Unit 4: After Today Nothing Will Ever Be the Same: Turning Points in the Western Hemisphere Lesson 6 Reading

April 5, 1999

In a New Land of Eskimos, a New Chief Offers Hope

IQALUIT, Nunavut -- Part of Paul Okalik's story strikes a sad and familiar note here in the north.

His people were called Eskimos by the outside world, but his people prefer to be called Inuit. Like many young Inuit, he had no real sense of hope about his future when he was growing up. There were no jobs or opportunities for young people. After his older brother Norman killed himself rather than be sent back to jail, he started drinking. When he was 17, Paul Okalik, too, was arrested and put in jail for three months. He was going nowhere, and he knew it.

Anyone who has lived in the north knows stories like that. But another part of his life is unlike anything anyone here has ever seen. His mother, and an elderly grandmother, persuaded him to go back to school and get a job. Then he went on to law school, and when he was admitted to practice law this year he took his oath in Inuktituk, the language of the Inuit.

Then, a few days after becoming the north's first Inuit lawyer, he was selected the first Premier of the new territory of Nunavut, which came into being Thursday in Canada's vast eastern Arctic. Okalik immediately became a symbol of all the hopes and problems that the bold experiment of Nunavut represents:

• At 34, he is the youngest premier of any province or territory in Canada; Nunavut has the youngest population of any territory or province, along with high rates of unemployment and youth suicide. • Except for the election in February in which he won a seat in the territorial parliament, he has no political experience; Nunavut also is starting from scratch. The Inuit have never been allowed to have their own government before. • Many consider Okalik's newness to be both his greatest strength and most troubling weakness. • Nunavut can either succeed or head into disaster.

Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES: Grade 5 Integrated Social Studies/English Language Arts Curriculum The Western Hemisphere

Unit 4: After Today Nothing Will Ever Be the Same: Turning Points in the Western Hemisphere Lesson 6 Reading

Lots of Canadians see Nunavut as doomed to fail, a territory depending on money almost completely from the central government, and lacking the experience and skills to be run efficiently. Okalik said he knows that many people are waiting for him, and for Nunavut, to fail.

"That doesn't matter," he said in an interview in his temporary office in Iqaluit, the capital city of Nunavut. Wearing a sealskin vest over a shirt and jeans, he spoke about the obstacles he has overcome. "Inuit are used to those kinds of comments, and we don't mind. We like to prove everyone wrong whenever we can."

For generations, the Inuit of Canada's north demanded the chance to govern themselves. Through stubborn negotiations over many years, in which Okalik played a major role, the Inuit won the largest land claim in Canada's history, gaining the right to some 770,000 square miles of tundra, ice and frozen islands. At the same time, they persuaded the central government to create Nunavut. While the new territory is not strictly limited to Inuit, it really is an Inuit territory since 85 percent of the 27,000 residents are Inuit.

Okalik said that the time could come when non- Inuit people could become the majority in Nunavut, and a non-Inuit could be elected Premier. "That would be up to the people," he said. "We're a democracy like anywhere else."

After the 19 members of Nunavut's first legislature were elected, they were to select one from among themselves to be leader, or premier. Although there were other candidates, the legislature picked Okalik. He had earned the community’s respect for two reasons: he overcame alcoholism and despair, and he did things in the Inuit way. He wanted things to work; he didn’t push to become the premier.

As Premier, Okalik is focusing on developing economic opportunities for Nunavut's people, perhaps through fighting for an end to the U.S. ban on the import of sealskin like the vest he wears.

But for a man who knows what it is like to live without hope, opening a strong future for his people is most important. "I hope that we can introduce high standards for future governments," Okalik said, "and improve our

Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES: Grade 5 Integrated Social Studies/English Language Arts Curriculum The Western Hemisphere

Unit 4: After Today Nothing Will Ever Be the Same: Turning Points in the Western Hemisphere Lesson 6 Reading situation in Nunavut so that this will be remembered as a point in time when things changed for the better."

Adapted from the article by Anthony DePalma, The New York Times, April 5, 1999.

Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES: Grade 5 Integrated Social Studies/English Language Arts Curriculum The Western Hemisphere