberg, 1994 cont., more “No news is good news”

Like an iceberg, 1994 cont., “A place with four names”

Like an iceberg, 1995, “More sad stories”

Like an iceberg, 1995 cont., “No place like Nome”

Like an iceberg, 1995 cont., “Greenland”

Like an iceberg, 1995, cont. “Secrets”

Like an iceberg, 1996, “Hard Lessons”

Like an iceberg, 1996 cont., “Working together”

Like an iceberg, 1996 cont., “At the edge of the world”

Like an iceberg, 1996, more “At the edge of the world”

Like an iceberg, 1996, cont. “Choices” 

Like an iceberg, 1997, “Qaggiq”

Like an iceberg, 1997, more “Qaggiq”

Like an iceberg, 1997, “Qaggiq” cont.

Like an iceberg, 1997 cont., “Qaggiq and hockey”

Like an iceberg, 1997 cont., “Brain surgery in POV”

Like an iceberg, 1997 cont.: “Masks on an island”

Like an iceberg, 1997 cont., “Abusers on the pulpit”

Like an iceberg, 1998, “Bearing gifts”

Like an iceberg, 1998 cont., “At the top of the world”

Like an iceberg, 1998 cont., “A bad week” 

Like an iceberg, 1998 cont.: more from “A bad week”

Like an iceberg, 1998 cont., “Memories”

Like an iceberg, 1999, “The avalanche”

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont., “An exorcism, followed by a penis cutting”

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont., more on “the Avalanche”

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont., “Robins in the Arctic”

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont., “Fossil hunting”

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont., “Where forests grew” 

Like an iceberg, 1999 cont.,”And then there was Nunavut”

Amazing and un-amazing Iqaluit

/ Jane George / 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking in lists as I walk around Nunavut’s capital, Iqaluit, so here’s my top five list of amazing things in this city of roughly 8,000.

But for each of these five amazing things there’s a shadow list of things, which make the Iqaluit of today an un-amazing place and on its way to becoming a mini-Yellowknife, with its clash of prosperity, commercialism and poverty.

1) Iqaluit Aquatic centre

A $40-million facility with a huge draw. And that’s no surprise: Kids frolic around in the children’s pool. Teens slide down the big yellow slide, and when you do laps, you can watch the snow whipping around outside. If that’s not enough there’s a full fitness centre.

2) Avocados

Before you could only reliably find onions and carrots in Iqaluit stores. Now you can find a variety of produce, including piles of avocados.

3) the Plateau

This neighbourhood seems to go on forever on a ridge overlooking the city, and a lot of people can’t remember what Iqaluit, whose population is now about three times more than when I first came here, looked like without it.

4) Cell phones

You can text, post to social media and check the weather on your phone. And talk.

5) Diversity

There’s a shawarma restaurant in town, a mosque, international foods on the store shelves and your neighbour could originally come from the Ivory Coast or the Philippines.

So here’s what you will find on my list of five un-amazing things about Iqaluit:

1) Bad infrastructure

When the snow melts, roads fall apart. Nearly every road in Iqaluit is unsafe to drive for weeks. Does this look like a capital city in Canada to you?

2) Expensive food

if you don’t know how to cook and you buy food at the grocery store, a full cart will probably cost you $1,000 and you will eat badly, and you won’t buy the government-subsidized avocados which often end up rotting in the stores. And if you don’t have any money, a lot of the time you’ll go hungry.

3) Poor, overcrowded public housing and expensive private housing

You might be able to rent a room for about $1,000 a month, but a buying a house will set you back by $500,000. There isn’t enough public housing and visible homelessness, and all the social problems, including violence, addictions, crime that come with these are part of life in Iqaluit.

4) Dreadful internet

It can be so slow you’ll want to tear out your hair trying to load a page. Everyone suffers from not being able to get to knowledge online or to tap into the commercial possibilities. or, as Mayor Madeline Redfern says, be able to “govern, manage, admin, deliver.”

5) Marginalization of Inuit culture and language

Inuit are the first residents of this place, but they are now in the minority in Iqaluit, and, if they don’t speak English,  are likely to feel like a strangers in their own land.