Ideas - How a novel saved the Inuktitut language from disappearing

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

When Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk wrote Sanaaq in 1984, it was the first novel written in Inuktitut in Canada. She wanted to prevent the language from no longer existing. Nappaaluk who died in 2007, helped develop the Inuktitut language curriculum in Nunavik and wrote more than 20 books — most of them designed to teach Inuktitut to children. She was also a teacher, an artist and a thinker with profound ideas about justice and community. *This is the third episode in our four-part series called Another Country: Change and Resilience in Nunavik. It originally aired on June 28, 2023.

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That's the weather in the north. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. And I'm in Nunavik with Hialak Napalak going through one of her mother's books. My mother, she was a hunter. She was used to follow her father when she's go down to seal hunting. So they have to know about the Hesup. Because when we look at the land,

it seems like just white land. But if we can see this. Hjallok points to one of the illustrations in the book, a drawing of the tundra in the sky. The clouds have a green underbelly. If we can see this, we know there's open water. Not everyone knows all this. No, not this time.

Because a long time ago, there was out every day. And they have to work outside every day. Right now we have to be sitting in the school. We did not go out. We are just learning. In the books. In the books. So is her name at the front here, your mother's name?

Yeah. That's my mother's name. Mityajuk Nepaluk. Today, Mityajuk Nepaluk is best known for writing Sanak, the first novel written in Inuktitut. But over the course of her extraordinary life, she wrote more than 20 books. Most of them have never been published in the South,

which is why seeing all of Mityajuk Nepalek's books in person for the first time in a hotel room just a few feet away from the edge of the frozen Hudson Bay is such a special moment. It's so amazing to see this original. Oh my God. It's crazy. The way I read it... When I read it, it seems like my mother's word. How do you know? Because I grew up with her.

That's how she was talking. When she died, after a few months, I was really missing her. So I go to the books. It seems like my mother is talking. Sixteen years after her death, Mityarjak Napaluk's voice is still being heard. Her work is taught today in classrooms across Nunavik. She had this presence and mind. She was a thinker.

And her ideas about community, language, justice and survival continue to influence each new generation that reads her words. We can still have the same respect about truth and about what we do with words. This is the third episode in Another Country, a special series on change and resilience in Nunavik. We're calling this episode, Mitiarjak Napaluk, What We Do With Words. My mother, she used to write books, but these books are not just stories. They tell us the truth. they tell us the truth. Today, she would tell us how Inuit used to live. My mother really cared about the language,

the Inuktitut language and culture. That was her main goal, to let children know about it. We've come to Nunavik to meet Hialik Nepaluk. You'll hear from her in both Inuktitut and English throughout this episode. Today she is mayor of Kanyasuyuak, her mother's home community. She's also a lifelong teacher and a grandmother. As she speaks, you can hear both the 56-year-old mayor and the young girl whose life unfolded alongside her mother's novel. Her love for her mother

shines through in every word. I was very close to my mother. The youngest of my siblings, everybody taking care of me. They call me, Alami. It means I love you. So I was very loving in the family. You were loved by everyone. Yes. So when I go to school, I was standing with my mother and I see other kids there standing

and they ask their names. So when they say, I was trying to look who is because I didn't know my name. That's when you found out your real name. Yes. Wow. The story of Hjalla Hjalla grew up listening to her parents' stories. They talk about their grandparents, where they came from, because my father and my mother are both a storyteller. Every night, if they have time, they're giving us a story. Often those stories are stories of resilience, stories of survival.

One of the stories she often heard was about her maternal grandmother, Matyarjak Nepalak's mother. When she was just a little girl, she was almost left behind on the tundra to die. They went hunting to the land. When they were on hunting, they started to starvation. They're losing their dogs. They have spree kids. Elemasaut, Agnaitok and Ikkireelik.

That's my mother. Mother. She's my grandmother. The father was saying to his wife, Leave it that girl. She's not going to be a hunter. We just take two boys and leaving that girl. She's not going to be a hunter. We just take two boys and leave that girl. We're not going to be survived.

Just as the family prepared to leave the little girl behind, they were rescued by people from Kanyasuyiwak. That's the community where Hieluk is now mayor. Then my grandmother, she survived. I'm glad they have been found. If they're just left behind, we won't be around. You wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have that book. No. No.

It was a story that touched Mityarjak Napalak deeply. She always loved her mother. Oh, my mother, she almost left behind. So she was being so touched. Mitjajok was the eldest of two children, both daughters. As a young girl, she learned to hunt. In our society among Inuit, when a girl is alone and the oldest of a group of siblings, she can be asked to be a helper to her father who goes out on, you know, even months-long expeditions for searching

for seals or caribou out on the land during winter even, to assist in caring for the dogsled team, make sure that, you know, the dogs are in control and not going out of the place or barking when they shouldn't be to keep silent. This is Lisa Koporkwalaq, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada. She grew up in Nunavik. A father's assistant was very helpful to his job in helping bringing food home. And so a young woman, a young girl like that, learned the abilities that would mainly be learned by boys. And then it gave them also this knowledge that other girls wouldn't hold normally. And so I think that she had probably grown up like that. Like I, in my interviews with women, in Nunavik elder women born in the 30s, maybe in the 20s, sometimes some of them ended up being assistants to their fathers. And they grew to learn about that side of being an Inuk,

which was male and with specific abilities and skills to be out there on the land. So I think that's probably what in her own upbringing helped her to maintain that equality. bringing helped her to maintain that equality. My mother, she never got scared to anyone. She's always standing what she's believed. At the meeting, she's not afraid to talking, but the other, they're more quiet. But my mother, if she feels she have to say something, I'm sure she's gonna say something.

If she's go out hunting, she able to do it. I was used to think if the man can do this, so I can do it too. So your mother grew up knowing how to hunt. Did she teach you? Yes, I used to follow my father. I know I have many siblings, but I wanna to follow my father. I know I have many siblings, but I want to be with my father. I always cried when he'd go away.

I want to be with my father. At the same time, I want to be with my mother. I was very close to my parents. Hunting was something that helped Hielek's parents bond and find common ground when they had an arranged marriage as teenagers. They did not decide to be couples, but the parents, they were decided for them. So they have to get together and from there, my father, he was a hunter, and my mother, she's also known how to hunt. They're talking about what kind of animal they have seen, the animal, how it reacts. And the hunters that time,

they have to know about the weather. They should be able to make igloo. If they could not make igloo, they would frozen. By the time Mitiardzak was in her early 20s, she was known throughout the community for her skill as a hunter, for her knowledge of the land and for her gift for languages. That caught the attention of Catholic missionaries who were trying to learn Inuktitut. Mhari takitamana aliyanang nipa, ananagiyati nutingi marilikta. Mithyarjak Nepalak started working with them

to translate the Catholic prayer book into My mother, she was used to singing in May, when we got into May. She reminds us it's the month of May for the Mary. The translation, the winter, this winter, it's a pass. It was really cold and it will get warmer. That's the translation. So that would have been her first... Yeah, first working. Involvement in writing. Amazing.

The name, that's my mother. This one here? Salumi Mitiyakchuk. Her first name is Salumi? That's Catholic name. Her real name is Mitiyakchuk. An Inuit name. When she baptized, she had to get the name

with the Catholic name. So they gave her Salome. Was she a strong believer herself? Yes. When we grew up, she explained to us how to behave and what should we know to connect with the Bible. Some of them, their Christmas song, and for Sunday song. My father, he also known about this song. So they was helping us.

And we go to church. And when we had Sunday, we singing in Inuititude because the Inuititude been translated Latin to Catholic Inuititude. This one I think I'm not going to do it the way it was but I'm Tantu eru san kamendo, vene rimo zengnue, ete tente to komendo, no vo si tate fe tue. At the request of the missionaries, Mithyarjak Nepalak began writing down phrases and vocabulary from everyday life. But the project quickly grew into much more. In 1953, she started writing a novel called Sanac. What's very interesting about her in her case is that she did start it because it was a request. And then she took on her to follow her own imagination and continue the story without

any framework anymore. This is Nelly Duvec, a teacher in Iwiuwiuwik and a scholar of Inuit literature. If you do read the books, you'll see that the first half, about half, contain a lot of words because at first that request was to have texts or stories told with the most amount of inutile words in order to study the language and also to have this language conserved. And she tries to, in fact, use as many words as possible. But then we see slowly that the writing is getting more fluid. Mitiyarjak Nepaluk worked on Sanak for 20 years, alongside raising seven children, working

as a teacher, and spending summers in the family's hunting camp. The family would pack up in April, hunt and live off the land, and return home in September. My father was hunting seal, maluga, harvesting for the year. And throughout their months away, Mitjardja kept working on her writing. She was used to putting paper and the pencil. And her favorite activities, walking on the land to see what they're doing in the past. That tent site, it's too small. How they survive in that tent, little tent.

She was really like to walking around the land. Kind of doing research in a way. Yes. Her writing was interrupted by two trips south to hospital. She's been down for five years before I was born, and she had to come back. So the second time I went with her, when she had a TB. In 1961, after her first stay in the hospital, Mediarchic-Napolec met French anthropologist Bernard Saladin d'Anglour. He was impressed with her writing. Later, he would call it,

so vivid that the novel seems at times to read like a film script. He encouraged her to return to Sanak, which she'd put aside, and continue her story. Mitjardzik had also returned from the South with a strong sense of urgency. with a strong sense of urgency. In 1950, 1960, she's go down to hospital and just come back. She feel it's we're going to be lost. We're going to losing our language. She was used to say, we're going to lose our language if we not do something.

So she was starting to writing. The novel is also a repository of traditional knowledge. The action is from Inuit culture. Many of the activities described in the book are instantly familiar to Hialuk. Here she is reading a chapter about how to harvest mussels under the ice. It's an important practice in her community, Kanyusuyoak. In the winter, the tides recede so far that you can walk under a shelf of ice to pick mussels off the rocks. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman.

I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman.

I am a woman. I am a woman. So she was writing in that sana and how to go under the ice. People in Kenya, Sri Yawak still harvest mussels that way today. The culture put into her story and some of them it's about the weather. The weather we have to know what it's going to be today or next few days. So we still have to teach us how to read the clouds. The clouds have like a ball. It means it's going to be snowing in two or three days later. And the summer, if we see the sun down, if they're black, so it's going to be raining.

Mitiyarjak Nepalak worked with Bernard Saladin Denglur to publish the novel in Inuktitut in 1984. Nelly Duvek says one of the things she finds striking is that although Sunok sprang partly from requests from outsiders, Mitiyyarjuk found ways to assert control over how the story of Inuit was told. There's a saying that Inuit have been the people, the community that have been written about the most by outsiders. And so of course, the work of Mithyarj, being a pioneer, as I said, and all the others that wrote text after her, by putting those stories and those memories that have been

passed on or that have been made up, they're taking the ownership on the narrative about their culture, their history. It is the purpose, I think, of that written literature because they did not wait for a writing system to start having their own literature. They had their own library in their head, as Yeh Petit Nungak is saying. But by putting them into written books and written text,

they do make sure that those stories are also there on the same scene, on the same level with outsiders' texts, and they can reach the same public. When she's writing Sanak, she says, anyone who wants to learn inutitut, if they're able to read, so they will know who they were. I know we can see it from the books, but the action, we still have that knowledge. I think I'm the person that was mainly touched by my mother's work. I think I work like her sometimes.

She mainly talked about language and culture. She found them very important. I couldn't stay away from her when she spoke. I had to be near her. And she was always working. And she mainly focused on the children that were going to come after. My mother wanted Inuit to become autonomous, especially with their own language and culture. That's how she used to speak. On Ideas, you're listening to Meteorjic Napalek, What We Do With Words.

It's the third episode in our special series exploring change and resilience in Nunavik. We're a podcast and a broadcast, heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America, on Sirius XM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. the eyehead. while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you

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You can find and follow World Report wherever you get your podcasts. In her extraordinary life, Mityarajak Napalak wrote more than 20 books. She lived through a time of profound change in the north as colonization rapidly altered the Inuit way of life. She would have lived through these changes, and she saw the arrival of new things, new ideas, and writing. Many of her books were aimed at the future, to help young people learn the language. She also wrote Sanak, the first novel written in Inuktitut.

So in your travels and your movement around the North, I wonder if you could kind of help us see the moment that you first encountered Mitiyarchuk. that you first encountered Mitiyarjak? Ah, yes. Mitiyarjak, I had only heard of her by name when as a translator, I was working with other translators and interpreters in the early part of my career. This is Lisa Koprkwalak, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council's Canada branch.

She first met Mithyarjak during a retreat to come up with inoculated words for medical terms to help Inuit patients navigate the healthcare system. We'd meet and sit down like for two weeks at a time in quiet spots like retreats and we'd go through terminology and elders, Inuit elders would join us. They would be part of these retreats and Mithirjuk and her husband Nala were at one of these retreats. That's how I met her. And I was very impressed.

Tell me why you were impressed. What struck you about her? She had this presence and mind. She was a thinker. She never sat still. She didn't wait for things to come to her. That's how I imagine her today. She worked for a long time in education and she was an educator.

When the school system started in Nunavik, she noticed they didn't teach Inukutut language culture writing. So in order to let her knowledge pass down to the children, she was willing to start working at the school. Most of Mitiarjak Napaluk's books were designed to be used in the classroom to teach young people in Nuktitut. So what's the title of this one? That's the title of Takkid Pinyakningilo, the month and happen in the month. That's January. It's called Nalekaito. Before January, before we heard January, there was used to call Nalekaito. So this was a book to familiarize children with the with the months

of a year. Yeah. How what age was this aimed at? We're using from grade two and maybe all of the classroom can use it. Is it still being used right now? Yes. Yeah. That's pretty extraordinary. Your mom's books are still being used in schools right now. Yes. That must be so amazing for you to know. Yes. I was a teacher. I was teaching when my mother was making Bokram.

These books were created when Mitjardzak was helping develop the Inuktitut curriculum for the Kativik school board, which operates in schools across Nunavik. Much like the terminology workshops Mityarjak would later participate in, it was a collaborative process. The elders take it together and talk about how it's going to be. So they're making the month. It's a good thing because at the beginning of the school year we was have no nothing, nothing much. Nothing inindictive? No. Mithir Jokhnaparud's work is studied I think almost in every school in Inuktitut classes. Nelly Duvec, an elementary school teacher in Nunavak.

I know that a lot of those students who became later songwriters or writers themselves, they did have her books in their hand. So I know she has a great influence. And also on Inuktitut language, a lot of work has been done. had her books in their hands. So I know she has a great influence. And also on in-utut language, a lot of work has been done by her about vocabulary and words that would have been lost without her. And I remember there was one person, I think he was,

Andy Pirti, he's from Kulivik. And I remember one article where he mentioned that reading her books made him want to know more about his language and learn more about those words that are about to be lost if we are not keeping them. ["Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 16, No. 1"] And of course, preservation of language is deeply intertwined with preservation of culture. When she's talking, when she's teaching, she wants to make sure we understand how it was used to be. Hjellok shows us one of the drawings her mother made.

It's a brightly colored illustration of a dog team, with each dog labeled in Inuktitut syllabics. A dog team would have been an unfamiliar sight for many of her students, who grew up in an era when the tradition was disappearing. When I was a girl, there was no more dog team. And she wants to explain that's why she was put uhohkosyaktuk. The language was used to use, but right now we're not using it anymore. These people when they are sitting in the back, we call them, that's directing.

Directing the dogs. That's the leader. She's going to be leading the other dogs. Oh, okay. It's a rock to Nick. That's the leader. She's going to be leading the other dogs when they wanted to have smart dogs. They make sure when the babies out the first one there was used to you choose the first one because it's first one it good to be in the front. It's already ahead of the others, yeah. Many of Mityarjak's books and drawings contain practical guidance people in the North would need to survive. Kealuk shows me two drawings, each depicting a seal on the shore.

In the past, when they see the dead seal on the shore, some of them they are eatable. Some of them they are dangerous to eat. How do you know? This one, if we see a seal, if we see the seal this way. So the head towards the land. Yeah, head towards the land that's dangerous. And this one, if you found it, that seal, that's eatable. Because the head is towards the water.

Yeah. It doesn't have air in the belly. Air in the stomach. Yeah. Wow. Amazing. If you find an animal dead in the shore, you have to know it's eatable or not. It is really very much like a life guide, this whole collection of pictures.

Yep. The Inuit way. Inuit way. The Inuit Way Before she became mayor of her community, Kielellak Nepalak worked as a teacher for more than three decades, following in her mother's footsteps. At the end of one school year, she started to run out of ideas. So I went to see my mother.

Mom, what else I can teach? And she said, you can teach?" And she said, "'You can teach part of parts?' Yes, they already know that." And when she said something, "'Yes, I did that.' I ran out." And she started to look at me and says,

"'If you can see a thing, that could be your teaching, if she was touching the table, it says, 息か 心中が 中 下 There's many, many words. So I can teach everything I can touch or I can think, I can see. There's so many we can teach for the people. We have to make them to be a leader, like critical thinkers. We want to see the critical thinkers not afraid and help each other. She taught things about the way you should behave toward others as a model does.

And she acted as a model. It was not just in the way that she communicated, but also in the way she modeled herself, like many of our elders do, but she had that extraordinary way about her because of her knowledge of putting words into writing and her communicative abilities and her knowledge of language, our language and our values, the cultural values that we have. So she had that ability to share those with her community. In her book, Traditions Relating to Customary Law in Nunavik, Lisa Koprkwalak devotes a

full section to Mdiarjak's proposals for how to enshrine Inuit concepts of justice in the 21st century. She's done work on justice committees and setting out the initial phases of the creation of justice committees in the North as an alternative form of justice. And so she brought out these Inuit concepts on what social harmony looks like, what a good person does. You mentioned that she was, she played the role of an elder and an advisor who was helping propagate knowledge of the culture.

Can you talk about just how she spoke about the role of elders in mediating conflict, for example? I think when resolving conflict, either between spouses or between enemies or friends turned into enemies or however we want to see them. It was really necessary to sit down together and talk, you know, without using violence. That's how she had grown up and our elders who had grown up in that way and they were still living in family camps at that time. The discussion would be held in a tent or in a snow house and the children, they were all told quietly, go out and play or go somewhere else and you cannot be here right now and so on. They weren't allowed to listen to these conflictual situations. Sometimes children would be aware that there was a big discussion happening and that there were some tears that were flowing, but that when they returned and were allowed to return inside, they could notice that there was

a much lighter feeling after the talks had been done. Yeah. It sounds like you are one of those kids who was going through something like that. Oh, yes, that's right. I try to think hard. No, did my grandmother and grandfather ever argue in front of us? Did they fight? Never. Never. Yeah. What else struck you, do you think, about Mitzy Erdrich's ideas about justice and community, the way she saw it play out in the culture? As Mithyarajuk expressed it, it's very inuit if people are talking badly about you or someone attacks you verbally, you know, no retaliation whatsoever. attacks you verbally, you know, no retaliation whatsoever. And this is very much the Inuit way.

Removal of a child if that child is in abusive a wife and after many, many warnings and talking to and talking with, he doesn't change, then removing his wife from him, protecting the woman. So those concepts she explains and that these were things that Inuit were doing way before the arrival of Western justice. So we have our own forms of law, even though these are not written as a Western type of laws would be written. These were understood by our knowledge holders, by families who grew up knowing these laws. And if families were not following these laws, then there were those knowledge holders and elders who offered guidance. As a final kind of thought on Matthea Ardjag's thoughts on justice, do you think are some

lessons that she provided in her writing that are useful in the 21st century? Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. I think we can do so much to, for example, protect Inuit women who live in situations of conjugal violence. For example, I know some individuals who have often been told, well, you have to stay with your husband because, you know, you were married in the church and you're not allowed to separate from and this would keep that cycle of violence going as well because the poor woman would think well I have to stay with him yeah because of the direction from God that I'm supposed to see until death do we part and so on but neglecting the fact that she's living this great injustice. So that inuit value of protecting the woman. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Hjelod Nepalak says she continues to learn from her mother's books and the example her mother set in her life about how to be a good leader. I learned from this. I can use it for the future because I learned from my mother. Be a leader. If you want to be a good leader, you have to be active, not just sitting, do something, trying to understand people, their thoughts. So you'll make decision not before, you have to understand first what they want and how we're going to get there. I learned from this and that,

so I adopted for my decision making. As mayor? As mayor, yes. Or be a leader for the teachers, or at home, not just for the higher level. Did your mother live long enough to see you as mayor? Oh, she don't see me. She didn't see you as mayor. She doesn't see me as a mayor. What do you think she would think,

knowing you became mayor? I think she's already know, because she wanted me to be a leader. I wanted to talk about my daughter. Please. I have the youngest daughter. When my mother, she got old. My daughter, she's always with her.

When she started to cry, my mother went for her very fast. I thought she was spoiling my daughter. And I said to my mother, Mom, don't do that. We don't have to spoil that baby. And she said, No, there's many children who need a leader. So many kids over there, they don't have a leader, they will need a leader. So I make her a leader. She teaching how to make decisions. If she just sitting, she want her to see the other. Who needs help?

It made Hjellak realize that her mother had always been training her to be a leader too. Oh, I think that she makes me. She teach me everything since I was a girl. I remember we were on the line down in the bed during the day and we were napping and she's holding me. Somebody make the noise, somebody's going to come and she started to ask me, listen, listen that noise. You're going to recognize that noise if you listen well.

So I was listening. So it was my brother, Yanni, and he's getting in very loud. She told me to listen again. My brother, he's got in and he didn't say anything. And he's walking back and forth. And she said, if he needs something, she's do that. So she teach me how to see what's going on and I have to understand.

At the end of our conversation, Hjellok turns to a drawing she had set aside earlier. There's many stories. So this is the big long one? That's the big long one about the moon. This is a story Mithyarjak Nepalik used to tell when Hjelik was a little girl, a story that's passed from generation to generation in Inuit families. At several points in our time together, Kieluk told me she was listening to her mother's

voice. When she told this story, I could hear it flowing through her. This is the story of the blind boy and the loon. When he was sitting outside in the igloo. They heard a loon. Whenon told that boy, go to the lake? So the boy went to the lake with the help of his sister. There he met two loons. And the loon was starting to talk to him, I'll take you to the water and you go down until you're good not holding your air. Let us know movement, let us know.

But he got scared before he's losing his air and he makes movement and went back just to make sure if he's gonna be safe. When he back up, he could not see because he didn't do what he had to do. And they told him again, you have to go down deeper. And the sire looked in.

He looked to get out of the yard. Then, ah! Chiolet takes a deep breath, squeezes her eyes shut, and pretends to dive. When he stopped, oh, he can see the land very, very far. When he moved and they bring him up, he could see everything. He had a very sharp eye, like a loon, and he see the lemon go into the hole, far away.

But the loon, they was thinking, can you do it? It could be more sharper. So he did again. Got out of the water. No I could not see that long. My eyes not too sharp anymore. So all the people has eye not too sharp, but the moon has the sharper size. That was the story. Incredible.

Yes. Wow. That's how she was used to make the story for us. When she's make a story, she's adding singing and the animal and the action like you have to hold your breath. When we are listening, we're holding. So we weren't going to forget what she was used to. Obviously now you're still acting it out and doing exactly what she did. Yes, I heard my mother's doing that. I just make her voice.

You had your eyes closed for a large part of that. Yes. You were listening. Yep, I'm listening when my memory went back. And thank you for asking me those stories. My brain, it's been sitting for a long time since my mother died, but when she asked me about these pictures, my brain, it came back. And the story from my mother is alive. So I heard my mother how she was make the story. And thank you for that.

Oh my God. Thank you. Hialek tells that very story to her grandchildren today, just as her mother used to tell it to her. Sometimes I play with my grandchildren when I do that. I'm breathing, but not make noise. I can do it for longer. When I'm breathing again, it's just to make them understand. When I make that story for my grandchildren, can you do that story? Can you do that story?

I wanna hear it again. When we were in the camp, when we go to sleep, that's how I remember my mother. She was make a story. We were lie down and we were listening warm. Amazing. Yeah. How special that you would share those with us. I feel so happy because I have been missing my mother.

When I'm talking, it seems she's still talking. I know she's been passed away, but the written and makes a story, it's still there. They just need someone to make them. To tell them again. Yes. On Ideas, you were listening to Meteorogic Napalek, What We Do With Words. This episode was produced by Pauline Holdsworth. You can see some of Meteorogic Napalek's drawings on our website, cbc.ca. Special thanks to Hiyalak Napaluk, Lisa Kopurkwaluk, Nelly Duvik, Norma Dunning, and to the University of Manitoba Press. Thanks to Sarah Tukaluk in Pervarnatic for her translation work. At CBC, thanks to Valérie Landry, Chris Skinner, and everyone at the CBC Library Partnerships

Program. And thank you to Michael Dick, Robert Doane, Salou Ava, and Duncan McHugh. Voice-over by Nahid Mustapha. Our special series continues with a portrait of another Nunavik artist, filmmaker Bobby Hanojek. Bobby Hanojek was a promising filmmaker with an ambition to change the narrative about his people. A quarter century later, Bobby's remembered as a pioneer whose tragic end confounds a hopeful beginning. That's coming up on Ideas as our special series on change and resilience in Nunavik continues.

Technical Production, Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Senior Producer, Nikola Lukcic. Greg Kelly is the Executive Producer of Ideas, and I'm Nala Ayed.