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Book Review: Uqalurait

Oral history of Nunavut requires some refinement

SARA MINOGUE

More than 50 people packed into the Unikkaarvik Visitor Centre in Iqaluit on June 16 for the launch of a thick new book that compiles material from interviews with elders across the territory.

Forty of those people took home a copy of Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut, but most will be disappointed when they start reading.

What could have been a portable archive of elders’ knowledge and history is, instead, 473 pages of study notes for a book that never materialized.

The idea for Uqalurait emerged in 1993 when David Webster, then working at Parks Canada’s National Historic Sites Directorate, was asked to produce background material that would help the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada decide which of several proposed sites in Nunavut should be labeled “historic,” and thus, protected.

He saw an opportunity to collect a large amount of oral history that would help the Historic Sites and Monuments board, as well as preserve and share knowledge that was largely undocumented.

By December of that year, Webster had formed a committee of Inuit from across the territory, including David Serkoak, Peter Irniq, Suzanne Evaloardjuk and Uriash Puqiqnak. John Maksagak and Geela Giroux were also part of the committee, but died in 1998 and 2000, respectively.

Two writer/researchers were invited: John Bennett, former editor of Inuktitut magazine, and Susan Rowley, an assistant professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of British Columbia.

The committee spent five years collecting the raw material for the book. Some material came from new interviews with elders, but much of it was culled from other sources, such as the Igloolik Oral History Project. Elders are even quoted from the journals of Arctic explorer Knud Rassmussen, which date back to the 1920s.

It took another five years to find the elders, or their family members, to get permission to use interview material that was, in some cases, over 80 years old.

Anticipation over the book’s publication was again evident when Arctic Ventures held a book signing the day after the official launch. Staff piled the books high on the display table, expecting to sell “dozens” of copies.

The book itself is appealing. It opens with 14 colourful pages of paintings and drawings about traditional Inuit life. Numerous historic photographs appear throughout the text. There are some illustrations, and a few maps.

Inside, however, readers will be confused almost from the beginning.

Traditional oral history uses stories to describe the past. In this book, the authors culled the transcripts for facts, and organized the book accordingly, so that a moving story about an elder who sacrifices himself for his family appears in chapter called “Food Sharing,” rather than “Family.” Great hunting adventures are divided equally between the chapters called “Animals” and “Hunting.”

Elders are supposed to tell the history, and as many as possible are quoted on any given theme, in statements that are not always illuminating. In some cases, long, lively, memorable stories are recounted, but in many cases, the quotes are single sentences that add little context.

If the goal was to preserve the words of individual speakers, this is not made evident to readers. All of the quotes are attributed, with their name and region, but instead of including the date of the interview, or listing who they spoke with, the editors chose a complex system of acronyms, explained in a one page index in the back, to denote the source of the interview.

The “oral history” is interspersed with commentary from the authors, which is often repetitive or unnecessary.

Naturally, there is much overlap between themes. Instead of confronting this challenge, the authors choose in some cases to quote the same speaker, using the same statement, more than once.

On some pages, there are actual errors, such as parts of sentences — whole paragraphs? — that are missing.

At 473 pages, the book is unlikely to appeal to the audience its authors say they’re aiming for: children, young parents, and teachers of Nunavut. It is more likely to attract academics, who should be its secondary audience.

Uqalurait is still a massive accomplishment.

Patient readers will find some lively stories, like the juicy tale about a woman who plots with another man to kill her husband, or the hunter who died gripping a walrus tusk while trying to prove he could win the hunt alone.

No one would refute the idea that Nunavut needs to hang onto the history that its elders can only safeguard temporarily, and any publication that gets near that goal should be celebrated.

It’s to be hoped that in this case, the achievement will inspire someone else to produce a book that people want to read late into the night, and maybe pass on to someone else.

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