The federal election, Nunavut-style

/ Jane George / Leave a comment

No one looks to Nunavut’s sprawling federal riding for a bellwether community to predict voter tendencies during an election — but if there were such a Nunavut community to look at during this past federal election, it would have been Cambridge Bay.

It was in this western Nunavut town that former Nunavut MP and Conservative cabinet minister Leona Aglukkaq started her political career as a hamlet councillor In 2011, she easily carried the community — and Nunavut —  in the same way that the Tories won the national vote.

This is how Cambridge Bay, population 2,000, looked in mid-September, with Mt. Pelly, 20 kilometres away, peering from behind. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

This is how Cambridge Bay, population 2,000, looked in mid-September, with Mt. Pelly, 20 kilometres away, peering from behind. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Cambridge Bay, which is never short of news (and previous blog post inspiration) and where I have many friends, seemed like a good place to sit out this federal election.

So I arrived in Cambridge Bay on Sept. 13 and left Oct. 20, the day after the votes were counted.

In Cambridge Bay on Oct. 19, voters decided to support Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo and the New Democratic Party’s Jack Anawak, leaving the Tories and Aglukkaq in third place in Cambridge Bay (361 for Tootoo, 170 for Anawak, 164 for Aglukkaq and 10 for the Green party.)

How the Oct. 19 vote would shape up in Cambridge Bay became clear to me over the weeks as I watched the scenery change and the ice solidify — like opinions among voters.

When I arrived, Cambridge Bay was still in the last days of its longer-than-usual summer. Then, the days became colder.

Sunset in October by the shore. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Sunset in October by the shore. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

One afternoon I spotted a field of frost flowers, spreading over the thin ice.

I spotted this frost flowers — formed when conditions are calm and there's a 15 C temperature difference between the air and the water. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

I spotted these frost flowers — formed when conditions are calm and there’s a 15 C temperature difference between the air and the water. You can see the field in the top of this post. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

A view to Mt. Pelly in October at sunset. (photo by JANE GEORGE)

A view to Mt. Pelly in October at sunset. (photo by JANE GEORGE)

The sunsets began to turn unreal shades, with a layer of bright pink mist over a darker blue sky.

In mid-October, the weather turned even colder, just around the time when Liberal leader (and now Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau visited Iqaluit.

There, among other things, he served up stew to hungry people at a community feast.

In Cambridge Bay, everything iced up and the foxes started to turn white.

A fox scampers across the ice in mid-October. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

A fox scampers across the ice in mid-October. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Meanwhile, the three main party candidates also visited Cambridge Bay to campaign — Aglukkaq keeping a low profile, but the Liberals’ Tootoo and the NDP’s Anawak getting out and meeting people.

Signs for Tootoo cropped up over town. A homeowner kept a “Stop Harper/ Nutqarrit” sign posted on his house.

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The “Stop Harper” sign is bilingual, with “Nutqarrit” meaning “stop” in Inuinnaqtun. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Students at the local high school voted for the NDP in mock election. And many people talked to me about wanting change.

I decided to write a story for the Nunatsiaq News Oct. 18 about the the mood in Cambridge Bay, and that this Tory stronghold was leaning to the Liberals and NDP,  as story which you can read here.

And on election day I went to the community hall to speak to voters after they cast ballots. I took a photo of elders after they came to vote, a photo that circulated among thousands of people on Twitter.

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A “This is how we vote in Canada” tweet, along with this photo, from Nunatsiaq News’ managing editor Lisa Gregoire saw my photo of elders circulate among thousands of people. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

I was careful to tell everyone I spoke to who I was (if they didn’t know me) and ask them only why they felt it was important to vote — not who they voted for.

A couple with a small child told me “we need help.” The North is crying out for help, they said, because they can’t survive on the $1,300 they receive every month from social assistance. “There’s nowhere to turn for help,” they said.

And the cost of food is so high that why said they couldn’t afford even a pound of hamburger, so they and others turn to the dump to scavenge for food.

I didn’t have to ask which party they voted for.

Throughout the day a steady stream of voters came to vote — and the numbers would show later that, while Aglukkaq held on to her vote from 2011, turnout increased, and three times as many voters in Cambridge Bay came out to support the Liberals and the NDP than the Tories.

I helped my friend Eva Kakolak Avadluk bring her two sons, Anthony and Ashlee, who are blind to the polling station so they could vote, using Braille ballots. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

I helped my friend Eva Kakolak Avadluk bring her two sons, Anthony and Ashlee, who are blind, to the polling station so they could vote using Braille ballots. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

So, more than 500 voters were happy Oct. 20 — but not Aglukkaq’s friends and supporters. One woman wrote me a couple of unpleasant messages and then a comment on Facebook — that made me think again how it’s much harder to report the news in Canada’s North than not.

After I posted the photo of my friends on my Facebook feed, I received this comment Oct. 20 from a friend and supporter of the former Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq.

After I posted the photo of my friends voting on my Facebook feed, I received this comment Oct. 20 from a friend and supporter of the former Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq.

I was able to delete the comment and block the woman on Facebook: sort of a solution.

But I was reminded again that, in a small Arctic community, you live beside people who may dislike you and bully you into being quiet — a tough situation for people who can’t leave (but one I saw in the 1990s and you can read about here or in a recent two-part series by Nunatsiaq News reporter Thomas Rohner).

Yellowknife — a capital city with no national newspapers

/ Jane George / 1 Comment

Saturday: that’s the day in the week that I traditionally reserve for the reading of as many print editions of newspapers as possible.

But in Yellowknife, I discovered that you can no longer buy any daily print newspapers from the South — that means there’s no Globe and Mail, no National Post, not even an Edmonton Journal. Not on Saturdays and not on any other day of the week.

A woman at a Yellowknife pharmacy where I used to find newspapers during previous visits told me that it’s been nearly a year since the distributor for daily newspapers from the South went out of business. Since then, no one’s picked up the distribution, she said.

And that’s in a city of 20,000, the capital of the Northwest Territories.

Yellowknife, lots of people, buildings and no national newspapers. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Yellowknife, lots of people, buildings and no national newspapers. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

You might think there would be enough people in this city to support newspaper distribution — especially since it’s still costly for many to gain access to internet that’s fast enough to read the online editions of southern dailies with ease.

But I’m even more shocked because even in Iqaluit — Nunavut’s capital, which lies further to the north — you can buy newspapers such as La Presse, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette and Globe and Mail to the Sunday New York Times — although the Sunday edition arrives a day late — and Yellowknife, unlike Iqaluit, is connected to the southern road network and is served by many more flights in and out of the South than Iqaluit.

Newspaper-wise, all you can find in Yellowknife to read are copies of the Nunatsiaq News or local Yellowknife papers.

At the local co-op store in Yellowknife, I find a Nunatsiaq News. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

At the local co-op store in Yellowknife, I find Nunatsiaq News. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

That’s fair enough, because people need to know what’s going on in the city and the North, but it’s disturbing to think that people in Yellowknife — many of whom are also newcomers from other countries — are left out of the larger Canadian dialogue on politics and other national issues, particularly during a federal election period.

With no newspapers to read, here’s what you can do on a Saturday in Yellowknife:

  • shop for food (reasonable compared to other places in the North or at Walmart (with same the stuff as in the South) or buy alcohol at the liquor shop (impossible to do in most other places in the North);
  • take a walk to admire the houseboats on Great Slave Lake, the changing leaves on the trees and still-blooming flowers;

    The birch trees turn a bright yellow colour at this time of year, reminding me of Finland. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

    The birch trees turn a bright yellow colour at this time of year, reminding me of Finland. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

  • visit the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre; and,

    A display of northern footwear at the Prince of Wales Norther Heritage Centre. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

    A display of northern footwear at the Prince of Wales Norther Heritage Centre. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

  • eat some Ethiopian food at a recently-opened restaurant.

    A mixed platter at the Zehabesha restaurant in Yellowknife. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

    A mixed platter at the Zehabesha restaurant in Yellowknife. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

You can also sample a variety of fast-foods, drink all the Tim Horton’s coffee you want or drive on paved roads with stop-lights.

You’ll also see buses, recycling bins, trash cans — in short, a lot of the service trappings of a fully-functional southern Canadian city.

You might think that this makes Yellowknife a better to live than colder, treeless and expensive Nunavut, but this makes it even more scary in my opinion that in Yellowknife, because there are no newspapers, many residents don’t know what’s going on outside the city — unless they listen to the radio and watch television.

In any case, they’re basically shortchanged of access to a news medium that, despite its financial challenges, is still thriving and which Canadians living in territorial and provincial capitals take for granted.

Is this your first time reading this blog? If so, check out earlier posts, including my “Like an iceberg” series on being a journalist in the Arctic during the 1990s. You can find all the links to that here.