SOCIAL DISTANCING IN BAKER LAKE

Kaviq Kaluraq // Qamani’tuaq, Baker Lake

A Nunavummiut’s reflection on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on life in Nunavut

On March 20, 2020 the Government of Nunavut declared a Public Health Emergency in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the requirements to socially distance ourselves from each other, we are working from home often with poor digital connectivity, our children are out of school, and people are spending time at home cooking, sewing, or heading outdoors to pass the time. We enjoy the tundra, go fishing, take our kids sliding. We wave to people we know from afar, missing the hugs and kuniks (nose kisses). Spring has brought longer hours with the sun and the return of wildlife, a time when so many families start to go on the land to harvest.

Restrictions on businesses, services, social gatherings, and non-essential travel into the territory have resulted in cancelled trips and reduced flight schedules. In addition to no school, there are no sports team practices, no church congregations, and no visits with family and friends. We have reduced our lives to minimal physical human interaction, but increased virtual connection. On the surface these changes look similar to those we’ve seen in the south, but in practice it feels different. It is as if we have turned back time to 70 years ago when settlements were just beginning to come together through forced relocations. Then, like now, the few flights were primarily filled by medical patients and government staff for essential services, there were fewer delivery times for goods, children dealt with new routines, the spirit of community was disrupted, and connecting with people socially had become even more challenging.

In the south, we have heard of shortages of goods, a lack of sufficient medical staff and supplies, and efforts to find alternative activities to fill the time to support wellbeing. However, for us, these realities are normal everyday situations. The impact of Covid-19 restrictions is similar to the impact of blizzard days when the visibility is so low from a snow storm that we have to conserve everything from food and water to internet data. In Nunavut, all communities are fly-in only, so we cannot drive on highways to visit each other. We often rely on sealift resupply of goods, a short-term, seasonal service that brings much-needed resources like fuel, food, and lumber. We are already dependent on outside medical support because many patients are sent to southern Canada for medical services, a situation that makes us one of the most vulnerable populations in the world to the virus: we only have one hospital in the territory and almost all our medical staff are imported. (1) My friend Diane Iyago is our only Inuk nurse from Baker Lake. Most of our health centre’s other medical staff have either moved here from the south or are transient, working short-term contracts. As of March 2017, Nunavut had 80 Inuit in health-related occupations—a category that includes nurses—out of a total 487 positions. (2) According to a 2009 report, the actual numbers are as low as 7 Inuit nurses out of 215 nursing positions. (3)

As for maintaining wellbeing in the face of social-distancing requirements, our context shapes the priorities of our response. Most of our communities do not have homeless shelters and all of our communities’ face housing shortages. People like my sister and her family live in overcrowded homes, while homeless people continue couch-surfing. Spending more time at home increases the need for food, water, and electricity, and living overcrowded puts a strain on resources and creates stress. More people means more distractions and less space to decompress or concentrate on anything like work or studies.

The challenges that Nunavut faces require people to think differently about how we grapple with the restrictions of our new situation. While jurisdictions like Ontario discourage going out into cottage country, we are encouraged to be on the land and distance ourselves from others by going camping. Inuit organizations have created opportunities for community members to access funding for supplies so that they can participate in traditional activities like being out on the land. This is one of the most proactive and positive social distancing measures I have heard of because it makes the most use of the local space while recognizing that being cooped up in a house with limited mobility might not be the healthiest way to distance ourselves. Being on the land, we can be physically active, we can harvest food, we can interact as a family without distractions, and be in a space that is free of the virus.

The restrictions imposed by the pandemic may seem overly cautious but our context warrants such measures. Inuit are not new to the impacts of diseases introduced from the south. In 1865 over 75% of the Inuit of Anderson River died of scarlet fever. (4) In 1918 the Spanish flu killed 204 of 263 people in the town of Okak, Labrador. (5) Inuit have been battling to eliminate tuberculosis for decades, a problem often exacerbated by overcrowded housing and poor living conditions. Inuit statistics may be low when combined with global statistics; however, we are a very small population of people living at the top of the world. Quebec has had more confirmed cases than there are people in Nunavut, and Canada has had more confirmed cases than there are Inuit in Canada. Our leaders and essential workers deserve our sincere appreciation for recognizing how vulnerable our small population of 39,000 is to being decimated by Covid-19 and for placing provisions that are working to keep Nunavut free of the virus. Even when we lack professional capacity in local doctors, nurses, and others to help us battle this virus, they have made the best of what we have to be prepared for any potential cases and provide positive opportunities to alleviate the pressures of social distancing.

If there is anything this pandemic can stress, it is that inequities in human resource capacity, infrastructure, and resources create challenges that leave our communities behind the rest of Canada. This reality, common among many Indigenous communities across the country, can no longer be disregarded in favour of southern interests.

With school breakfast programs suspended, teachers in some communities have come together to prepare bags of breakfasts for students in need. Our municipality began distributing bleach and soap because the challenge is not necessarily having the stores stocked but families being able to afford those products. We lack essential capacity in many areas, making it a paramount task to remind our children that they are the ones that need to become our nurses, our doctors, our teachers, our essential people so that we can reduce our dependence and improve our resiliency; they are essential to our future survival in all respects. As for myself, I hope to remember this time as an opportunity to access the land, to relieve some of the pressure of isolating in confined spaces by interacting with a vast environment that is a source of sustenance and tranquil distraction. After all, we are a mere 39,000 people in a territory that spans over 2 million square kilometres, so distancing ourselves is not as challenging as it is in urban centres. Inuit traditionally lived partially isolated prior to the development of communities. We have our roots to turn to imagine ways that we can socially distance ourselves and interact as a family in positive ways. As of June 20, 12 weeks since the restrictions were put in place, there are still zero cases of Covid-19 in Nunavut.

Notes:

1) In total, there are 32 health facilities across Nunavut, including: Qikiqtani General Hospital, two regional health facilities (Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay), 22 community health centres, one public health facility (Iqaluit), three centres for continuing care, and three Elders’ homes. “Department of Health Inuit Employment Plan 2017 to 2023” (Government of Nunavut publication, 2019), 14.

2) “Inuit Employment Plan,” 27.

3) “Recruitment and Retention of Inuit Nurses in Nunavut” (Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. report, 2009), 3.

4) Keith Crowe, A history of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991), 121–151.

5) Jenny Higgins, “Global Relations and the Spanish Influenza,” Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, 2007, accessed June 2, 2020.

Author Bio:

Kaviq lives in Baker Lake, Nunavut with her family. She teaches in teacher education and serves as chair of the Nunavut Impact Review Board, work that often takes her to communities across Nunavut. She enjoys the opportunity to experience environmental and cultural diversity across the territory through her work. She is also an alumna of the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship.