Kugluktuk, Nunavut
Kugluktuk High School’s 1998-99 Grade 7 Class Speaks About Kugluktuk
There are about 1200 people in Kugluktuk. We have: 2 stores (a Co-op and a Northern), a post office, an Arcade, a Recreation Complex with ice for curling and hockey, an airport, a nursing station, 2 schools (an elementary one and a high school), a daycare and a preschool, a great sliding hill, some government offices, a Hamlet office, 2 hotels, a Youth and Elders Center, an Arctic College campus, a gas station, an RCMP station, a business center with computers, a library, an 18-hole golf course, a half basket ball court, a baseball diamond, and LOTS of houses. We have no restaurants, no malls, and no paved roads.
Not many kids know how the Hamlet of Kugluktuk got its name, but they think it’s because Elders wanted an Inuinnaqtun name, not a Qablunaq name like Coppermine like our community was called before. Maybe the name came from a respected Elder. None of the grade 7 students know what it means; Kugluktuk is just better than Coppermine!
In Kugluktuk, some people go out camping and hunt to support their families. Other people start their own business, like making carvings and selling them. There are also all kinds of jobs in town that people can do to make money to buy food and clothing for their families. Some people eat mostly country foods. The most popular food is caribou, which people eat as soup or stew, as quaq (raw frozen), or as mipku (dried). The best parts of the caribou are the tongue, brain, and hooves, but people eat lots of other parts too. People also eat fish smoked, made into cakes, fried, or as piffi- (dried). Seal is also good, and the best parts are the intestines and flippers. Geese, ducks and their eggs, and hik-hik are other popular country foods. Other people eat mostly store bought food like pasta, hot dogs, noodles, beef jerky, and lots of kinds of junk food.
In Kugluktuk, kids do many different things for fun. Kugluktuk is special because we can do more here than you can in cities. In the winter, some kids like to go sliding on nearby hills, go out on the land on skidoo to hunt, or go ice fishing. We host the Nattiq Frolics in April. In the summer, some kids like to go camping. It is also fun to swim in the Coronation Gulf in July and August. Most kids play sports all year round. Our favorite ones are road hockey and ice hockey in the winter, and basketball and golf in the summer. Year-round, kids also like to walk around town, visit friends, hang out at the Arcade, throw darts, play Nintendo 64, go to dances on the weekends, watch TV, stay with friends, play on the computer, and use the internet. We also have lots of community activities. It is really fun when we have groups of people from out of town visit, and there are more activities, like dances and games at the Complex. Being with friends and family in get togethers is good, but only when people are not drunk. It’s good to see everybody smiling and laughing. School is also one of the best things about our community.
The land around town is gray and black, with lots of orange and yellow lichens and green plants, like grass. We have beautiful northern lights in the winter. In the summer we have 24 hours of daylight. We have pretty flowers of all wonderful colors in and around our community; they are mostly purple, white, and yellow. Most plants here are bushes, like willows. Our whole town is surrounded by berries! The animals we have around town are: tuktu (caribou), hik-hik (ground squirrels), kalvik (wolverines), rabbits, weasels, muskrats, lemmings, moose, musk-ox, foxes, wolves, grizzly and black bears, birds (ducks), seals, and fish (char and whitefish). In town we have lots of dogs and cats, and in some of our classrooms we have worms!
The creation of Nunavut means that we are not the NWT any more. It will be our land. Maybe we will speak Inuinnaqtun all the time, write in a different way, and learn more of our culture. Nunavut doesn’t mean that much to us yet, but we hope to learn more from our Elders so that we understand what it means. It might be fun to be in Nunavut.
Most kids think that Nunavut will bring some changes to Kugluktuk, like a bigger town and bigger buildings. Kids also hope for more jobs. Some kids think that in ten years, our community will have more cement like paced roads and maybe sidewalks. They think there will be a bank, and more stores or maybe a mall where you can buy cheaper things. Some kids hope our community will never change, and one student said, "It will still be the same because it’s just the name Nunavut changing, not our lives."
Nunavut will only bring good changes if people can start to listen and stop smoking and using drugs and alcohol. There’s too much bad stuff now. Kids wish for a drug free, alcohol free, and violence free community. A swimming pool, stores, and restaurants would be welcome changes, but what would be best is healthy, happy people and families staying together.
For more information, have a look at our Canadian Communities Atlas Web site.