Grise Fiord

Population : 134

Latitude 76° 25’ 00” N
Longitude 82° 54’ 00” W

Average temperature in August : 1,4°C
Average temperature in January : -28,9°C

Meeka Kiguktak – Mayor of Grise Fiord – (2012)

“We live here on the south of Ellesmere Island and it’s the more northerly community in Canada. We are a busy little town. Everybody seems busy all the time, even in the dark season. That’s when all sorts of programs are running. There’s the scrapbooking happening, the Qamutik making, harpoon head making, nutrition classes, making muskoox wool, hunting, (…) When spring comes everybody is out. They’re either fishing, camping or just sightseeing, seal hunting, caribou hunting, that’s what we do in the summer.

We do a lot of our traditionnal activities in order to survive up here. If we tried surviving from the Coop store, like for food, it wouldn’t work. So we depend on country food a lot. Our main country food is seal meat and polar bear meat and maktaq (whale skin), whale meat, fish, depend on the time of year too. It’s seasonal. 

One of the thing I think I really have to say too is when people catch narwals, anything big like caribou, muskox, anything like that, we share. Everybody gets the chance to have a little bit of that meat. One good thing about our community, we are closely connected, just like a big family.

Altough I myself, when I go to the old village where they put the relocation people, when I see the graveyards there, it still hurts. I can still imagine how it was like to have been put there in the later summer days when it’s getting colder and I can’t imagine ever living there or how they survived but they made it through.

The challenges here for Grise Fiord is it’s such a small community, it’s very isolated, the high cost of living here is unbelievable and then with airfare (…) it’s costing us too much to get out of town. It’s a close community, we are so connected to each other, we help each other a lot. And that’s how it’s like to be healthy. You have to be physically, spiritually, emotionally healthy to live up here. You have to be able to accept the dark winters especially. It’s cold, sometime when it’s not full moon  it’s very dark outside.”

Ausuittuqmiut

Watch the short film made by talented young people of this community during the video training!

In the movie “Ausuittuqmiut”, Pauline Akeeagok, Arnarulunnguaq Audlaluk and Kristine Watsko bring up childhood memories and show us the beauty of their community. To grow up in Grise Fiord is to grow up on a huge playground, and much like everywhere else on the planet, nothing says fun like a good game of hide and seek!