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Northern Exposure, s'il vous plait
the Montreal Gazette, September 16, 2002
The Visitors Centre in Iqaluit is packed full of people eager to hear Paul Landry reminisce about his dog sledding trek to the North Pole two years ago. The audience, who are occupying all the available seats and spilling onto the floor—includes Inuit residents, a few tourists, and people who, like Landry, are members of Nunavut’s highly visible francophone population.
“It’s been an incredible place to live,” says Landry, a 46 year old. Franco-Ontarian who moved to Iqaluit in 1990. “We live on the ocean and when our children were going to school, they could walk there in 5 minutes. They could walk to the bank and the post office in less than 3 minutes. And there’s a strong French community here—I've been able to maintain my language and culture and I’ve been very happy about that.”
Landry was drawn to the north by his love of the wilderness, and now he runs a successful adventure tourism business with his wife, who is also an experienced polar explorer. Landry is also the president of L’Association des Francophones du Nunavut (AFN), a group which represents the territory’s French speaking population and runs Iqaluit’s francophone centre. Francophones make up over 10% of Iqaluit’s population of 4220 people. And as the newly anointed capital city continues to grow, so does the French speaking population.
Landry’s treks in the Arctic follow in the tradition of the French Canadian explorer Joseph Elzéar Bernier, commonly known in Nunavut by his Inuktitut nickname, Kapitaikallak, which means “the little captain”. Bernier was sent by the Laurier government to assert sovereignty over the arctic archipelago in 1904, several decades before the first missionaries and Hudson Bay Company traders reached the area. He made 7 trips to the place now called Nunavut, and set up his own trading post, where he introduced the Inuit to exotic products like coffee, tea, sugar, flour and firearms.
The francophone population in Nunavut has gradually grown, fueled by transferred employees of Montreal-based banks, the federal government and the RCMP. Most are from Quebec, although some hail from other French speaking regions in Canada. Almost all of Nunavut’s francophones live in Iqaluit, which is also home to a sizable chunk of displaced Newfoundlanders and other “people from the south”. The majority of the city’s population%—is Inuit. So while English is widely used, it’s also common to hear French and Inuktitut on the city streets.
The francophone centre, located on a dusty, unpaved road near the Nunavut Legislature, serves as a hub for the French speaking community. The small building serves as a gathering place for social events and houses a small library, a computer centre and CFRT-FM, the francophone radio station and the only community station in town. Volunteer DJs spin records by old Quebecois crooners and folk singers, and there’s even a few English language shows that play blues and bagpipe music.
On weekday mornings you’ll find Ghislain Couture at the radio station, hosting his regular music program. He’s one of Iqaluit’s many newcomers-several months ago he shocked his friends in Montreal by telling them he was moving to Iqaluit to take a job running the francophone radio station.
“A part of me was fascinated by living in a remote place,” he explains, sitting in the radio station’s small studio. “Montreal is so packed with culture, shows, cafes and people. I was at a point in life where I felt I needed to get away from the stress and the traffic of the city.”
Couture is still adjusting to the high cost of living in Nunavut—a one bedroom apartment costs $1200 month and a litre of orange juice sets you back eight dollars. And of course, the rapidly approaching winter:he thinks he’ll be able to handle the cold but he’s not sure how he’s going to react to the darkness—Iqaluit receives only five hours of daylight in December.
Paul Landry says the francophone community has changed considerably during his time in Iqaluit. When he first moved here, he wasn’t too impressed with the AFN because he thought it was too insular-a network of French people who didn’t want to interact with the Inuit. But now, he says the group is now much more open and inclusive.
“The attitude has changed. Our membership now includes 3 languages—Inuktitut, French, and English. We have a number of families who are mixed, French Canadian and Inuk, French Canadian and English. To me, that’s a sign of strength, when a group can open its doors and not be afraid they’re going to lose anything by inviting other cultures or linguistic groups to come in. We feel that our language is strong enough and we care enough about it that even though we may speak English or have English speaking people in our centre, it won’t effect the strength of our language.”
The AFN—which marks its 20th anniversary this year—achieved a long time goal with the opening of Iqaluit’s first French language school in April. The federally funded École des Trois Soleils was named after an arctic phenomenon which happens when ice crystals suspend in the air and create an illusion of three suns in the sky.
“For me, the school is a dream come true,” says Landry. “It really anchors us is this community.”
He says the school provides a much needed place for children to be immersed in French, something which is especially important in families like his.
“My wife’s Anglophone and I’m French. In families like ours, the children are only exposed to French half of the time at home.”
Students in Iqaluit can now receive and education up to Grade 9 in French, while children who want to learn in Inuktitut can only take it up to Grade 4.
“By having our own school, it’s raised the question, how come we don’t have an Inuktitut speaking school?” says Landry. “I’ve been told many times by Inuit leaders that the francophones open doors for them to walk through. We are very forceful in ensuring we’re able to maintain our language and educate our children in French. Many times the Inuit say, ‘the French got that. We want that and we deserve that’”.
Iqaluit is currently experiencing somewhat of a boom as the government continues to fill its vacancies and developers struggle to keep up with the demand in housing. The francophone population continues to grow with it, and the new school acts as an added incentive in attracting French families. The influx will only add to the diverse voices and languages trying to assert themselves in this still young territory.