Life Up Here: The Great Trail and Inuksuit

CBC article about the race along the trail from Iqaluit to Kimmirut

Canada just celebrated its 150th birthday. This year the country is also celebrating the Trans Canada Trail finally being completed. The trail extends over 24,000 km, and is the longest recreational trail in the world. People can hike, cycle, snowmobile, snowshoe, ski, etc. depending on the part of the trail and time of year. Close to 200 events were planned this year across Canada, including in Nunavut, which is where the last part of the trail is being made official. Our tiny portion of the trail here in Nunavut goes from Iqaluit to a small community called Kimmirut. It has been used by Inuit for many, many years. Most commonly now it is traversed by hiking (in the summer and fall) or by snow mobile (during the winter and spring). You can also travel the trail by dog sled.

Every year there are snowmobile races from Iqaluit to Kimmirut and back. This can be quite dangerous. Although there have been no fatalities to date, it isn't unheard of for a snowmobile to fall into a ravine or get stuck in the ice. Last year's winning time clocked in at just over 2 hours. Given the race is 240km, that means 110km/h in a snowmobile (at times faster) going up and down mountains. That's nuts.

This guy totalled his snowmobile a kilometer outside of
Iqaluit. You can read about it here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/kimmirut-snowmobile-race-bobby-gordon-1.4074914

At Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park. The pavilion is at the base of the hill.

Today the family went to Sylvia Grinnell territorial park for Iqaluit's tiny celebration of the Great Trail. While lacking the "oompf" of the other festivities throughout the country (many of which included live music and big parties), the local celebration was a far more intimate gathering. About 9 people joined 3 park rangers and 2 Inuit elders in the park pavilion to learn and talk about the trail from Iqaluit to Kimmirut. The rangers served fresh blueberry leaf tea, as well as bearberry and saxifrage leaf tee, fresh from the oven bannock, and smoked arctic char.

Tea please.

Loving bannock.

Bannock with your choice of butter, jam, or peanut butter.

My mother enjoying smoked arctic char.

The elder spoke in Inuktitut, with a second elder translating into English. He told us stories about when he was a child traveling the trail to go hunting, and how his father used to deliver mail from Iqaluit to Kimmirut via the trail (which is still used for supplies today). It is also a recreational trail, used by tourists who come from around the world. They can either hike the entire trial, or fly into the mid-way point to raft or canoe down the Soper River. Locals travel the trail daily to trap foxes, hunt, and pick berries.

After the presentation/discussion about the trail, the park rangers taught us about Inuksuit. (Inuksuit is plural for "Inukshuk".) Inuit have historically been a nomadic people, without written language. Rocks were ingeniously used as a means of communication between people; with various formations pointing to danger, marking trails and indicating caches of food or supplies. They were also used to construct fox traps.