Aaju Peter
As part of Canada House’s special season on the Arctic, lawyer and Inuit rights advocate Aaju Peter gave an extraordinary presentation on Arctic sustainability and resources. Aaju also sang some traditional songs about the generosity of nature but also about how harsh an environment the Arctic can be. Here she tells us about her heritage and community and the challenges facing her people.
“My ancestor’s country is very, very big. It’s an amazing place and we’re proud of it. All the Inuit in the arctic are related - the Greenland Inuit, the Canadian, the American and the Siberian. We all speak the same language – Inuktitut – and we have the same principles of law that apply to nature, to wildlife and to people, so you see how for hundreds of years we’ve coexisted in the arctic. Greenlanders come and hunt polar bears - they’re not our polar bears, they’re just in our region and other Inuit go and hunt and fish in other areas even though they are called Danish territory or Canadian territory. Those territories came long after we had established our relationships.
In terms of sustainability and our resources, we share the animals with other regions and other people. In fact it is an obligation that when an animal gives itself to you, you have to share it. In our culture we believe that if you don’t honour the animals by sharing, then they will go somewhere else. For our own sake we don’t fight about the region or the animals – we always try to come to a consensus.
We are one people divided by imaginary borders. Why am I telling you all this? Because we’re seeing a lot of interest in the arctic. There is a lot of talk about resources and international law and so on. These things are foreign to us. Even climate change is foreign to us. I say to myself, well this is our backyard. We live here and have lived here for a long time. We have our own laws relating to nature and relating to how to treat other people.
It is very important that we think about how the Inuit have survived in the Arctic for hundreds of years. We have shared resources - animals don’t recognise borders and we have learned to share and to respect one another.
The European ban on the import of seals will have a devastating effect on our communities. Families can get $30 to $50 for a seal skin to buy food or bullets for hunting. That money makes a lot of difference to Inuit families in remote communities because buying food is expensive – four litres of milk for the children costs $12 to $15 because it has to be flown in or brought by ship. It’s very sad to see the ban and it will have a real impact on our way of life.
The most sustainable resource we have in Nunavut is our people. The arctic is a vast, vast territory and there are a lot of opportunities in minerals etc, but our wealth is the children.
I have a responsibility for my children and my grandchildren so that they can live in harmony and enjoy the incredibly vast territory that we have. We really have to remind ourselves how blessed we are to live in the Arctic. If the world were to think we will go about the Arctic in a traditional fashion where we will respect nature, the animals and the people that live there, it would be very powerful.
