The Last Ice (2020) Movie Script
(wind blowing)
(ice cracking)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
DOUG (over TV):
Over in the Eastern Arctic,
contact between the Eskimo
and the white man
has been limited.
The Eskimo still lives
as a hunter and trapper,
though he uses some of the
white man's tools and weapons.
But with new developments
like the DEW Line Airlift,
these Eskimos are faced
with disturbing changes.
The site for the new town
is close to a good supply
of clean fresh water,
leading to an excellent
landing beach.
But most important of all,
the Eskimos,
a sea culture people,
like it.
From here they can
look to the sea.
How do we help the
Eskimo consider tomorrow,
to feel good about the future?
How does he feel about
his changing life?
Well, let's ask him.
Which would you
rather be doing,
hunting and trapping or
working at the base?
MAN (over TV):
I think better to hunt.
DOUG (over TV):
Hunting better?
Do you get much chance
to go out hunting now?
MAN (over TV): No.
DOUG (over TV):
Not very much. How 'bout you Jacobie?
Which would you
rather be doing?
MAN (over TV):
Oh, I'd, I'd rather hunt.
DOUG (over TV): Like
the others, Davide expressed a preference
for the hunting
and trapping life.
Like the others,
he was unable to say why.
You and I may see
the obvious reasons.
But the Eskimos do not
yet think as we do.
They look with nostalgia
to the life of the hunter,
the old way.
But they feel a subconscious
sense of security
in the new way.
The basic change
is in progress.
(wind blowing)
(radio chatter)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Polar bear and seal.
This part is polar bear,
this part is seal.
Oh! These are my uncle's.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
They fit just fine.
There's... (laughs)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
When I was little,
I always see the hunters
go away for hunting.
I always imagined what
they were doing out there.
What it was like to see
what they have seen.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm just happy that I was born here.
(speaking native language)
Let's go, let's go,
let's go, let's go.
If I was an American,
I would maybe be working now,
and I would be stressed.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
How can I be stressed?
Look at the nature.
I don't have to wear a watch
when I'm hunting.
I'm just me, my dogs.
Just live.
(speaking native language)
(snow crunching)
(whining)
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I have
been living with the hunters
for a few years now.
I have been learning
from my uncle.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
He's one of the great hunters.
I call them the great hunters,
the hunters that knows the ice,
the weather,
hunting all their lives.
It's, it's a life I want to live.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm not raised as a hunter.
When I was about eight,
we moved to Nuuk.
1999, we moved to Denmark.
When I was in Denmark and Nuuk,
I had always homesick.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
My mother,
I was in school down south
when she was killed.
So, I couldn't go back to school.
I tried, but I couldn't concentrate
so I came back here.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I got a job here.
I worked for a few years.
Then one of my uncles,
he was leaving,
and he had two dogs.
And, he asked me if,
if I wanted them.
I just said yes.
I was not thinking so much
to become a hunter,
but the female
began to have small puppies.
Before I knew it,
I had seven dogs.
So, that's where I decided
I have to try this
before it's too late.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Hey, hey, hey.
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
The sound travels longer,
and the sled will be
making too much noise.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
So, he's gonna go very far so it,
the seal doesn't wake up.
It will be a better chance
for him to catch it.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): We cut it the way
that it has been passed from hunter to
hunter for generations.
Every hunter get a share from the seal.
It depends on how many hunters
are hunting together.
They are rules.
This is tradition that has
been on for many, many years.
We are not killing animals
just to kill them,
but to eat them,
to use their skins.
Without animals,
we cannot survive.
We are not above the nature.
We are not above the animals.
(wind blowing)
(honking)
EVA (off-screen):
The Pikialasorsuaq is a huge,
vast area that is so rich
in all kinds of animals.
It is a place where animals
and birds go for birthing.
OKALIK (off-screen):
The seals, the beluga, the narwhale,
the polar bear, the fish.
It's considered one of the
most bio-diverse areas
in the Arctic.
The polar bears hunt the seals,
the seals eat the fish.
So, it's all a natural cycle.
EVA (off-screen): We need to protect
the environment that we depend on
and protect the area
that is so vulnerable
from the outside world.
(splashing)
THEO: He's looking at me,
that bugger!
(laughs)
Oh, ho, ho.
The ice that had formed this winter
allows this to happen.
He's not looking at us as
a food source, whereas
some years, for example
four years ago
I was dragged around by one
of these, trying to kill me.
We're no higher
than the polar bear.
The polar bear is on top
of the food chain.
We're just equivalent.
With the sea ice diminishing
the whole food chain is
affected right up to the top.
We had been doing
wildlife management
prior to European influence coming to
this part of the world.
And if the world looked
after the environment
as most aboriginal cultures
have been doing
then the world would be
so much further ahead.
The Inuk today,
the young Inuk,
doesn't fare as well
as the old Inuk
in the hardy environment
that you have to live in.
MAATALII (off-screen): Sometimes I say
that I was born in the wrong era.
LEENA: Always look around,
always.
-MAATALII: Yeah.
-LEENA: Yeah.
Don't just look down.
Always look around.
MAATALII (off-screen):
My parents' generation was a generation
who was completely nomadic.
But I'm that generation who
didn't have that experience.
(ringing)
Wow!
(laughing)
This is what happens when
you come to this hill.
You have access.
Crazy.
MAATALII (off-screen):
We're a biproduct of colonization.
When I hear about the way life
was before outsiders coming
into our homeland.
I've been told that,
whether it's one family
or a number of
families that have
come together,
every single member
of the camp had roles
and responsibilities.
Ultimately, they had a purpose.
That's such a beautiful way
to look at a community.
It's really important
that we remember,
even into today whether we
live in those camps or not,
that every single
one of us matters.
Every single one of us
has a purpose.
But I'm so disconnected
from that reality.
And, that breaks me inside.
This is a dream of mine
as a young Inuk.
I believe it's a dream
of many young Inuit,
to reclaim what I lost
not growing up in my homeland.
MAATALII (off-screen):
My earliest memories of being on the land
were in my mom's Amauti,
in my natural environment
as an Inuk.
I was born in Iqaluit.
But we moved to southern Canada
when I was very young.
And I moved to Ottawa
as a fluent,
strong Inuktitut speaker.
And, I can't say that I am
that now, because I'm not.
And, so it's wild that I
speak English better than
my language,
my mother tongue.
MAATALII (off-screen):
When I moved back home,
that's when I could start
filling in that emptiness.
(chanting)
(chanting)
(cheering)
Of the 65,000 Inuit in Canada
and 165,000 Inuit
around the world,
Intuit youth are the majority.
MAATALII (off-screen): Over 50%
of our population is under the age of 24.
We're growing very quickly,
and I always say it's
because we know how to love.
MAATALII (off-screen):
We're not going anywhere.
Ultimately, we'll be the ones living here
for the next 100 years,
200 years, 300 years
and over 1,000 years
because we've been living here
for thousands of years.
THEO: We're quite removed
from the initial close relationship.
And at one point
there was no boundary.
They had been going back
and forth, back and forth.
Canadians going this way,
Greenlanders going the other way.
This was the relationship
between Greenland and Canada.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): When they tell
stories about the generation before them,
how they lived,
it's a whole different story.
ED (off-screen): If you read
a lot of the literature of the explorers,
they were always kind of
marveled by how, how happy the
Inuit were in a world in which
we would all just think,
"We're gonna die."
MAATALII (off-screen):
People always say,
"What a terrible place
for them to live,
so desolate and so out of reach."
But I think they loved it.
MAATALII (off-screen):
They thrived in that environment.
Very self-determined,
very knowledgeable, very skilled.
THEO: The hunting is similar.
Walrus, bearded seal,
ringed seal, narwhal, beluga and caribou,
and fish.
Everything is very similar,
meaning that at one point
they all came from one peoples.
So the relationship was quite close,
if you really look at that.
Today the ice is
not forming anymore,
separating our bloodlines,
separating the rich culture
that we might be sharing.
MAN (over TV): White men are coming
to the Arctic now in ever
increasing numbers.
Building air strips,
taking mineral wealth
from the frozen ground,
manning radars
and air defense bases,
which stretch
across the North.
Anna Kuluk's brother
works as a carpenter.
And his children go
to a modern school.
Here they learn about
the outside world,
which the Eskimo
knew so little of
until only a few years ago.
There are few Eskimos
in the whole Arctic now
who do not have some contact
with the white man.
They are adopting his dress,
speech and ways rapidly.
MAATALII (off-screen):
There certainty has been a breakdown
of our way of life.
And the onus is now on us,
as youth,
to revitalize that relationship
that we have with our culture,
language, traditions,
and our environment.
(speaking native language)
MAATALII: My dream is for us
to reach the same level of
self-determination the day before
an outsider came
into our homeland.
(laughs)
We'll radio you.
Don't forget the...
(speaking native language)
Have a good day.
MAATALII (off-screen): Today I work at
the Piruvik Center to create more access
and opportunity for Inuit youth
to be able to learn
our language and our
traditional practices.
Inuit youth want to learn more
because it helps us understand
who we are and where we
came from and what strengths
our ancestors had
so we too can be strong.
(speaking native language)
MAATALII (off-screen):
We put our elders at such a high level
because they are our knowledge keepers,
they are our guidance.
MAN (over radio): Calmly.
Mainly sunny.
Temperature high
of 17 degrees...
MAATALII (off-screen): And, I have
teachers all around me who continue to
teach me about my culture.
So, I call her my...
(speaking native language)
and she calls me her...
(speaking native language)
LEENA: She carries that
namesake pretty strongly.
MAATALII:
She's one of my teachers
and I learn so much from her.
Heating some snow.
LEENA: Yeah, it's
not gonna melt there,
it's gonna have to be there.
I'll do it in a minute.
-MAATALII: Okay.
-LEENA: You have to open that.
MAATALII (off-screen): I can just imagine
but never understand what it was like
for my grandfather's generation.
When people talk about colonization,
they're like,
"Oh that happened hundreds
of years go," you know?
But for us, in Inuit homeland,
colonization happened
to my grandparents.
LEENA: My, no, also to me.
MAATALII (off-screen): Yes.
LEENA: I'm the, my generation
is the first generation, um,
to be totally taken away from home.
ED (off-screen): I don't think we can
underestimate how profound an impact
past policies have been
on the Arctic peoples.
In the 1950s, for example,
the government was very concerned about
sovereignty in the Arctic.
THEO: Igloolik, 1938.
Hall beach, 1959.
Qaanaaq, 1950.
The governments said,
"you now live here."
They had to live there.
So it's not by choice that they started
living in these communities.
JOHN (off-screen): My family
were relocated from Northern Quebec
to the high Arctic in 1953,
a distance of
about 2,000 kilometers.
The change from Northern Quebec
to the high Arctic was different
and much more harsh.
JOHN (off-screen): We were told
that it was for our own good,
but we found that
very hard to believe.
I remember being treated
not as human beings,
but as something less
than human beings.
I remember the lies they told.
I get very emotional when I
recount the, the experience.
ED (off-screen):
They had their hair cut,
they were told not to
speak their own language.
They tried to turn them
into white people.
It just wasn't right.
THEO: I was literally taken from the grasp
of my mother by a priest
and dragged off to residential
school for seven years.
Abuses were being done
to the students.
Physical,
mental,
and at sometimes sexual.
ED (off-screen): In many ways,
it was a
social experiment
that went horribly wrong.
And we're living with that now.
HEATHER (off-screen): With great
change comes great opportunity.
As that sea ice diminishes,
we're seeing great interest
in shipping.
MAN (off-screen): Korea has
a keen interest in the Arctic sea routes.
MAN: The prospects for Arctic
business developments are getting better.
MAN: If a shorter route opens up,
we want to know about it.
HEATHER (off-screen):
Shorter shipping times means
goods get to market faster.
All of this is
a benefit to nations
that are investing in it.
You'll see more
Chinese icebreakers,
even maybe Chinese
submarines in the Arctic.
The Russians and the Chinese
have one of the most ambitious
economic visions
for the Arctic.
If they want to Arctic
to be developed,
they will focus
their resources,
and they will develop it.
(wind blowing)
WOMAN (over TV):
Good afternoon, (inaudible).
ALEQATSIAQ: This is
almost like a Kool-Aid.
(water running)
(dog barking)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I can maybe
look a little bit clumsy sometimes.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): It's going to be
a problem if I'm going to be a hunter.
Because when you are a hunter
you have to be able to stand still,
stand quiet
on the sea ice.
You have to be very good
with your hands.
(wind blowing)
It began with my finger.
At first it was only my finger,
then my leg.
The muscle is retracting
off and on all the time.
I have tried to go to the doctor
to try to find out what it was.
They don't know, so I may have
to meet a neurological doctor
to fully understand
what it is.
It's going to be a problem
if it gets worse.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Maybe it will get better.
I have to have a purpose in my life.
I have to do something in my life.
(speaking native language)
(cracking)
I want you to listen
to the cracking sound.
I can see the ice is like a wave,
moving like a wave.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): If they become
too big it will begin to break the ice.
And the ice will just snap.
In these last years, to be a hunter
has become very hard.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
The old hunting grounds,
like where they used to hunt.
MAN (off-screen): Yeah.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
We cannot reach them anymore.
They are just history now.
MAN (off-screen): Let's go!
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I think
there will still be ice while I'm alive.
But everything is changing.
(water running)
EVA (off-screen): The Inuit
from Greenland and Canada,
are so much dependent upon
the animals that come
from the Pikialasorsuaq area.
The cost of living and cost of food
in the north is so high,
so the people in the communities
perpetually have
to supplement their meals
each day from what they hunt.
WOMAN (over TV): $12 for a carton
of orange juice,
this is everyday life in Nunavut.
A Conference Board of Canada
report says more than a
quarter of the people living
in the territory don't have
affordable access to food,
let alone nutritious food.
But food security experts
say the situation is actually much worse,
affecting almost half
of Nunavut's population.
MAATALII (off-screen): This is the Nunavut
country food store here in Iqaluit.
It's really important to me
because this is where I can
buy locally harvested country food
that we Inuit prefer to
eat over store bought food
that is shipped up
by plane from the south.
MAATALII (off-screen): I wish there were
more options like this in our local stores
because we have such amazing
food that we can harvest.
And I know that many people
want to be full time hunters
and fishermen.
Today, I'm looking for
some Iqaluk, arctic char.
It's my favorite thing to eat.
I've been told that,
because of a warming arctic,
that our char, which
is usually this red,
is now becoming this color
because of what they're eating instead,
more of those small white fish.
Yes!
This is how it's supposed to be.
Look it!
MAN (off-screen): They look
a lot healthier, right.
MAATALII: Yeah!
ED (off-screen): If we do nothing
as we've done in the past,
and just sort of
let thing happen,
we're gonna lose some species.
There's no question about it.
ED (off-screen): We're going
to see migration patterns
alter very dramatically.
It's gonna be a very,
very different place.
It's going to be unrecognizable.
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
All the hunters,
some of them tells me, uh,
the animals are polluted.
In their fat, they can see some rot
that isn't supposed to be there.
It's kind of disturbing.
Sometimes I don't
want to eat the meat.
But I have to eat it.
And our dogs have to eat it also.
That's how we live, uh,
we eat what we hunt.
(speaking native language)
(snow crunching)
Here come Johnny singing
oldies, goldies.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Before I became a hunter,
I worked as a manager in the bar.
A few months ago, the owner
asked me if I could help out.
So I did.
(laughing)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I cannot say what
I'm going to be doing
ten years from now.
Our culture has changed so fast.
It might be one of the reasons
that we get lost
in our life here, now.
We get, uh, confused.
I have, uh,
several friends that, uh,
that, that has
committed suicide here.
For me it's three or four.
For me, yeah, that
was very close to me.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I don't know
if it's going to become better.
But...
everything change
in this life, so.
MAN (over TV): Once called
the creator's unfinished world,
the Arctic is just now emerging into
the 20th century.
The oil men and the miners
have found little here
but a promise and a challenge.
There have been few big strikes.
But like the men who came
before them, like Frobisher,
Hudson, Franklin,
and Peary,
they have helped to
open up this land.
The prize they seek is great,
the price we pay
may be greater still.
ED (off-screen): In the past we could do
pretty much whatever
we wanted in the Arctic.
Some companies were getting
a dollar-ten back for every
dollar they invested.
And, they just went wild.
ED (off-screen): You know, they laid waste
to good parts of the Arctic.
And now the rest of the world
has suddenly realized that
this is the last frontier
we can exploit for a variety of purposes.
A quarter of all of the
unexploited oil and gas
reserves in the world are
located in the Arctic.
The rest of the world really,
really needs those resources.
And, they're untapped.
HEATHER (off-screen): There'll be new,
non-arctic actors from Saudi Arabia
and even, potentially, India
looking for those energy resources.
We're seeing increased
in military operations in the Arctic,
more port infrastructure,
more mining.
And so states are quickly
working to try to figure out
the best approach.
ED (off-screen): Future economies
are staking themselves on what
happens in the Arctic.
So the million-dollar question is,
is this going to be the wild west
and we're just gonna
let everybody do
whatever they want?
THEO: What happens on the land
affects what happens in the sea.
What happens in the sea affects
what happens on the land.
It's all very intricately
interconnected.
In a sense we're just trying to gain back
what we have lost...
the continuation of life
in the Arctic as it has always been known,
and how it should be.
(splashes)
(chewing)
(thunder cracking)
(horn honking)
(horn honking)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I have
been here for five days now.
I went to the doctor to see what,
what's wrong with me.
If they can fix it,
I can keep hunting.
WOMAN: Does it get worse
when you are under stress?
ALEQATSIAQ: It does.
When I feel confident enough
I don't really notice it as much,
so I don't think about it.
WOMAN (off-screen): Okay.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm still waiting for, for the answer.
I hope they can do
something about it.
If it's getting worse,
then I have to think about,
to do other things
than hunting.
I can become a
'tom tom drunk.'
No, I'm just kidding! (laughs)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): This is
something you cannot control.
If you cannot change it,
then that's how it is.
But if you can change it,
then you have to do
something about it.
MAATALII (off-screen): Our leaders
started to mobilize back in the '60s
and '70s fighting for our rights
as indigenous peoples.
MAN: We are being misrepresented
in the territorial council.
And our organization,
if it's regional
will have more understanding of
what goes on in our communities.
MAN (over TV): Our guest is the director
of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.
Welcome, please,
John Amagoalik.
(applause)
MAN (over TV):
Now, what do they want?
I realize that's a
very broad story,
but what do they really want?
Is it money?
JOHN (over TV): Well, what
they want is, uh, is, is, uh,
whatever is left of
what we had before.
You know, before,
before Columbus,
before Martin Frobisher,
before those people came.
We want to protect as, uh,
as much as possible of what
we have left.
Over the past few years, uh,
people seem to think
that we're after money,
we're after, uh,
um, services.
But the original intent was,
very simply,
survival of our people.
You have failed.
We haven't failed.
You have failed to agree that
aboriginal peoples have the
democratic and human
right to self-government.
You have self-government.
You have your, you elect
your member parliament.
You elect your
provincial governments.
You benefit from resource
development on your lands.
In the Arctic, we don't have
the right to benefit
from resource development
from our lands,
from our resources.
MAN (over TV): Good evening.
There's agreement tonight
on the first amendment
to our new constitution.
It comes at the end of
a two-day conference
on native rights.
The amendment doesn't
promise immediate action;
it promises more talk.
Native leaders now have a
guarantee they'll be sitting
down with government
leaders again to talk
about their rights.
MAN (over TV): A 'yes' vote
that will change forever
the map of Canada.
Inuit have agreed
to the land claim,
so Ottawa has agreed to divide
the Northwest Territories.
(cheering)
The final vote
was 69% in favor.
Inuit leaders celebrated.
MAN (over TV): Tonight,
a new territory, a new Canada.
The territory of Nunavut
was born at midnight.
And since then, there's been
celebrating and ceremony
to welcome the new arrival.
And, it's a big one,
2.2 million square kilometers,
twice the size of Ontario.
MAN (over TV): The ancient Inuit lamp
called the Kudlik is the
symbol of survival
for the Inuit.
And the Inuit say the land
claim agreement and the
creation of Nunavut
will ensure the survival
of their culture.
MAN (over TV): It took to 25 years
to negotiate a land claim
agreement with the
federal government,
a deal which created
the territory.
JOHN (over TV):
It seem like a long time,
but when you have
your people behind you,
it makes it easier.
MAN (over TV): But,
before any political speeches were made
or bills introduced,
a moment of silence to
remember those who didn't live
long enough to see
a dream come true.
JOHN: 20 years ago,
it was, um, mixed emotions.
Uh, we were happy that we
were successful in creating
a territory and settling
our land claim.
The, the other half
of the emotions
that we felt was uncertainty.
JOHN (off-screen): We're very concerned
that the international community
seems to have forgotten
about us again.
The rush to control the Arctic
is happening right now.
In a sense, now we have to
face international forces,
which seems to want to repeat
the colonial attitudes
of the past.
MAATALII (off-screen):
The rest of the world is looking
in our direction.
But, have they talked
to us about it?
Have they talked to hunters
in our communities who understand
what that means for
migration routes?
Because we have
that knowledge.
We want to protect
what we have left.
The stakes are so high for us.
MAATALII (off-screen):
Everything that we are experiencing today
are symptoms of our history.
Many Inuit live in
overcrowded homes.
Many Inuit are food insecure.
We have one of the highest
suicide rates in the world.
Our language and our culture
and way of life is
so connected to our land,
our water, and our ice.
All of these things help weave
into the fabric of my being.
So, I am no better
than my land.
What on earth are we to feed
our children if we can't
harvest the animals that we've depended on
for thousands of years?
Will my future husband
fall through the ice?
Our human rights as a people
and the protection of our
wildlife and environment
go hand-in-hand.
(dripping)
(engine running)
(speaking native language)
EVA (off-screen): The three commissioners
traveled up to Grise Fiord,
Resolute Bay,
Pond Inlet,
Clyde River,
Siorapaluk,
Qaanaq, Kullorsuaq
and other places in
the northern part of
Greenland and met
with the hunters.
KUUPIK: The important thing
is that the hunters and the
fisherman are included in,
in the research.
MAN: We'll probably get more
problems with more cruise ships.
MAN: I do believe the narwhal
return to that polynya.
MAN: Polar bears, they come to
the communities more often now...
WOMAN: ...contracted trichinosis
from fat that was infected...
WOMAN: ...learn from each other
what it's like on the other side.
EVA (off-screen):
Their concerns are consistent.
Both sides.
The shipping,
the commercial fishing,
tourism, oil and gas exploration.
And, the Europeans looking
for the easy way to get to the
other side of the world.
OKALIK (off-screen): The recommendations
were largely Inuit led
management and monitoring
and Inuit led governing system.
And freer travel between
Canada and Greenland.
EVA (off-screen): There is
a very close relationship, family ties.
People in northern Greenland,
Qaanaaq,
Siorapaluk area used to hunt
in Elsmere Island,
as if it was part of
their country years ago.
When I was meeting people
and interviewing people
in, in Siorapaluk and Qaanaq,
I, I found out that
I have family ties,
and it was such an
amazing experience.
EVA (off-screen): How their face lit up
and, and start talking about so and so
in Pond Inlet,
so and so in Grise Fiord,
so and so in Arctic Bay.
And, you feel the,
the, the yearning
to see them once again,
and, sorry.
I didn't think it
was gonna come.
Sorry.
EVA (off-screen): I really felt
their desire to reconnect.
Their yearning to be with
their friends again and
relatives like they used to.
And have that ease of access.
OKALIK (off-screen): The outside world
needs to listen and understand
where we are coming from
and where we are trying to go.
We have the most to gain
when we are successful.
And we have the most to lose
if there is a catastrophe.
(whining)
(speaking native language)
(whining)
(speaking native language)
MAN: Help, help, help, help.
WOMAN (off-screen):
Somebody help.
(whining)
(whining)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): The people
we learn from cannot teach us as
the way they had been taught,
because of the ice.
It's too unpredictable now.
Life here is, is harsh,
uh, it's hard.
You never know how it is here,
so you cannot plan too long
in your life.
They found out I have,
uh, Parkinson's disease.
(speaking native language)
I cannot control
what happened to me.
There's nothing I can do
than take medicine they gave me.
If I cannot continue as a hunter,
of course, I won't.
I will have to stop.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I've always had to lean on my culture.
It really has carried me
through the hardest times
of my life.
I was in a very controlling
and abusive relationship
for a big part of my life.
And, what I realize now is during
that process of control,
manipulation and abuse
of all levels, um,
you lose yourself.
You begin to give up
part of who you are
to suit somebody else's
standard and expectation.
And that's how you
continue on this spiral.
MAATALII (off-screen):
And eventually, you either wake up
or you don't wake up from it.
After I escaped from
that relationship,
I slept for a very long time.
About a month actually.
And, I haven't shared this
with anybody before,
but I started dreaming
about my ancestors.
I started dreaming
about my homeland.
MAATALII (off-screen): I imagine
it was before colonization.
That's what it looked like.
And, that's what made me feel
like I could smile again.
And that was what reminded me
that I'm still here because
my culture allowed me to be here.
And I still have a purpose.
And I have to wake up.
And so I did.
MAATALII (off-screen): My ancestors
visited me in my dream
to show me that we've been here before
and we'll get there again.
(singing in native language)
-MAATALII: Good morning, (inaudible).
-MAN: Good morning, ladies.
WOMAN: O, K what?
-MAATALII: O, K, A, L, I, K.
-WOMAN: O, K, A, L.
(singing in native language)
MAN (over loudspeaker):
One, two, three, four, five, six.
(speaking native language)
KUUPIK: The Pikialasorsuaq
Commission's mandate
is for Inuit in Nunavut and Greenland
to aim for, together,
to take control of an area
divided into two by state borders.
It's a matter of survival.
Physical, cultural, and mental.
We lived here before
the states existed.
And the so-called conflict on whether
it belongs to Canada or Denmark,
I would say,
leave it to us Inuit.
It belongs to us
together anyway.
We don't need a state commission.
(applause)
WOMAN (over loudspeaker):
All in favor.
MAATALII (off-screen): I'm so proud
of how far we've come
over the last just
three generations.
And, what possibilities
exist for the future.
JOHN (off-screen): We don't want
to continue to be victims.
We're not going to put up our hands
or wave a, a white flag.
We're not gonna
do that anymore.
(applause)
(waves crashing)
(wind blowing)
DAVID: Huh?
(chipping)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
David is my nephew.
He loves to hear the stories
about hunting.
DAVID: Harpoon.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Tries to imitate his grandfather.
Even though he's seven.
DAVID: I'll get hot.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
He's already going out with
four dogs with his
own small sled.
Even though David doesn't know
that my uncle will be watching him
from distance
so that he doesn't get hurt.
Sometimes he will get wet
or he will lose the dogs.
But that's how it is.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I don't know
if David is going to become a hunter.
It depends totally on him.
The culture is changing.
But I think it's gonna
get better somehow.
THEO: We welcome
the return of the sun.
We actually celebrate
the returning of the sun.
The sun had been under the horizon
since the end of November.
And it resurfaces
in mid-January.
It now gives us day light
to get out and about.
The same as it has
always been doing.
The continuation of life
as we know it.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I was told that my grandmother was
pregnant with one of my aunts.
And, the sea ice
was breaking up.
And so, she gave birth,
picked up her baby,
and kept going.
Because, there was
no other option at that time.
So, when I feel like the world
is falling around me,
I think of it as sea ice.
And, I think about how
my ancestors were able to
navigate through that
breaking sea ice.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I can really get through anything
because of what I've been taught
by their survival.
(ice cracking)
(music playing through credits)
Captioned by
Cotter Captioning Services.
(ice cracking)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
(wind blowing)
DOUG (over TV):
Over in the Eastern Arctic,
contact between the Eskimo
and the white man
has been limited.
The Eskimo still lives
as a hunter and trapper,
though he uses some of the
white man's tools and weapons.
But with new developments
like the DEW Line Airlift,
these Eskimos are faced
with disturbing changes.
The site for the new town
is close to a good supply
of clean fresh water,
leading to an excellent
landing beach.
But most important of all,
the Eskimos,
a sea culture people,
like it.
From here they can
look to the sea.
How do we help the
Eskimo consider tomorrow,
to feel good about the future?
How does he feel about
his changing life?
Well, let's ask him.
Which would you
rather be doing,
hunting and trapping or
working at the base?
MAN (over TV):
I think better to hunt.
DOUG (over TV):
Hunting better?
Do you get much chance
to go out hunting now?
MAN (over TV): No.
DOUG (over TV):
Not very much. How 'bout you Jacobie?
Which would you
rather be doing?
MAN (over TV):
Oh, I'd, I'd rather hunt.
DOUG (over TV): Like
the others, Davide expressed a preference
for the hunting
and trapping life.
Like the others,
he was unable to say why.
You and I may see
the obvious reasons.
But the Eskimos do not
yet think as we do.
They look with nostalgia
to the life of the hunter,
the old way.
But they feel a subconscious
sense of security
in the new way.
The basic change
is in progress.
(wind blowing)
(radio chatter)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Polar bear and seal.
This part is polar bear,
this part is seal.
Oh! These are my uncle's.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
They fit just fine.
There's... (laughs)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
When I was little,
I always see the hunters
go away for hunting.
I always imagined what
they were doing out there.
What it was like to see
what they have seen.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm just happy that I was born here.
(speaking native language)
Let's go, let's go,
let's go, let's go.
If I was an American,
I would maybe be working now,
and I would be stressed.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
How can I be stressed?
Look at the nature.
I don't have to wear a watch
when I'm hunting.
I'm just me, my dogs.
Just live.
(speaking native language)
(snow crunching)
(whining)
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I have
been living with the hunters
for a few years now.
I have been learning
from my uncle.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
He's one of the great hunters.
I call them the great hunters,
the hunters that knows the ice,
the weather,
hunting all their lives.
It's, it's a life I want to live.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm not raised as a hunter.
When I was about eight,
we moved to Nuuk.
1999, we moved to Denmark.
When I was in Denmark and Nuuk,
I had always homesick.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
My mother,
I was in school down south
when she was killed.
So, I couldn't go back to school.
I tried, but I couldn't concentrate
so I came back here.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I got a job here.
I worked for a few years.
Then one of my uncles,
he was leaving,
and he had two dogs.
And, he asked me if,
if I wanted them.
I just said yes.
I was not thinking so much
to become a hunter,
but the female
began to have small puppies.
Before I knew it,
I had seven dogs.
So, that's where I decided
I have to try this
before it's too late.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Hey, hey, hey.
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
The sound travels longer,
and the sled will be
making too much noise.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
So, he's gonna go very far so it,
the seal doesn't wake up.
It will be a better chance
for him to catch it.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): We cut it the way
that it has been passed from hunter to
hunter for generations.
Every hunter get a share from the seal.
It depends on how many hunters
are hunting together.
They are rules.
This is tradition that has
been on for many, many years.
We are not killing animals
just to kill them,
but to eat them,
to use their skins.
Without animals,
we cannot survive.
We are not above the nature.
We are not above the animals.
(wind blowing)
(honking)
EVA (off-screen):
The Pikialasorsuaq is a huge,
vast area that is so rich
in all kinds of animals.
It is a place where animals
and birds go for birthing.
OKALIK (off-screen):
The seals, the beluga, the narwhale,
the polar bear, the fish.
It's considered one of the
most bio-diverse areas
in the Arctic.
The polar bears hunt the seals,
the seals eat the fish.
So, it's all a natural cycle.
EVA (off-screen): We need to protect
the environment that we depend on
and protect the area
that is so vulnerable
from the outside world.
(splashing)
THEO: He's looking at me,
that bugger!
(laughs)
Oh, ho, ho.
The ice that had formed this winter
allows this to happen.
He's not looking at us as
a food source, whereas
some years, for example
four years ago
I was dragged around by one
of these, trying to kill me.
We're no higher
than the polar bear.
The polar bear is on top
of the food chain.
We're just equivalent.
With the sea ice diminishing
the whole food chain is
affected right up to the top.
We had been doing
wildlife management
prior to European influence coming to
this part of the world.
And if the world looked
after the environment
as most aboriginal cultures
have been doing
then the world would be
so much further ahead.
The Inuk today,
the young Inuk,
doesn't fare as well
as the old Inuk
in the hardy environment
that you have to live in.
MAATALII (off-screen): Sometimes I say
that I was born in the wrong era.
LEENA: Always look around,
always.
-MAATALII: Yeah.
-LEENA: Yeah.
Don't just look down.
Always look around.
MAATALII (off-screen):
My parents' generation was a generation
who was completely nomadic.
But I'm that generation who
didn't have that experience.
(ringing)
Wow!
(laughing)
This is what happens when
you come to this hill.
You have access.
Crazy.
MAATALII (off-screen):
We're a biproduct of colonization.
When I hear about the way life
was before outsiders coming
into our homeland.
I've been told that,
whether it's one family
or a number of
families that have
come together,
every single member
of the camp had roles
and responsibilities.
Ultimately, they had a purpose.
That's such a beautiful way
to look at a community.
It's really important
that we remember,
even into today whether we
live in those camps or not,
that every single
one of us matters.
Every single one of us
has a purpose.
But I'm so disconnected
from that reality.
And, that breaks me inside.
This is a dream of mine
as a young Inuk.
I believe it's a dream
of many young Inuit,
to reclaim what I lost
not growing up in my homeland.
MAATALII (off-screen):
My earliest memories of being on the land
were in my mom's Amauti,
in my natural environment
as an Inuk.
I was born in Iqaluit.
But we moved to southern Canada
when I was very young.
And I moved to Ottawa
as a fluent,
strong Inuktitut speaker.
And, I can't say that I am
that now, because I'm not.
And, so it's wild that I
speak English better than
my language,
my mother tongue.
MAATALII (off-screen):
When I moved back home,
that's when I could start
filling in that emptiness.
(chanting)
(chanting)
(cheering)
Of the 65,000 Inuit in Canada
and 165,000 Inuit
around the world,
Intuit youth are the majority.
MAATALII (off-screen): Over 50%
of our population is under the age of 24.
We're growing very quickly,
and I always say it's
because we know how to love.
MAATALII (off-screen):
We're not going anywhere.
Ultimately, we'll be the ones living here
for the next 100 years,
200 years, 300 years
and over 1,000 years
because we've been living here
for thousands of years.
THEO: We're quite removed
from the initial close relationship.
And at one point
there was no boundary.
They had been going back
and forth, back and forth.
Canadians going this way,
Greenlanders going the other way.
This was the relationship
between Greenland and Canada.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): When they tell
stories about the generation before them,
how they lived,
it's a whole different story.
ED (off-screen): If you read
a lot of the literature of the explorers,
they were always kind of
marveled by how, how happy the
Inuit were in a world in which
we would all just think,
"We're gonna die."
MAATALII (off-screen):
People always say,
"What a terrible place
for them to live,
so desolate and so out of reach."
But I think they loved it.
MAATALII (off-screen):
They thrived in that environment.
Very self-determined,
very knowledgeable, very skilled.
THEO: The hunting is similar.
Walrus, bearded seal,
ringed seal, narwhal, beluga and caribou,
and fish.
Everything is very similar,
meaning that at one point
they all came from one peoples.
So the relationship was quite close,
if you really look at that.
Today the ice is
not forming anymore,
separating our bloodlines,
separating the rich culture
that we might be sharing.
MAN (over TV): White men are coming
to the Arctic now in ever
increasing numbers.
Building air strips,
taking mineral wealth
from the frozen ground,
manning radars
and air defense bases,
which stretch
across the North.
Anna Kuluk's brother
works as a carpenter.
And his children go
to a modern school.
Here they learn about
the outside world,
which the Eskimo
knew so little of
until only a few years ago.
There are few Eskimos
in the whole Arctic now
who do not have some contact
with the white man.
They are adopting his dress,
speech and ways rapidly.
MAATALII (off-screen):
There certainty has been a breakdown
of our way of life.
And the onus is now on us,
as youth,
to revitalize that relationship
that we have with our culture,
language, traditions,
and our environment.
(speaking native language)
MAATALII: My dream is for us
to reach the same level of
self-determination the day before
an outsider came
into our homeland.
(laughs)
We'll radio you.
Don't forget the...
(speaking native language)
Have a good day.
MAATALII (off-screen): Today I work at
the Piruvik Center to create more access
and opportunity for Inuit youth
to be able to learn
our language and our
traditional practices.
Inuit youth want to learn more
because it helps us understand
who we are and where we
came from and what strengths
our ancestors had
so we too can be strong.
(speaking native language)
MAATALII (off-screen):
We put our elders at such a high level
because they are our knowledge keepers,
they are our guidance.
MAN (over radio): Calmly.
Mainly sunny.
Temperature high
of 17 degrees...
MAATALII (off-screen): And, I have
teachers all around me who continue to
teach me about my culture.
So, I call her my...
(speaking native language)
and she calls me her...
(speaking native language)
LEENA: She carries that
namesake pretty strongly.
MAATALII:
She's one of my teachers
and I learn so much from her.
Heating some snow.
LEENA: Yeah, it's
not gonna melt there,
it's gonna have to be there.
I'll do it in a minute.
-MAATALII: Okay.
-LEENA: You have to open that.
MAATALII (off-screen): I can just imagine
but never understand what it was like
for my grandfather's generation.
When people talk about colonization,
they're like,
"Oh that happened hundreds
of years go," you know?
But for us, in Inuit homeland,
colonization happened
to my grandparents.
LEENA: My, no, also to me.
MAATALII (off-screen): Yes.
LEENA: I'm the, my generation
is the first generation, um,
to be totally taken away from home.
ED (off-screen): I don't think we can
underestimate how profound an impact
past policies have been
on the Arctic peoples.
In the 1950s, for example,
the government was very concerned about
sovereignty in the Arctic.
THEO: Igloolik, 1938.
Hall beach, 1959.
Qaanaaq, 1950.
The governments said,
"you now live here."
They had to live there.
So it's not by choice that they started
living in these communities.
JOHN (off-screen): My family
were relocated from Northern Quebec
to the high Arctic in 1953,
a distance of
about 2,000 kilometers.
The change from Northern Quebec
to the high Arctic was different
and much more harsh.
JOHN (off-screen): We were told
that it was for our own good,
but we found that
very hard to believe.
I remember being treated
not as human beings,
but as something less
than human beings.
I remember the lies they told.
I get very emotional when I
recount the, the experience.
ED (off-screen):
They had their hair cut,
they were told not to
speak their own language.
They tried to turn them
into white people.
It just wasn't right.
THEO: I was literally taken from the grasp
of my mother by a priest
and dragged off to residential
school for seven years.
Abuses were being done
to the students.
Physical,
mental,
and at sometimes sexual.
ED (off-screen): In many ways,
it was a
social experiment
that went horribly wrong.
And we're living with that now.
HEATHER (off-screen): With great
change comes great opportunity.
As that sea ice diminishes,
we're seeing great interest
in shipping.
MAN (off-screen): Korea has
a keen interest in the Arctic sea routes.
MAN: The prospects for Arctic
business developments are getting better.
MAN: If a shorter route opens up,
we want to know about it.
HEATHER (off-screen):
Shorter shipping times means
goods get to market faster.
All of this is
a benefit to nations
that are investing in it.
You'll see more
Chinese icebreakers,
even maybe Chinese
submarines in the Arctic.
The Russians and the Chinese
have one of the most ambitious
economic visions
for the Arctic.
If they want to Arctic
to be developed,
they will focus
their resources,
and they will develop it.
(wind blowing)
WOMAN (over TV):
Good afternoon, (inaudible).
ALEQATSIAQ: This is
almost like a Kool-Aid.
(water running)
(dog barking)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I can maybe
look a little bit clumsy sometimes.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): It's going to be
a problem if I'm going to be a hunter.
Because when you are a hunter
you have to be able to stand still,
stand quiet
on the sea ice.
You have to be very good
with your hands.
(wind blowing)
It began with my finger.
At first it was only my finger,
then my leg.
The muscle is retracting
off and on all the time.
I have tried to go to the doctor
to try to find out what it was.
They don't know, so I may have
to meet a neurological doctor
to fully understand
what it is.
It's going to be a problem
if it gets worse.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Maybe it will get better.
I have to have a purpose in my life.
I have to do something in my life.
(speaking native language)
(cracking)
I want you to listen
to the cracking sound.
I can see the ice is like a wave,
moving like a wave.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): If they become
too big it will begin to break the ice.
And the ice will just snap.
In these last years, to be a hunter
has become very hard.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
The old hunting grounds,
like where they used to hunt.
MAN (off-screen): Yeah.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
We cannot reach them anymore.
They are just history now.
MAN (off-screen): Let's go!
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I think
there will still be ice while I'm alive.
But everything is changing.
(water running)
EVA (off-screen): The Inuit
from Greenland and Canada,
are so much dependent upon
the animals that come
from the Pikialasorsuaq area.
The cost of living and cost of food
in the north is so high,
so the people in the communities
perpetually have
to supplement their meals
each day from what they hunt.
WOMAN (over TV): $12 for a carton
of orange juice,
this is everyday life in Nunavut.
A Conference Board of Canada
report says more than a
quarter of the people living
in the territory don't have
affordable access to food,
let alone nutritious food.
But food security experts
say the situation is actually much worse,
affecting almost half
of Nunavut's population.
MAATALII (off-screen): This is the Nunavut
country food store here in Iqaluit.
It's really important to me
because this is where I can
buy locally harvested country food
that we Inuit prefer to
eat over store bought food
that is shipped up
by plane from the south.
MAATALII (off-screen): I wish there were
more options like this in our local stores
because we have such amazing
food that we can harvest.
And I know that many people
want to be full time hunters
and fishermen.
Today, I'm looking for
some Iqaluk, arctic char.
It's my favorite thing to eat.
I've been told that,
because of a warming arctic,
that our char, which
is usually this red,
is now becoming this color
because of what they're eating instead,
more of those small white fish.
Yes!
This is how it's supposed to be.
Look it!
MAN (off-screen): They look
a lot healthier, right.
MAATALII: Yeah!
ED (off-screen): If we do nothing
as we've done in the past,
and just sort of
let thing happen,
we're gonna lose some species.
There's no question about it.
ED (off-screen): We're going
to see migration patterns
alter very dramatically.
It's gonna be a very,
very different place.
It's going to be unrecognizable.
(speaking native language)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
All the hunters,
some of them tells me, uh,
the animals are polluted.
In their fat, they can see some rot
that isn't supposed to be there.
It's kind of disturbing.
Sometimes I don't
want to eat the meat.
But I have to eat it.
And our dogs have to eat it also.
That's how we live, uh,
we eat what we hunt.
(speaking native language)
(snow crunching)
Here come Johnny singing
oldies, goldies.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Before I became a hunter,
I worked as a manager in the bar.
A few months ago, the owner
asked me if I could help out.
So I did.
(laughing)
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I cannot say what
I'm going to be doing
ten years from now.
Our culture has changed so fast.
It might be one of the reasons
that we get lost
in our life here, now.
We get, uh, confused.
I have, uh,
several friends that, uh,
that, that has
committed suicide here.
For me it's three or four.
For me, yeah, that
was very close to me.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I don't know
if it's going to become better.
But...
everything change
in this life, so.
MAN (over TV): Once called
the creator's unfinished world,
the Arctic is just now emerging into
the 20th century.
The oil men and the miners
have found little here
but a promise and a challenge.
There have been few big strikes.
But like the men who came
before them, like Frobisher,
Hudson, Franklin,
and Peary,
they have helped to
open up this land.
The prize they seek is great,
the price we pay
may be greater still.
ED (off-screen): In the past we could do
pretty much whatever
we wanted in the Arctic.
Some companies were getting
a dollar-ten back for every
dollar they invested.
And, they just went wild.
ED (off-screen): You know, they laid waste
to good parts of the Arctic.
And now the rest of the world
has suddenly realized that
this is the last frontier
we can exploit for a variety of purposes.
A quarter of all of the
unexploited oil and gas
reserves in the world are
located in the Arctic.
The rest of the world really,
really needs those resources.
And, they're untapped.
HEATHER (off-screen): There'll be new,
non-arctic actors from Saudi Arabia
and even, potentially, India
looking for those energy resources.
We're seeing increased
in military operations in the Arctic,
more port infrastructure,
more mining.
And so states are quickly
working to try to figure out
the best approach.
ED (off-screen): Future economies
are staking themselves on what
happens in the Arctic.
So the million-dollar question is,
is this going to be the wild west
and we're just gonna
let everybody do
whatever they want?
THEO: What happens on the land
affects what happens in the sea.
What happens in the sea affects
what happens on the land.
It's all very intricately
interconnected.
In a sense we're just trying to gain back
what we have lost...
the continuation of life
in the Arctic as it has always been known,
and how it should be.
(splashes)
(chewing)
(thunder cracking)
(horn honking)
(horn honking)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I have
been here for five days now.
I went to the doctor to see what,
what's wrong with me.
If they can fix it,
I can keep hunting.
WOMAN: Does it get worse
when you are under stress?
ALEQATSIAQ: It does.
When I feel confident enough
I don't really notice it as much,
so I don't think about it.
WOMAN (off-screen): Okay.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
I'm still waiting for, for the answer.
I hope they can do
something about it.
If it's getting worse,
then I have to think about,
to do other things
than hunting.
I can become a
'tom tom drunk.'
No, I'm just kidding! (laughs)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): This is
something you cannot control.
If you cannot change it,
then that's how it is.
But if you can change it,
then you have to do
something about it.
MAATALII (off-screen): Our leaders
started to mobilize back in the '60s
and '70s fighting for our rights
as indigenous peoples.
MAN: We are being misrepresented
in the territorial council.
And our organization,
if it's regional
will have more understanding of
what goes on in our communities.
MAN (over TV): Our guest is the director
of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.
Welcome, please,
John Amagoalik.
(applause)
MAN (over TV):
Now, what do they want?
I realize that's a
very broad story,
but what do they really want?
Is it money?
JOHN (over TV): Well, what
they want is, uh, is, is, uh,
whatever is left of
what we had before.
You know, before,
before Columbus,
before Martin Frobisher,
before those people came.
We want to protect as, uh,
as much as possible of what
we have left.
Over the past few years, uh,
people seem to think
that we're after money,
we're after, uh,
um, services.
But the original intent was,
very simply,
survival of our people.
You have failed.
We haven't failed.
You have failed to agree that
aboriginal peoples have the
democratic and human
right to self-government.
You have self-government.
You have your, you elect
your member parliament.
You elect your
provincial governments.
You benefit from resource
development on your lands.
In the Arctic, we don't have
the right to benefit
from resource development
from our lands,
from our resources.
MAN (over TV): Good evening.
There's agreement tonight
on the first amendment
to our new constitution.
It comes at the end of
a two-day conference
on native rights.
The amendment doesn't
promise immediate action;
it promises more talk.
Native leaders now have a
guarantee they'll be sitting
down with government
leaders again to talk
about their rights.
MAN (over TV): A 'yes' vote
that will change forever
the map of Canada.
Inuit have agreed
to the land claim,
so Ottawa has agreed to divide
the Northwest Territories.
(cheering)
The final vote
was 69% in favor.
Inuit leaders celebrated.
MAN (over TV): Tonight,
a new territory, a new Canada.
The territory of Nunavut
was born at midnight.
And since then, there's been
celebrating and ceremony
to welcome the new arrival.
And, it's a big one,
2.2 million square kilometers,
twice the size of Ontario.
MAN (over TV): The ancient Inuit lamp
called the Kudlik is the
symbol of survival
for the Inuit.
And the Inuit say the land
claim agreement and the
creation of Nunavut
will ensure the survival
of their culture.
MAN (over TV): It took to 25 years
to negotiate a land claim
agreement with the
federal government,
a deal which created
the territory.
JOHN (over TV):
It seem like a long time,
but when you have
your people behind you,
it makes it easier.
MAN (over TV): But,
before any political speeches were made
or bills introduced,
a moment of silence to
remember those who didn't live
long enough to see
a dream come true.
JOHN: 20 years ago,
it was, um, mixed emotions.
Uh, we were happy that we
were successful in creating
a territory and settling
our land claim.
The, the other half
of the emotions
that we felt was uncertainty.
JOHN (off-screen): We're very concerned
that the international community
seems to have forgotten
about us again.
The rush to control the Arctic
is happening right now.
In a sense, now we have to
face international forces,
which seems to want to repeat
the colonial attitudes
of the past.
MAATALII (off-screen):
The rest of the world is looking
in our direction.
But, have they talked
to us about it?
Have they talked to hunters
in our communities who understand
what that means for
migration routes?
Because we have
that knowledge.
We want to protect
what we have left.
The stakes are so high for us.
MAATALII (off-screen):
Everything that we are experiencing today
are symptoms of our history.
Many Inuit live in
overcrowded homes.
Many Inuit are food insecure.
We have one of the highest
suicide rates in the world.
Our language and our culture
and way of life is
so connected to our land,
our water, and our ice.
All of these things help weave
into the fabric of my being.
So, I am no better
than my land.
What on earth are we to feed
our children if we can't
harvest the animals that we've depended on
for thousands of years?
Will my future husband
fall through the ice?
Our human rights as a people
and the protection of our
wildlife and environment
go hand-in-hand.
(dripping)
(engine running)
(speaking native language)
EVA (off-screen): The three commissioners
traveled up to Grise Fiord,
Resolute Bay,
Pond Inlet,
Clyde River,
Siorapaluk,
Qaanaq, Kullorsuaq
and other places in
the northern part of
Greenland and met
with the hunters.
KUUPIK: The important thing
is that the hunters and the
fisherman are included in,
in the research.
MAN: We'll probably get more
problems with more cruise ships.
MAN: I do believe the narwhal
return to that polynya.
MAN: Polar bears, they come to
the communities more often now...
WOMAN: ...contracted trichinosis
from fat that was infected...
WOMAN: ...learn from each other
what it's like on the other side.
EVA (off-screen):
Their concerns are consistent.
Both sides.
The shipping,
the commercial fishing,
tourism, oil and gas exploration.
And, the Europeans looking
for the easy way to get to the
other side of the world.
OKALIK (off-screen): The recommendations
were largely Inuit led
management and monitoring
and Inuit led governing system.
And freer travel between
Canada and Greenland.
EVA (off-screen): There is
a very close relationship, family ties.
People in northern Greenland,
Qaanaaq,
Siorapaluk area used to hunt
in Elsmere Island,
as if it was part of
their country years ago.
When I was meeting people
and interviewing people
in, in Siorapaluk and Qaanaq,
I, I found out that
I have family ties,
and it was such an
amazing experience.
EVA (off-screen): How their face lit up
and, and start talking about so and so
in Pond Inlet,
so and so in Grise Fiord,
so and so in Arctic Bay.
And, you feel the,
the, the yearning
to see them once again,
and, sorry.
I didn't think it
was gonna come.
Sorry.
EVA (off-screen): I really felt
their desire to reconnect.
Their yearning to be with
their friends again and
relatives like they used to.
And have that ease of access.
OKALIK (off-screen): The outside world
needs to listen and understand
where we are coming from
and where we are trying to go.
We have the most to gain
when we are successful.
And we have the most to lose
if there is a catastrophe.
(whining)
(speaking native language)
(whining)
(speaking native language)
MAN: Help, help, help, help.
WOMAN (off-screen):
Somebody help.
(whining)
(whining)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): The people
we learn from cannot teach us as
the way they had been taught,
because of the ice.
It's too unpredictable now.
Life here is, is harsh,
uh, it's hard.
You never know how it is here,
so you cannot plan too long
in your life.
They found out I have,
uh, Parkinson's disease.
(speaking native language)
I cannot control
what happened to me.
There's nothing I can do
than take medicine they gave me.
If I cannot continue as a hunter,
of course, I won't.
I will have to stop.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I've always had to lean on my culture.
It really has carried me
through the hardest times
of my life.
I was in a very controlling
and abusive relationship
for a big part of my life.
And, what I realize now is during
that process of control,
manipulation and abuse
of all levels, um,
you lose yourself.
You begin to give up
part of who you are
to suit somebody else's
standard and expectation.
And that's how you
continue on this spiral.
MAATALII (off-screen):
And eventually, you either wake up
or you don't wake up from it.
After I escaped from
that relationship,
I slept for a very long time.
About a month actually.
And, I haven't shared this
with anybody before,
but I started dreaming
about my ancestors.
I started dreaming
about my homeland.
MAATALII (off-screen): I imagine
it was before colonization.
That's what it looked like.
And, that's what made me feel
like I could smile again.
And that was what reminded me
that I'm still here because
my culture allowed me to be here.
And I still have a purpose.
And I have to wake up.
And so I did.
MAATALII (off-screen): My ancestors
visited me in my dream
to show me that we've been here before
and we'll get there again.
(singing in native language)
-MAATALII: Good morning, (inaudible).
-MAN: Good morning, ladies.
WOMAN: O, K what?
-MAATALII: O, K, A, L, I, K.
-WOMAN: O, K, A, L.
(singing in native language)
MAN (over loudspeaker):
One, two, three, four, five, six.
(speaking native language)
KUUPIK: The Pikialasorsuaq
Commission's mandate
is for Inuit in Nunavut and Greenland
to aim for, together,
to take control of an area
divided into two by state borders.
It's a matter of survival.
Physical, cultural, and mental.
We lived here before
the states existed.
And the so-called conflict on whether
it belongs to Canada or Denmark,
I would say,
leave it to us Inuit.
It belongs to us
together anyway.
We don't need a state commission.
(applause)
WOMAN (over loudspeaker):
All in favor.
MAATALII (off-screen): I'm so proud
of how far we've come
over the last just
three generations.
And, what possibilities
exist for the future.
JOHN (off-screen): We don't want
to continue to be victims.
We're not going to put up our hands
or wave a, a white flag.
We're not gonna
do that anymore.
(applause)
(waves crashing)
(wind blowing)
DAVID: Huh?
(chipping)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
David is my nephew.
He loves to hear the stories
about hunting.
DAVID: Harpoon.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
Tries to imitate his grandfather.
Even though he's seven.
DAVID: I'll get hot.
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen):
He's already going out with
four dogs with his
own small sled.
Even though David doesn't know
that my uncle will be watching him
from distance
so that he doesn't get hurt.
Sometimes he will get wet
or he will lose the dogs.
But that's how it is.
(speaking native language)
ALEQATSIAQ (off-screen): I don't know
if David is going to become a hunter.
It depends totally on him.
The culture is changing.
But I think it's gonna
get better somehow.
THEO: We welcome
the return of the sun.
We actually celebrate
the returning of the sun.
The sun had been under the horizon
since the end of November.
And it resurfaces
in mid-January.
It now gives us day light
to get out and about.
The same as it has
always been doing.
The continuation of life
as we know it.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I was told that my grandmother was
pregnant with one of my aunts.
And, the sea ice
was breaking up.
And so, she gave birth,
picked up her baby,
and kept going.
Because, there was
no other option at that time.
So, when I feel like the world
is falling around me,
I think of it as sea ice.
And, I think about how
my ancestors were able to
navigate through that
breaking sea ice.
MAATALII (off-screen):
I can really get through anything
because of what I've been taught
by their survival.
(ice cracking)
(music playing through credits)
Captioned by
Cotter Captioning Services.