Sachs Harbour CELEBRATES

A feast with an abundance of country food. Nellie Cournoyea (L) helps set up the dry fish, which elder Lena Wolki (R) found delicious.

t the White Fox Jamboree this year, a young person is bustling about, from one venue to the next, facilitating events. Andrea Keogak, a twenty-one year old, is both MC and Chair of the jamboree committee this year.

She can be seen at one moment giving a presentation on global warming, and at another acting as referee in the games. Next, she jumps on her ATV to deliver prizes from the beach to the gymnasium. “This is my first time organizing the jamboree,” she says. “It’s such a relief to see it all working out well. Everyone seems to be hospitable and having a good time. I am glad more visitors came in for Oceans Day.”

Andrea has moved back to Sachs Harbour after completing her high school education, and a year of the Recreation Leaders Program at Aurora College in Inuvik. “It helped me gain organizational skills. I wanted to come back to Sachs Harbour to help with recreation, and I did that for about a year, organizing dances and events for the community. Right now I’m working for selfgovernment. I am glad to be taking on that role. I got to learn a lot about what’s going on in the NWT, and how hard we are working to get the Inuvialuit government going.” Andrea also devotes herself to the promotion of environmental awareness.

Her father John Keogak is known as the “Al Gore of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region”. John is appointed as the climate change spokesperson for the region by the Joint Secretariat, and has traveled widely to raise consciousness about how global warming affects Northern communities. “It’s a big issue, I think everybody should know about it,” says John. “We rely a lot on hunting to survive here. In spring, we need snow on the ground for the geese to come, if there’s no snow, we might have problems with getting geese last year, and took with me a slideshow I made of pictures of every hill from Sachs Harbour to Kaglit Point,” says Andrea. “The pictures proved that five feet of land is eroding off our hills every year. You can see the permafrost coming up through the ground. The slideshow is still being circulated by DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) and FJMC (Fisheries Joint Management Committee), my dad and I are very proud of it.”

Andrea observes the changes and proposes solutions. “The heat went right up this year. This is the first time we’ve seen so much vegetation growing on the island. It is beautiful but it can be nerve wrecking. The road is eroding where we usually have our Canada Day celebrations, big cracks have formed and it’s not accessible anymore, even by quads. The water rose in the pond there, and has now formed a river. The youth who go out there to build bonfires had left too many nails and litter in the area. Hopefully we can clean it up.”

“Two years ago there was snow in the middle of summer, and now there isn’t. It’s good to see the ice back early this year, it allows people to go hunting. One of my uncles went hunting and he came back with two Uqiuqs (?) and ten seals. People have been seeing belugas around too. People are excited to hunt those, but it’s a big change weather change for Sachs Harbour. Usually we get our supplies of maktak from Tuktoyaktuk.”

She says, “Everybody here has great care for the land, they still try to keep everything traditional. We mostly live off the land, it’s so hard to get supplies into town. If the weather gets any worse, we won’t be able to get to the north end of the island with ATVs. I don’t think global warming can be stopped but it can be slowed down. It’s nice to see everyone participating with recycling, and keeping the land clean.”

Andrea hopes to make another slideshow soon, to keep DFO informed about the coastal zone. “I hope in the future that I can work with one of the companies that came to Sachs today. Hopefully everyone will be able to see how global warming is affecting the small communities up here. Many people down south might not believe it, but that makes us mad because we’re living with the changes everyday.”