Health Project Jewel

Project Jewel Family Wellness at Reindeer Station

Text and photos by Elizabeth Kolb

Project Jewel is Inuvialuit Regional Corporation’s (IRC) land-based health and wellness program. It is principled on being culturally relevant, client-centred, community-driven and collaborative.

After starting as a pilot program in 2014, Project Jewel has expanded by those principles: offering follow‐up camp opportunities and aftercare to participants, and working with an Advisory Committee established with Elders, past participants and staff. A strategic planning session in 2018 with 42 elected Inuvialuit Settlement Region Directors suggested having their own wellness camps and programs based in each community.

A year later, Land Program Coordinators in each community had been hired and exposed to a full complement of tailored training and certification from emergency response and risk management, Mental Health First Aid Inuit and ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) to program development, administration and Canadian Firearms Safety.

Project Jewel Community Programs like Seal Hunt with Strength and Perseverance for Youth,

The land way above Reindeer Station has blueberries in the summer and a view of the Delta. Elder’s Fishing Trip, and Culture and Wellness Winter Camp were starting in several commu‐nities, relationships and partnerships with stakeholders and organizations were being solidified and tent frame locations were being sought for year‐round programs accessible to the community.

By spring and summer 2020, the value and benefit of families spending their time as much as possible on the land was being acknowledged

and actively stressed as a healthy form of “social distancing” and good results were witnessed across the Region. Project Jewel staff members had had great spring and summers at their respective personal camps, but there was interest in safely delivering Project Jewel wellness opportunities again, especially to offer experience to those families who might not have access to the transportation, skills and support needed to go out on their own. An open call for interested families was put out on IRC’s social media.

Any trepidation surrounding utmost COVID precaution was met with Public Health approved planning, careful re‐design of the kitchen, changes like single‐serving condiments, continual extra cleaning and morning screenings (kept on file and completed vigilantly by the Land Program Coordinators of individual participants

Lynn Tologanak drum dances wherever she lives and now teaches her boys. At Reindeer Station, she takes turns dancing and drumming with Kathy Inuktalik, who she knew from childhood, and who is Ulukhaktok’s Land Program Coordinator.

Everyone learns and practices string games.

Thomas Tologanak loves a game which mimics hooking by throwing a rope and then hauling in a seal. The games also teach hunting and survival skills like coordination and agility.

Established in 1984 to manage the settlement outlined in the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (IFA), Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) represents the collective Inuvialuit interests in dealings with governments and the world at large. IRC's goal is to continually improve the economic, social and cultural well-being of the Inuvialuit through implementation of the IFA and by all other available means. Inuvialuit beneficiaries directly control IRC and its subsidiaries through a democratic process of elected directors from each of the six Community Corporations.

The head office for IRC is located in Inuvik. Over 180 employees, both full-time and casual, work for IRC. Inuvialuit beneficiaries currently make up over 80 per cent of IRC and Inuvialuit Development Corporation (IDC) staff positions, including those at the senior divisional management level.

Both corporations are committed to increasing the per cent of employed beneficiaries throughout all levels of the organization. A broad range of external and internal staff training, internship and advancement opportunities are available to beneficiaries to help reach this goal.

Inuvialuit Regional Corporation Tel: (867) 777-7000 Toll-Free: 1 (855) 777-7011 107 Mackenzie Road Bag Service #21 Inuvik, NT X0E 0T0 www.inuvialuit.com

and staff alike). The historic camp location had been mostly closed due to large landslides in recent summers but was again deemed stable enough to be used at this time.

As Jimmy Kalinek’s Only Way Outfitting boat dropped first staff with supplies, and then Land Program Coordinators on the riverbank, followed the next day by those families who had come forward, everyone involved kept saying just how grateful they were to be there!

Two families who had been previously living south were chosen as participants. Scheduled activities included Northern Games demonstra‐tions, research into Family Trees, Art for Wellness with Kathy Inuktalik from Ulukhaktok, bear safety stories by Annie Wolki, long‐time Wildlife Monitor and Land Program Coordinator from Paulatuk, as well as regular camp activities like collecting firewood and water. John Day, Camp Maintainer, and other staff would often have youth tag along in his boat to help. By the end of the week, staff collectively encouraged the grinning young men, saying, “you boys belong in the bush!”

Since different Inuvialuit communities have different land and fish, even the Land Program Coordinators, some used to open country, above treeline on the coast, learned to pull fish nets from river currents and compared how to clean nets. (In 2020, the Mackenzie water level stayed high; Ulukhaktok has been dealing in past years with more algae in the ocean).

So many new experiences and memories were made with participants looking forward to attending follow‐up camps in the future.

Elizabeth Kolb is Communications Advisor for Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

From the river you can see historic Hudson Bay Company and modern buildings — many Reindeer herders families lived here — as well as evidence of the recent landslides which have forced closures of the camp.

Left: Young girls carry a whitefish, netted in the East Branch of the Mackenzie River and now ready to cut and dry in the smokehouse. Dallas Tologanak works on a net. Verna Pokiak hangs dry fish she showed the youth how to cut.