Iqaluit is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast on which the city is situated. In 1987, its traditional Inuktitut name was restored.
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
Same-sex marriage in Nunavut has been legal since 20 July 2005. The Canadian territory began granting marriage licences to same-sex couples upon the passage of the federal Civil Marriage Act. In October 2003, Premier Paul Okalik announced that same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions would be legally recognized in Nunavut.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean "LGBT culture" or to refer specifically to homosexual culture.
Mark Kenneth Woods is a Canadian writer, actor, producer, director and TV host.
Nunavut is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, which provided this territory to the Inuit for independent government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland was admitted in 1949.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Canada. For a broad overview of LGBT history in Canada see LGBT history in Canada.
Richard Fung is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and is openly gay.
The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) is a television production company based in Nunavut with programming targeted at the Inuit population of Nunavut. Almost all of its programs are broadcast in Inuktitut. Some are also in English. IBC shows center on Inuit culture. The company has five production centers in Nunavut, all staffed by Inuit. Founded in the early 1980s, the IBC was the first indigenous-language television network in North America.
Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Alaska. 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.
Eva Qamaniq Aariak is a Canadian Inuk politician, who was elected in the 2008 territorial election to represent the electoral district of Iqaluit East in the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut. She was subsequently chosen as the second premier of Nunavut, under the territory's consensus government system, on November 14, 2008. Aariak was the fifth woman to serve as a premier in Canada.
Two-spirit is a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender ceremonial and social role in their cultures.
Although same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Canada up to 1969, gay and lesbian themes appear in Canadian literature throughout the 20th century. Canada is now regarded as one of the most advanced countries in legal recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.
This article gives a broad overview of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Canada. LGBT activity was considered a crime from the colonial period in Canada until 1969, when Bill C-150 was passed into law. However, there is still discrimination despite anti-discrimination law. For a more detailed listing of individual incidents in Canadian LGBT history, see also Timeline of LGBT history in Canada.
The Human Rights Act 2003 (Act) is an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut, the majority of which came into effect on November 5, 2004. The stated purposes of the Act are "to acknowledge within the framework of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit that the Government, all public agencies, boards and commissions and all persons in Nunavut have the responsibility to guarantee that every individual in Nunavut is afforded an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life and that failure to provide equality of opportunity threatens the development and well-being of all persons in the community." The Act explicitly does not affect any protections provided for by the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. A notable achievement of this legislation was to end Nunavut's status as the only jurisdiction in Canada without protections for gay, lesbian and bisexual residents against discrimination.
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is an Inuk filmmaker, known for her work on Inuit life and culture. She is the owner of Unikkaat Studios, a production company in Iqaluit, which produces Inuktitut films. She was awarded the Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, in 2017 in recognition of her work as an activist and filmmaker. She currently works part-time at the Qanak Collective, a social project which supports Inuit empowerment initiatives.
The Jerry Cans are a band from Iqaluit, Nunavut who combine traditional Inuit throat singing with folk music and country rock. Their music is largely written in Inuktitut, the indigenous language of the Inuit, with lyrics which "reflect the challenges and beauty of life in the Far North". Their 2016 album, Inuusiq/Life, was released on Aakuluk Music, Nunavut's first record label, which the band's members established in 2016 "to support Inuit and Indigenous musicians".
Nyla Innuksuk is a Canadian film director, writer, and producer, and virtual reality content creator. She is the CEO of Mixtape VR.
Johnny Nurraq Seotaituq Issaluk is an Inuk actor, athlete, and cultural educator from Nunavut. He is best known for his roles in AMC's The Terror, the film Indian Horse, and in the BBC program The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan. In May 2019 he was named Royal Canadian Geographical Society's Explorer-in-Residence.
Anna Lambe is a Canadian Inuk actress from Iqaluit, Nunavut. She is most noted for her debut role as Spring in the 2018 film The Grizzlies, for which she received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019.
