Sheila Watt-Cloutier | |
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![]() Watt-Cloutier in 2009 | |
Born | |
Occupation | Activist |
Awards | Order of Canada, Right Livelihood Award |
Sheila Watt-Cloutier OC (born 2 December 1953) is a Canadian Inuk activist. [1] She has been a political representative for Inuit at the regional, national and international levels, most recently as International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar Council (formerly the Inuit Circumpolar Conference). Watt-Cloutier has worked on a range of social and environmental issues affecting Inuit, most recently, persistent organic pollutants and global warming. She has received numerous awards and honours for her work, and has been featured in a number of documentaries and profiled by journalists from all media. Watt-Cloutier sits as an adviser to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Northern Quebec, Canada. Her mother was known as a skillful healer and interpreter throughout Nunavik, and her father was an officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For the first ten years of her life, Sheila was raised traditionally, travelling on the land by dog sled, before she was sent away for school in Nova Scotia and Churchill, Manitoba in the Canadian Indian residential school system.
In the mid-1970s, she worked for the Ungava Hospital as an Inuktitut translator and strove to improve education and health conditions. From 1991 to 1995, she worked as a counsellor in the review process of the education system of Northern Quebec. This work led to the 1992 report on the educational system in Nunavik, Silaturnimut - The Pathway to Wisdom. Watt-Cloutier also contributed significantly to the youth awareness video Capturing Spirit: The Inuit Journey. [2]
Watt-Cloutier has been a political representative for Inuit for over a decade. From 1995 to 1998, she was Corporate Secretary of Makivik Corporation, the Canadian Inuit land-claim organization established for Northern Quebec (Nunavik) under the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
In 1995, she was elected [2] [3] President of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Canada, and re-elected in 1998. [2] ICC represents internationally the interests of Inuit in Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. In this position, she served as the spokesperson for indigenous peoples in the Arctic during the negotiation of the Stockholm Convention banning the manufacture and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) or DDT. These substances pollute the Arctic food chain and accumulate in the bodies of Inuit, many of whom continue to subsist on local country food. [4]
In 2002, she was elected [2] [5] International Chair of ICC, a position she would hold until 2006. [2] Most recently, her work has emphasised the human face of the impacts of global climate change in the Arctic. On 7 December 2005, based on the findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, which projects that Inuit hunting culture may not survive the loss of sea ice and other changes projected over the coming decades, she launched the world's first international legal action on climate change: a petition, along with 62 Inuit hunters and Elders from communities across Canada and Alaska, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging that unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases from the United States have violated Inuit cultural and environmental human rights as guaranteed by the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. [6] Although the IACHR decided against hearing her petition, the Commission invited Watt-Cloutier to testify with her international legal team (including lawyers from Earthjustice and the Center for International Environmental Law) at their first hearing on climate change and human rights on 1 March 2007.
Her book The Right to Be Cold, about the effects of climate change on Inuit communities, was published by Allen Lane - Penguin Random House in 2015. [7]
Her memoir The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (2015) was short-listed for Canada Reads, where it was championed by musician Chantal Kreviazuk. [8] Activist Naomi Klein reviewed the books for the Globe and Mail , calling it "courageous and revelatory". [9]
All cities in Canada unless noted.
Watt-Cloutier has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. Prior to returning to Kuujjuaq, she resided in Iqaluit, Nunavut for 15 years. [45]
Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a distinct type of throat singing uniquely found among the Inuit. It is a form of musical performance, traditionally consisting of two women who sing duets in a close face-to-face formation with no instrumental accompaniment, in an entertaining contest to see who can outlast the other; however, one of the genre's most famous practitioners, Tanya Tagaq, performs as a solo artist. Several groups, including Tudjaat, The Jerry Cans, Quantum Tangle and Silla + Rise, also now blend traditional throat singing with mainstream musical genres such as pop, folk, rock and dance music.
Nunavik is an area in Canada which comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, part of the Nord-du-Québec region and nearly coterminous with Kativik. Covering a land area of 443,684.71 km2 (171,307.62 sq mi) north of the 55th parallel, it is the homeland of the Inuit of Quebec and part of the wider Inuit Nunangat. Almost all of the 14,045 inhabitants of the region, of whom 90% are Inuit, live in fourteen northern villages on the coast of Nunavik and in the Cree reserved land (TC) of Whapmagoostui, near the northern village of Kuujjuarapik.
An inuksuk or inukshuk is a type of stone landmark or cairn built by, and for the use of, Inuit, Iñupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. These structures are found in northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska. This combined region, north of the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks.
The Inuit Circumpolar Council is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and Indigenous Peoples' Organization (IPO) representing the 180,000 Inuit and Yupik people living in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula. ICC was ECOSOC-accredited and was granted special consultative status at the UN in 1983.
Kuujjuaq, formerly known as Fort Chimo and by other names, is a former Hudson's Bay Company outpost at the mouth of the Koksoak River on Ungava Bay that has become the largest northern village in the Nunavik region of Quebec, Canada. It is the administrative capital of the Kativik Regional Government. Its population was 2,668 as of the 2021 census.
Charlie Watt is a former Canadian Senator from Nunavik, Quebec.
Makivvik is the legal representative of Quebec's Inuit, established in 1978 under the terms of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the agreement that established the institutions of Nunavik. As such, it is the heir of the Northern Quebec Inuit Association, which signed the agreement with the governments of Quebec and of Canada.
The migratory woodland caribou refers to two herds of Rangifer tarandus that are included in the migratory woodland ecotype of the subspecies Rangifer tarandus caribou or woodland caribou that live in Nunavik, Quebec, and Labrador: the Leaf River caribou herd (LRCH) and the George River caribou herd (GRCH) south of Ungava Bay. Rangifer tarandus caribou is further divided into three ecotypes: the migratory barren-ground ecotype, the mountain ecotype or woodland (montane) and the forest-dwelling ecotype. According to researchers, the "George River herd which morphologically and genetically belong to the woodland caribou subspecies, at one time represented the largest caribou herd in the world and migrating thousands of kilometers from boreal forest to open tundra, where most females calve within a three-week period. This behaviour is more like barren-ground caribou subspecies." They argued that "understanding ecotype in relation to existing ecological constraints and releases may be more important than the taxonomic relationships between populations." The migratory George River caribou herd travel thousands of kilometres moving from wintering grounds to calving grounds near the Inuit hamlet of Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik. In Nunavik and Labrador, the caribou population varies considerably with their numbers peaking in the later decades of each of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. In 1984, about 10,000 caribou of the George River herd drowned during their bi-annual crossing of the Caniapiscau River during the James Bay Hydro Project flooding operation. The most recent decline at the turn of the 20th century caused much hardship for the Inuit and Cree communities of Nunavik, who hunt them for subsistence.
Torngat Mountains National Park is a Canadian national park located on the Labrador Peninsula in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The park encompasses 9,700 km2 of mountainous terrain between Northern Quebec and the Labrador Sea. It is the largest national park in Atlantic Canada and the southernmost national park in the Arctic Cordillera. It partially contains the Torngat Mountains, the highest mountains in mainland Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.
Disc numbers, or ujamiit or ujamik in the Inuit language, were used by the Government of Canada in lieu of surnames for Inuit and were similar to dog tags.
Circumpolar peoples and Arctic peoples are umbrella terms for the various indigenous peoples of the Arctic region.
Inuit are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon (traditionally), Alaska, and Chukotsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
Donat Savoie is a Canadian anthropologist, was the interim Executive Director of Canada's Inuit Relations Secretariat and chief federal negotiator for Nunavik self-government before his retirement in 2006.
Mary Jeannie May Simon is a Canadian civil servant, diplomat, and former broadcaster who has served as the 30th governor general of Canada since July 26, 2021. Simon is Inuk, making her the first Indigenous person to hold the office.
The Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation is a private charitable foundation focused on the improvement of public policy in Canada. The foundation is based in Toronto, Ontario, and has two major areas of focus: the Arctic and Water Security.
The Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat (IPS) is a secretariat for the six international Indigenous organizations affiliated with the eight-nation Arctic Council. The IPS does not represent indigenous peoples or their organizations, but assists those organizations in presenting their causes, and helps to disseminate information among them. IPS was established in 1994 under the auspices of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS). It was around the same time that the category of Permanent Participants was being developed and applied to the three indigenous peoples’ organizations then observers in the AEPS. When the Arctic Council was established in 1996, both the Permanent Participants and IPS was reinserted into the new intergovernmental framework. Since commencing business in 1994, the role of the secretariat has been to facilitate contributions from the Permanent Participants to the cooperation of the eight Arctic states and to assist the Permanent Participants in performing, mainly communicational task.
Rosemarie Esther Kuptana, LL.D. is a Canadian Inuvialuit politician, Inuit rights activist, broadcaster and journalist. Besides serving with several Inuit organisations she was president of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. She lives in the Ottawa area and has three children.
Mitiarjuk Attasie Nappaaluk was an Inuk author, educator, and sculptor from Kangiqsujuaq in Nunavik, in northern Quebec, Canada. She was noted for writing Sanaaq, one of the first Inuktitut language novels. Nappaaluk translated books into Inuktitut and contributed to an early Inuktitut dictionary. She went on to teach Inuit culture and language in the Nunavik region, authoring a total of 22 books for use in schools. Her soapstone sculptures are held in collections at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, the Musée de la Civilisation, and the British Museum.
Darlene "Dalee" Sambo Dorough is an Iñupiaq advocate for Indigenous rights as well as an expert in international human rights law, international relations, and Alaska Native rights. Dorough was part of the Alaskan tribal sovereignty movement for decades and served on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues from 2011 to 2016. In 2018 she was elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing the 180,000 Inuit, Yupik, and Chukchi peoples in the Russian Far East, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.