The iceberg capital of the world

Before moving to Qikiqtarjuaq with her family in 1980, Mary Killiktee had never seen so many icebergs all at once. Now, she is the first female mayor of this tiny hamlet in Nunavut, Canada, and still can’t get over the geometric beauty of the landscape. “How they are shaped is just amazing,” she said of the icebergs. “They are here all year-round for us to see. It’s part of us”.

Few more than 500 people live in Qikiqtarjuaq, and according to Killiktee, they all know each other. The hamlet sits on a small island also called Qikiqtarjuaq (literally ‘big island’) right above the Arctic Circle. It’s one of the Nunavut communities closest to Greenland, at the entry point of the Auyuittuq National Park.

Icebergs stop here on their way south from the Davis Strait, hindered by the cape and by shallow waters. They shape the landscape and culture of this community, which has managed to preserve its own traditions and language, and offer the purest water in the world.

When school is closed, most families leave Qikiqtarjuaq and head to their getaway cabins (or tents), which they can reach via snowmobile in just two or three hours from the hamlet. In summer, when the ice is thin and unsafe to ride, families travel by boat.

Camping is a key part of life in Qikiqtarjuaq. There is even a specific word for staying out from spring to summer: ‘upirngik’. “I used to do it with my mother and my siblings,” said local resident Daisy Arnaquq. “That is how I know this land”.

Daisy and her husband Billy have a cabin in Kangiqtukulu, a name that means ‘nice little inlet’. It was built by Daisy’s father, and the couple often spends time there with their grandchildren, hunting and fishing. They also host climbers and adventurous tourists on their way to the nearby national park.

Inuit across the world – in Greenland, Alaska, Canada and Russia – have survived thousands of the most brutal and grim Arctic winters. But how have they done this? Irniq, who grew up living in an igloo for the first 11 years of his life, claims to have the answer:

“Naglingniq: I always said within the course of my own teaching career to both Inuit and non-Inuit, that our ancestors had a lot of naglingniq, a lot of love and compassion to survive to this day,” he said. “We share what we have with other Inuit. This is how our ancestors survived hundreds of thousands of years ago. So our Inuit culture, we say that we always help each other to survive for our future.”

While ‘naglingniq’ is an Inuit word that refers to the love, compassion and respect between Inuit families and fellow Inuit, the Inuit people also use the word to show their compassion for others around the world. “When we see that there are world disasters such as 9/11, we always said, for example, ‘New York naglingniq’,” Irniq said.

In Qikiqtarjuaq, most people speak Inuktitut; English is not used as much as in bigger Nunavut communities.

Inuktitut is not a single language, though. With 26 different dialects in the Nunavut territory alone, this Inuit language is a spectrum of distinct speech forms that vary between different communities.

These different dialects developed when the Inuit lived in small isolated camps, until about 50 years ago. More recently, however, the Inuit language has begun to merge into one dialect as a result of the establishment of larger, more permanent Inuit communities.

BBC