Our Featured Celebration

In light of our esteemed editor’s vacation, it has fallen on the rest of the team to carry the torch and enlighten our readers with another strange, wacky, never-heard-of-before-but-entirely-real celebration for our newsletter. While we contemplated La Tomatina, an annual August festival in Spain which is, and I quote, “a two hour long food fight where people gather in the streets to launch 250,000 pounds of tomatoes at each other,” we decided that was too messy. Then we thought about National Hug Your Boss Day, also celebrated in August, but thought that could also be a bit messy (and our General Manager, aka the boss, was not too keen on it.) In the end, we decided we would encourage everyone to celebrate the first week of August as “Simplify Your Life” week, sponsored by the International Society of Friendship and Good Will. So in the spirit of simplicity, forget about that thing called work you’re supposed to be doing right now for a few minutes and enjoy this month’s newsletter. See, it’s simple.

NEW BEGINNINGS

The Aarluk curriculum development team has started work with Nunavut Arctic College and The Nunavut Municipal Training Organization to revise and update all 37 training manuals for the Municipal Government Program. The program has seven career streams, one for each of the key management positions within a municipality (Assistant SAO, Finance Officer, Recreation Leader, Economic Development Officer, Office Administrator, Municipal Works Foreman and Planning/Lands Administrator) with five “core” courses that all seven managers take together. Then each stream has an additional five “specialty” courses unique to each of the management positions.

Stonecircle’s Jennifer David is working with the University of Laval and ArcticNet to edit a series of research articles on climate change in northern Quebec and Labrador.

Fred Weihs, Terry Forth, Marla Limousin, Terry Rudden and Geoff Rigby will be supporting Ferguson, Simek, Clarke Architects and Engineers to carry out a Feasibility Study and Business Plan for new recreation facilities, city hall and emergency services centre for the City of Iqaluit. Our team will support the FSC team by developing the Business Plan portion of the overall project.

Jennifer David and Kory Goulais will add to their knowledge of the mining sector by editing training manuals for the Mining Industry Sector Council. MiHR has developed training modules and learner’s workbooks on the mining industry and the materials are aimed at an Aboriginal audience.

Scott Black will be working with Stonecircle on an educational project for the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Stonecircle will develop online tools, lesson plans and educational activities related to a series of Inuit prints held by the Museum. Kory Goulais and Terry Rudden will provide additional support and expertise.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Aarluk is continuing work with the Hamlet of Coral Harbour on the Duke of York Bay area traditional land use plan on Southampton Island.  Chris Grosset and Marla Limousin were in the Duke of York Bay area to inventory the past and present resource uses, including locations of archaeological sites, cabins, fuel caches and wildlife (see “Close Encounters of the Wild Kind” below) and state there are not sufficient words to describe the beauty of this area.  The Angootealuk family hosted Chris and Marla at their cabin, in the traditional area of Suzie Angootealuk’s family.  Armand, Marty and Lizzie acted as guides during the inventory work and helped in the documentation of sites where Suzie had lived as a child along with several other family groups that now make their home in Coral Harbour.  The next steps in the project will be to map the traditional uses and analyze the opportunities for future land uses.  Thank you to  the Angootealuk family for their wonderful hospitality and friendship. Photo (left to right): Marla, Marty, Lizzie, Sebastian, Armand, Suzie, Susan and Chris.

Ron Ryan and David Boult are busy working with the Kakivak Association to develop a comprehensive Strategic Business Plan addressing the requirements of the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy (ASETS). ASETS replaces the previous Aboriginal Human Resource Development Strategy (AHRDS) and every AHRDA holder across Canada is required to carry out this planning process. The program goes into effect in September.

During the week of July 27-30 Alex Ker joined the Deline self-government team and caucus at a negotiation and planning session held at Federal Treaty Negotiation Offices in Vancouver. Deline, a Dene community located on Great Bear Lake in the NWT, is poised to conclude negotiations on the main self-government agreement, and is presently involved in associated financial and implementation negotiations. Over the next few months Alex will be supporting Deline on implementation and fiscal negotiations, as well as internal implementation planning and projects.

HAPPY ENDINGS

Alex Ker made the final presentation to Temagami First Nation on consultation and accommodation and resource development. Stonecircle strongly supports communities that drive their own processes of self-determination and community involvement in resource development. Jennifer David and Kory Goulais assisted with developing the materials and Kory also attended a community session. Stonecircle hopes to continue its work with Temagami by providing technical support as the community moves forward on a number of resource development projects.

Victor Tootoo put his substantial experience in Human Resources to work with Innirvik Support Services by designing, implementing and carrying out a senior management recruitment process. The project ended with the successful recruitment of a senior manager for the company. Professional recruitment is an important tool to ensure that companies and organizations end up with the right people in the right place – and doing the right things. It is also often an area that is done poorly – leading to high turnover and poor “fit”. Congratulations to Innirvik on a successful process and good luck!

Ron Ryan, Jennifer David and Kory Goulais made final recommendations to AECOM on its report to ECO Canada. Stonecircle provided strategic advice and Aboriginal awareness to the project that included hundreds of surveys and focus groups and provided a final report to ECO Canada on its BEAHR (Building Environmental Aboriginal Human Resources) program including recommendations for improving its training and outreach programs.

Working with Environics Research on behalf of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Victor Tootoo and Abe Tagalik, recently facilitated and documented the results of focus groups designed to gather input from Nunavummiut on questions such as “what are the most important issues facing the north” and “how would you rate the overall quality of life in your community”. Aarluk and Stonecircle have worked on numerous projects with our partners at Environics – with their excellent reputation for quantitative analysis and polling, along with our facilitation and stakeholder consultation experience, it makes for a very effective partnership.

Fred Weihs and Kory Goulais completed a business plan in July for Qimiqpik Taxi in Clyde River. The company was looking to expand its services and do operational planning to ensure their ongoing success. Small business is often the key to successful and growing economies and helping to create, grow and watch the success of Nunavut entrepreneurs is one of the most satisfying parts of our work.

BIRTHDAYS

Lone August Birthday honours go to Fred Weihs on August 9th, a birthday shared with no other than Smokey Bear himself! Coincidence? Probably...

GOSSIP

Hello sports fans! It’s time to find out what is going on in the world of Consilium/Stonecircle/Aarluk sports. Consilium’s Christian “Clootch” Cloutier and Stonecircle’s Kory Goulais have teamed up in a local beer-pitch, uh... SLO-pitch league. The Brass Monkeyz Old School team is in 1st place, with a 7-3-1 (wins-losses-ties) record. After a slow 2-3-1 start, the monkeyz have responded with five straight wins. More impressive than the record put forth by the team, Kory and Clootch have combined to lead the team in most offensive and defensive categories. While that is an impressive feat on its own, Clootch also holds the team lead in beverages consumed following the game, making him a very early triple crown candidate. That’s all from us sports fans, ‘til next time!

In other news, Geoff “BigRig” Rigby is back in the office after a “brief” three week vacation. When asked how it went, the technical term “epic win” was used to describe the break, which consisted of a trip home to Iqaluit, lounging in a hammock at the family cottage, Bluesfest (in particular, Iron Maiden and making cannons out of driftwood stumps while camping (see photo). While normally Geoff works out at the nearby YMCA on a regular basis, he apparently decided to give his poor, tired muscles a break and work out his liver and kidneys instead.

TALES FROM THE TRAVEL JOURNAL OF CHRIS GROSSET

Close Encounters of the Wild Kind, July 26 2010

Walrus and tuktu and bears, oh my! We were definitely not in Kansas anymore Dorothy! Sightings of wildlife aren’t uncommon in Nunavut, but it’s not common to see so many different species in one place – unless you’re travelling around Duke of York Bay. The people of Coral Harbour have always known that this area was rich in wildlife, but Marla and I were not prepared for so many close encounters with walrus (two herds); tuktu (caribou); seals (ring, bearded and hooded); beluga (in the hundreds); and of course, the awesome polar bear.

CHECK BACK EVERY MONTH FOR MORE CONSILIUM, STONECIRCLE AND AARLUK NEWS, TOOLS, AND GOSSIP.

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