10,000 young people in Nunavut will come of age in the next decade. What does their future look like?
“A fresh, young start is going to be very much needed,” says Iqaluit TikTok star
When Kyra Kilabuk was 12 or 13, she was at a grocery store in Iqaluit with her mother when she saw a woman with a V on her forehead. Kilabuk, an Inuk herself, had never seen a tattoo like that.
"I was like, 'Did you see her forehead?' And [my mom] said, 'Yeah, that's, like, a very old-style traditional Inuit tattoo,'" Kilabuk recalled. "And I was so intrigued."
It was that experience that led Kilabuk, now 25, to learn more about traditional Inuit markings and to eventually get some of her own. A video she posted on TikTok of her getting a V tattooed on her chest has been viewed 1.2 million times.
"I feel so proud to have my markings because it shows, like, we were trying to be … westernized [before] and we are going back to the way things are supposed to be in our culture," she said.
Kilabuk's TikTok features stories about other issues in Nunavut too: petroleum in the water supply, the legacy of residential schools, High Arctic relocations, housing and food prices, and traditional food and culture.
Her videos documenting prices at local grocery stores are especially popular. Among many examples, she has shared a box of laundry detergent on sale for $69.69 and red bell peppers for $21.99 per kilogram.
Raising awareness on TikTok
Kilabuk said people sometimes make "very negative or just uneducated comments" on her videos. "I don't want to blame that on everyone because Nunavut is fairly new and, I think, not really included in the education system for people who are grown up now," she said.
But she sees how raising awareness is making a difference. As her videos gained traction, Kilabuk started receiving packages of donated food from people looking to help. She received her largest haul — about 80 boxes — within two weeks last September. "It's important for people to be aware of what's going on here," she said.
Her story is featured in the new CBC documentary Arctic Blue with Peter Mansbridge. It examines Canada's North as climate change creates greater access for shipping, industry and tourism — and what these changes will mean for local Inuit populations.
There are challenges ahead as 10,000 young people in Nunavut come of age in the next 10 years, said Jimi Onalik, the territory's deputy minister of executive and intergovernmental affairs.
"That represents about a 25 per cent increase in our adult population," he said in the documentary. "So what are those people going to do — for food, for shelter, for employment?"
The Inuit, Métis and First Nations population in Canada grew at more than four times the rate of the non-Indigenous population from 2006 to 2016, according to the most recent census data. And the Inuit population is particularly young, with a median age of 24.1 years, compared to 41.3 years for non-Indigenous Canadians.
"This represents a chance to foster improved education, skills training and employment readiness for Indigenous youth to fill the labour shortages anticipated with Canada's aging population," the authors of the 2019 Indigenous Economic Progress Report wrote.
In the documentary, Onalik said jobs are vital. "Poverty is one of the biggest problems in Nunavut," he said. "So how do you address poverty? Employment has to be a big part of that." And mining has the potential to provide more employment than most other sectors in the North, he added.
Mining brings jobs, but also environmental concerns
The largest mining operation in Nunavut is the Baffinland iron mine in Mary River on Baffin Island, accounting for about 24 per cent of Nunavut's economy in 2018. The company currently ships six million tonnes of iron ore from the mine per year, and is seeking to double that.
In 2020, the Mary River Project employed 1,900 people in full-time jobs, 250 of whom are Inuit, or 13 per cent of the total workforce, according to a Baffinland monitoring report. And if the project is expanded, another 1,000 Inuit could be employed by the mine, Onalik told the CBC last year.
But not everyone wants more production. Hunters and trappers associations in the area, for example, have called for a ban on increased production at the mine, citing concerns for the environment.
"There's a lot of Southern voices who are wanting to see Nunavut maintained as a pristine place," Onalik said in the documentary. "But at the same time, we have to figure out what these 10,000 kids are going to do."
Climate change is another factor testing Inuit's ability to manage and adapt to their altered landscapes.
Kilabuk is in her first year of a four-year nursing program, but she has also worked in the tourism industry licensing cruise ships.
The number of ships travelling through the Northwest Passage increased 44 per cent between 2013 and 2019, according to a 2021 report by an Arctic Council working group. With climate change causing sea ice to melt at unprecedented rates and extending the shipping season, there are more opportunities for sailing Arctic routes.
Kilabuk said that while more cruise ships mean more local employment, the increased traffic is not always welcome. "We have to get approval from hamlets if they even want [a cruise ship] to come to the community," she said. "At least a couple times a year there are communities that don't want any cruise ships there."
Having more ships pass through definitely comes with its costs, namely an increase in carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. The ships also emit black soot, which can cover the snow and absorb rather than reflect sunlight, contributing to further warming and ice melt.
But Kilabuk sees opportunities more than roadblocks for her two daughters, aged 12 and 13, and three-year-old son.
"I feel very hopeful for them," she said. "My husband and I really strive to break generational trauma or curses. So we're trying, like, to reclaim our culture, learn the language again … going back to school. Just doing everything we can to help support them."
Mental health support and education
As for the future of Nunavut, Kilabuk has similar hopes. She said two things are going to be key to helping the next generation succeed: mental health support and education.
"When I think about issues in Nunavut, no matter who I'm talking to or when or where, the first thing that always comes to my mind is our suicide rate," she said. "You're not able to succeed in life or be truly happy if you're wondering where your next meal is going to come from or you don't have enough education to have a good job or the housing is too expensive — you feel like there's nowhere to live.… There's so many different things that are not set up for having good mental health, and I think that is probably [the] biggest issue that we have here."
Kilabuk said Inuit are often given priority for employment opportunities in Nunavut — but you need a high school diploma. Just 40 per cent of Inuit had a high school education and 14 per cent had a university degree or college diploma in 2016.
"As long as you're educated and you go to school and you finish high school and move on to do something, then it's fine," she said. "But … a lot of people don't finish high school here."
Many educational barriers still exist for Inuit youth and other Indigenous populations. The marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada's formal education system, based on Eurocentric knowledge, has a legacy of intergenerational trauma and perpetuates colonialism. Closing the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations requires the decolonization of education and the elimination of funding and infrastructure disparities, especially for remote communities, among other solutions.
Kilabuk said her generation is making changes that their parents couldn't. "A fresh, young start is going to be very much needed for the kind of change that we need, and we are already seeing that," she said.
