September 7, 2001

Throat-singers gathering coming together

ALISON BLACKDUCK
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — More than 70 throat-singers are travelling to Puvirnituq this week to attend the world's first throat-singers' gathering.

Nunavik's Avataq Cultural Institute is hosting the event.

"There are 64 people registered right now," said Taqralik Partridge, the gathering's coordinator. "There are 30 people from Nunavut, and 34 from Nunavik."

But Partridge said there will probably be a handful of last-minute attendees — such as Sally Aaruaq and Sharon Alerk — so the number of participants will exceed 70.

Aaruaq and Alerk are two young throat-singers from Baker Lake who are eager to attend the gathering, but haven't yet secured money to pay for their travel.

"I spoke with the Kivalliq Inuit Association this morning," Aaruaq said in a telephone interview from her Baker Lake home on Tuesday afternoon. "They'll try to get something together today or tomorrow, but hopefully we'll get something today."

Aaruaq, 36, said that she and Alerk also asked Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. for travel money.

Partridge said she knows both women want to attend.

"They were pretty mad because a bunch of elders (from Baker Lake) are going, but there's no youth," she said.

However, Partridge promised Aaruaq and Alerk that if they can make their way to Iqaluit before Sunday, two seats will be waiting for them on a Puvirnituq-bound charter.

Avataq had to charter the plane for the Nunavut participants because First Air suspends its Iqaluit to Kuujjuaq flights in the autumn.

Without the charter, the travel costs would have been too exorbitant for Avataq, because the Nunavut participants would have had to travel through Montreal to make the connection to Puvirnituq.