SUPPLY & DEMAND

meeting the Need for Inuvialuit Cultural resources

By Jamie Bastedo

the Inuvialuit Cultural resource Centre, or ICrC, goes a long way in bringing both sides of the cultural coin together – those who have rich resources about Inuvialuit culture and those who sorely need it. tusaayaksat explored the supply side of this challenge by going straight to the source – to Cathy Cockney, ICrC’s dedicated manager. on the demand side, we spoke with Anna pingo, an Inuvik high school teacher who needs every resource she can get her hands on to bring Inuvialuit culture alive for her students.

Cathy Cockney explains that the Resource Centre was established in 1997 under the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation’s (IRC) Social Development Program, as part of their commitment to work more closely with teachers to revive and maintain the Inuvialuit language. The centre’s main goals are to develop resources on Inuvialuit culture, help the region’s school teachers implement their language curriculum, and support all six Inuvialuit communities in their language programs.

When the current centre opened its doors a few years ago, very few people knew it existed, even though it appeared regularly in IRC’s annual report. “I and my staff have tried very hard to get the information out there,” says Cathy, “to let people know that the Centre is in an actual building with all these available resources. I think we’ve done a good job, especially through our calendars and being more visible. For example we set up a table on Inuvialuit Day and we give away resources to the public. That’s one thing about the Centre; we give lots of materials away so people don’t have to buy them.”

The centre, now located at 292 Mackenzie Road, second floor, is drawing much more interest these days, especially from language teachers across the region as well as researchers in southern Canada and beyond, who have a special interest in Inuvialuit culture. They’re all harvesting the centre’s unique resources, which include both historical and current information presented in every format imaginable – books, videos, CDs, DVDs, reports and maps.

“We have a full library here,” says Cathy. “It’s well maintained. We’re adding new material all the time. Most of it is on Inuit and Inuvialuit culture and language. People are welcome to come and sign out books. And not only in Inuvik, we also send books out to communities.”

Some of ICRC’s ongoing projects include compiling a book of traditional places around Tuktoyaktuk, electronically archiving tape recordings with elders, and digitizing historic and family photos from across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. Cathy has given high priority to making this kind of material more accessible to people through the Internet. This is especially important for more remote communities. “Almost every household now has a computer and people can do a lot of their research online rather than having to come in here. We know that young people want to access information this way, so we’re working on that. We may set up a web page of our own or have a link on IRC’s site.”

If you’re a teacher, having to deliver a fast-changing Inuvialuit curriculum to students who are bombarded with daily digital distractions from around the world, the Resource Centre is more than a cultural treasure trove. It’s a life-saver.

Enter Anna Pingo, a teacher at Inuvik’s Samuel

Hearne Secondary School. She teaches Inuvialuktun language classes to grades 7 to 9 as well as Northern Studies and an in-depth course for senior high students on Inuvialuit history and culture.

One of the biggest hurdles for teachers like Anna is that most of the junior high students who walk into her class can barely speak a few words of Inuvialuktun, their supposed native tongue. “I shouldn’t say that we’ve lost the language,” Anna says, “I’m not sure how many elders still speak it. But most of my junior high students won’t be able to understand them.” Anna herself is not fluent in Inuvialuktun but she’s improving day-by-day.

“I don’t speak the language,” Anna admits, “ » but now I’m starting to pick up what the elders are saying. I’m remembering those basic words that I teach the students. I tell my husband, ‘Hey, I know what they’re talking about!’

How much Inuvialuktun do students pick up from committed language teachers like Anna? “When it comes to the student, it depends on who they are and what they want to learn,” she says, “because sometimes they’re into the new generation things like their iPods and computer games. If they’re more interested in that, it might take them a little longer to pay attention to the language we’re teaching. If they don’t hear it fluently all the time, it’s really hard to understand.”

In spite of such odds, Anna has a 2nd language curriculum to deliver, a big part of which has to do with language. Thanks to the many fun, interactive and home-grown teaching resources offered by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre, Anna reports that her students are really enjoying the curriculum. “The centre puts a lot of games into the lessons so the students like to play these interactive activities that are connected to the lessons. They might be racing games, for instance, where two groups of students are given a little tapper. Then, if I yell out one of our words, like avu, which means sugar, they have to race around and try to beat the other team in tapping the sugar picture. They look to me to see if they got it right. Those kinds of games they really enjoy.”

IRC has helped pave a two-way street between teachers and the resource centre, resulting in the development of teaching tools that are tied closely to the evolving language curriculum. Anna gives these materials high marks.

“Right now they are trying to implement a new curriculum for which they hire elders to go over the different units – like weather, heavenly phenomena, and food. It’s nice because this curriculum gets us more into doing sentences rather than just words all the time. It used to be just one word – this is what this means, this is what that means. But now with the new curriculum we’re able to give students much more. That’s one thing I really like about the Resource Centre, how they’re creating these teaching tools for us. It makes it so much easier.”

Whenever Anna gets word of new resources at the centre, she goes right over and checks them out. “They always welcome us and encourage us to borrow materials. They have all these songs in our language, ready for use if we want to implement them into our teaching. We’re able to go down there and take whatever we need and integrate it into our “classes”.

Down the road, Anna would like to see more variety of teaching tools coming out of the resource centre such as interactive CDs with cartoon people. Who knows? Maybe someday her language-teaching instrument(s) will include an animated drum dancer, polar bear, or beluga whale.

The welcome mat is always rolled for teachers and anyone else interested in Inuvialuit culture. For those who can go in and actually shake Cathy’s hand and explore the treasures on the shelves, your visit will be richly rewarded. “If people visit Inuvik, they should make an effort to come in and see what’s available here.”∞