Why Susan Aglukark is tackling Northern Canada's food crisis

"I think as children we have a very different idea of Christmas," says Susan Aglukark on growing up in Nunavut. Christmas meant "permission to eat as much candy as we could have." Aglukark explains that it was a time when you got to come home from residential school and spend time with family. "Waking up with your parents, that was an amazing feeling," she admits.

Aglukark's 2013 album Dreaming of Home is a collection of Christmas carols sung in Inuktitut and she says, "singing them in my language was a given, a no-brainer." Aglukark explains that the whole country celebrates the holidays but many people in northern communities do not speak English. "I wanted to gift them some of the Christmas songs in Inuktitut," she adds.

But this isn't the only gift Aglukark has given to her community. Aglukark started The Arctic Rose Fund to send dried food to northern food banks, due to the lack of supply during winter months. "The cost of living in the North in general is 3 to 4 times higher than most of southern Canada," Aglukark explains and a large portion of the Indigenous community live in food crisis all the time. Aglukark's charity runs quarterly campaigns including a Christmas food drive, "it's really just a morale boosting campaign because that's the toughest time of the year for these communities that are already struggling."

You can see Aglukark perform at Hugh's Room in Toronto on December 14th as part of her Christmas concert tour.