Kangirsujuaq -- a Community in Transformation! Part 1

History of Kangirsujuaq

Kangiqsujuaq is a northern Inuit community in Nunavik, northern Quebec.  It has a population of over 700 people. 

The name "Kangirsujuaq" means "the large bay" in Inuktitut.  It is located on the Ungava Peninsula, on the Hudson Strait.  

Kangirsujuaq has seen huge changes over the past century, all the way from the days when the dog sled was the most important means of transportation...

...to now where the snowmobile...

...and Air Inuit are the major means of transportation.

 Kangirsujuaq is served by the small Kangirsujuaq Airport.

Situated 88 kilometers south-west of the community of Kangirsujuaq, the walls of the circular crater created by that impact still cast an imposing shadow over the surrounding plateau of lakes and tundra.  To Inuit, this place is known as Pingualuit (where the land rises). 

The crater is 3.4 kilometers in diameter, and 400 meters deep, while the lake which occupies the basin is an impressive 267 meters deep, a depth comparable to most parts of the Hudson Bay.  The purity of this lake water is renowned throughout the world.

Survival in the harsh, cold climate of the area around Kangirsujuaq, Nunavik, depended on berry picking in the Fall season...

...as well as fishing... 

 ...and hunting throughout the rest of the year.

The North's most ancient and dangerous hunt was the pursuit of the bowhead whale.  The tradition fell silent in northern Quebec due to the overhunting of the Scottish whalers in the 19^th and early 20^th century, but the bowhead whale hunt has recently been reborn in Kangirsujuaq in 2008 and in 2009 which is where and when the above picture was taken.

This picture was taken in the region in 1909 when Kangirsujuaq was not a settled community, but a trading post.  Revillon Frères (Revillon Brothers) was a French fur company, founded in Paris in 1723, and by 1909, had established a post (trading store) in Kangirsujuaq.  

By that year, this French fur trading company had forty-eight (48) stores in its Eastern Arctic division while Hudson Bay Company had fifty-two (52).  By 1914, the HBC also has a trading post at Kangiqsujuaq.  Many of the Inuit villages in Nunavik, in northern Quebec, including Kangirsujuaq, are located on sites originally occupied by these early trading posts.

This picture was taken in the Kangirsujuaq region in 1910.  Genetic research suggests the arrival of permanent trading posts in Arctic Quebec meant more than easier access to flour and metal cookware for Inuit families.  

A newly published paper from McGill University concludes that this is how tuberculosis was introduced into the region as well.  "It would appear that the tuberculosis epidemic dates to permanent interaction with some outside people," said lead author Marcel Behr.

The Qajartalik Petroglyphs near Kangirsujuaq

The Qajartalik Petroglyphs are at an archeological site only 15 kilometers (less than 10 miles) South East of the village of  Kangirsujuaq (about a one-hour boat ride).  Some 170 petroglyph masks dating back to the late Dorset period, about 1,200 years ago, are carved into stone at this site.  Also, there are remnants of semi-subterranean houses built by Inuit of the Thule period, 800 years ago. 

Since 1996, the Avataq Cultural Institute (with an office in Inukjuaq, Nunavik) and its chief archaeologist, Dr. Daniel Gendron, have been actively working on the petroglyph site of Qajartalik as well as creating a plan to protect the site.

The Dorset Culture preceded the Inuit Culture in Arctic North America, and lived in the Arctic between about 500 B. C. and 1500 A.D., at which time they became extinct.  The Dorset people were facing an environment that was not predictable, so their religion was an effort for humans to stay in control.  The late Dorset people inherited an ancient religious system and worldview that saw personal spirit helpers as the medium through which humans could control, or at least manipulate, the small-scale events of their environment. 

However, it is obvious that the Dorset people did not stay in control.  Whatever happened to them seems to have occurred suddenly, and to have left almost no trace in the archaeological record as they mysteriously disappeared.  The archaeological evidence shows only that the Dorset culture was replaced across Arctic Canada and Greenland by the culture of the ancestral Inuit who moved east from Alaska about 1,000 years ago.  Somehow the Dorset people were replaced by the Thule ancestors of modern Inuit.

In Ancient People of the Arctic, Robert McGhee quotes art historian George Swinton to say that the Dorset carvings were the tangible remnants of a religious tradition, an integral part of the religious practice of Dorset “shaman-artists,” and an essential component of religious ritual and experience.  In the words of Swinton, “it is by no means unreasonable to conceive of a Dorset shaman-artist as the main producer of such art.”

In the Dorset culture, some individuals acquired much greater abilities at attracting and holding powerful "spirit helpers."  These men and women were the recognized shamans of the community.  The carvings of the Dorset culture speak eloquently of a shamanic world, a world that could control people with the fear and dread of curses from capricious deities.

Robert McGhee is obviously referring to Qajartalik when he states:

“Some of the faces portrayed on masks and wands are found in the petroglyphs carved into rock cliffs along the coasts of the Hudson Strait.  The rock carvings, the wooden masks, the small wounded figures, and the human-animal images all suggest that Dorset artists used human imagery primarily in the service of magical or spiritual power.

“Taken together, the assemblage of human representations leaves the observer with a distinctly uneasy impression.  The calm serenity apparent in the tiny maskettes carved during the early centuries of the Dorset period soon disappears, to be replaced by a variety of images ranging from unsettling to bizarre.”

According to McGhee, some “figures scattered throughout the area of Dorset settlement are distinguished by a slot in the upper chest, sometimes containing a sliver of wood.  It is very tempting to view these small and rather chilling objects as the elements of magical acts designed to harm other humans.”  He adds in another section of his book regarding this same carving, that “the figure may have been ritually killed.”

In describing the very distinctive harpoon points (less than 5 centimeters long) of the Dorset people, McGhee states that “perhaps the majority of the tiny harpoon heads found in Dorset villages were such magic weapons, used by a shaman to demonstrate the cause of an illness that had been cured.  Of course, there is also the more sinister possibility that some of these miniature weapons may have been used in rituals designed to send illness or death to an enemy rather than a cure.”

As with these carvings at Qajartalik, archaeologist Robert McGhee notes that “most of the carvings of Dorset villages can be associated with magical or religious means of dealing with a shamanic universe.”

What Does This have to Do with Kangirsujuaq Today?

This issue has surfaced in newspaper chains right across Canada right in the 21^st Century.  Rumors began to surface during the summer of 2006 that vandalism had taken place at the Qajartalik site, and it was the Christians of Kangirsujuaq who began to have the finger pointed at them, even though there was zero evidence.

Randy Boswell, a journalist with the Canwest News Services called Dr. Daniel Gendron, then chief archeologist of the Avataq Cultural Instutute about the alleged vandalism, and asked if it “could” have been caused by the Christians in Kangirsujuaq.  Dr. Gendron had not yet had a chance to revisit the site to personally inspect the rumored vandalism, so he made clear to the journalist that he did not know who did it, but had to agree that it “could” have been Christians, although he did not know, as it could have been anybody.

To Dr. Gendron’s horror, when the article came out in the Canwest News Services network, beginning with the Regina Leader Post on August 26, 2006, the headline declared the possibility as if it were a fact:  “Christian Zealots Destroy Ancient Arctic Petroglyphs.”  The article spread like wildfire, not only through the network of the Canwest News Services, but a myriad of other news media outlets as well, including the Nunatsiaq News in Iqaluit, Nunavut.  This was subsequently repeated on web-sites and blogs galore, without anybody checking the facts, or looking for corroborating or confirming evidence.

Even to this date, web-sites like this continue to perpetrate this myth, and continues to insist that “Dr. Daniel Gendron, chief archeologist with the Inukjuak-based Avataq Cultural Institute, said the latest vandalism at Qajartalik follows the pattern of previous attacks by members of what he called 'a very strong movement' of conservative Christians in Kangirsujuaq and several other Inuit communities in northern Quebec.” 

Yet ever since the story first broke in late August of 2006, the false rumours spread faster than Dr. Daniel Gendron could correct them.  He did write a strongly worded letter to the Nunatsiaq News in late September of 2006 to indicate that he would never give another interview with a journalist if he did not know the journalist’s motives, and he personally apologized to the citizens of Kangirsujuaq and indeed all of Nunavik for the false spin that was put on to this story without a shred of evidence.

The present mayor of Kangirsujuaq, Charlie Arngak, a strong Christian, was in fact the chairman of the board of the Avataq Cultural Institute at the time, and he knows how people think in his community, and knows that they do not engage in vandalism or in any kind of behaviour that by-passes proper protocol.  The mayor of Kangirsujuaq in 2006 was Mary Pilurtuut who when first asked about this rumoured “vandalism” stated that she hadn't been informed of fresh damage at the site and doubted "something religious" would have been involved.  "Recently, it's not the case," she said, suggesting that most of the deterioration at the site has been "caused by nature."  

Interestingly, when Dr. Daniel Gendron did in fact first get a chance to revisit the Qajartalik site for himself in September of 2007, along with Andre Fradette, the Minister of Culture and Communications in Quebec, they found that not only were the accusations untrue, but that there was, in fact, no new vandalism caused by humans, but only some minor deterioration caused by the weather.  This confirmed exactly what the Mayor of Kangirsujuaq had said a year earlier.  These petroglyph carvings were transposed on to soapstone which is very susceptible and vulnerable to the deterioration of any carvings due to the weather.

 

Why do I share this story?  Because I want to make people aware of the fact that not only did the Transformations II video make people more globally aware that God was doing a transforming work in Inuit communities like Kangirsujuaq, but that even the secular media across Canada and globally has gotten on to the story that there are a lot of Christian believers in this community.  It should not surprise us, therefore, that these peaceful believers should come under attack, and be falsely accused by some forces at work in the world who do not want to acknowledge that God is at work in the community.
This check this site for a clip of the Transformatons II video.

Transformation is from Glory to Glory, from one Level of Light to a Greater Level of Light!

There is one level of light that comes from the moon which reflects the light of the sun.  As the sun rises, however, the light of the moon fades with the rising of a greater light, the light of the sun.
Even so, the light of the natural world begins to fade and to grow strangely dim in the light of the transcendent glory and grace that is revealed in the gospel which brings us into a face-to-face relationship with Jesus Christ!

"Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge Him.  As surely as the sun rises, He will appear” (Hosea 6:3, NIV).

“The way of the wicked is like darkness.  They do not know what makes them stumble.  But the path of the righteous is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:19, 18, NKJV).

“Arise, shine, for your light has come!  And the glory of the LORD rises upon you.  For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people, but the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.  The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah 60:1-3, NKJV).

“But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory (‘with ever increasing glory,’ NIV), just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Cor. 3:18, NKJV).

Contrast Kangirsujuaq Today With the Dark Days of the 1960's

It must be remembered that the Inuit were a nomadic people who had lived on the lands of the North for hundreds of years, and had been able to survive in this harsh, cold climate with the use of traditional knowledge.  The survival of the Inuit over those many years is a story that has fascinated people of all nations for many years as to how they survived in a land where there was no trees, no gardens, no orchards, no roads.  So the only way to survive was to migrate with the caribou herds and other animals who were the only source of food and clothing.

When the Canadian government required the Inuit of Nunavik to settle down into communities during the 1950s, the intentions were no doubt good, and to this day, any Inuit would far rather live in a heated house during the cold winter than in an igloo.    However, with the government building heated homes, and providing infrastructure for community, while in one sense, life improved physically, yet in the sense of life having meaning, value and purpose, life deteriorated.

All of the traditional knowledge that elders had passed on to their children for generations now seemed to be useless, even though it was a source of dignity and pride that this knowledge had enabled Inuit to survive for many hundreds of years.  Yet now that traditional knowledge seemed without value.  This left a cultural and a spiritual void that led a whole generation of Inuit to turn to alcohol to try to fill the void and to numb the pain.  

By the 1960s, communities like Kangirsujuaq had a 95% alcoholism, and there were times where virtually the whole community was drunk.  Fights would break out all over, and there was little law enforcement.  The 1960s and early 1970s was truly a dark period in Kangirsujuaq history as there was chronic alcoholism, and children raised by alcoholic parents were neglected and abused.  No wonder so many turned to suicide as a way of escaping the hell that they were living in.

It was not until the year 1976 that the first-fruits of missionaries such as John Spillenaar began to manifest in the North, and people in communities like Kangirsujuaq began to receive a “born again” experience.  This “new birth” was like the beginning of the dawn of a new day after a period of intense darkness.  It has now been a full generation of 40 years between 1976 and 2016, and in comparing the community today with the community that existed back then is indeed to witness a community that has been experiencing transformation that can be likened to the rising sun, from glory to glory, with ever increasing glory!

Here, you will see a picture of a March for Jesus that took place in Kangiqsujuaq back in 1997.  The building in the background on the left is the Full Gospel Church building at that time.

This is  the same building in 2016.  As you can see, the building is now much enlarged from the previous picture, with plans for further expansion in the near future, and the influence of what goes on inside of the building is still spreading beyond the four walls, and is bringing transformation and greater light into every sphere of the community.  

This is the Village Municipal Office Building where the Mayor and six councillors meet.  Of the seven who sit on Council, today six are born again believers, and relationally the church is the most influential agency in the community that is bringing transformation to the Municipal Council, the Nursing Station, the Education, the Family Services, and the infrastructure agencies that support the community life.

Here you see Charlie Arngak, the present-day mayor of Kangirsujuaq, calling up an elder to lead in prayer before a community feast.   There is no "political correctness" to public and community events here, and who is going to tell the Inuit that they cannot pray at their own community events?

This is Mark and Annie Tertiluk.  Mark is on the Village Municipal Council and his wife Annie is the pastor of the Full Gospel Church in Kangirsujuaq, and she is also directly involved in Education.  

This is Mary Pilurtuut, a former mayor who still sits on the Village Municipal Council as one of the six who are born again believers.

Every morning, at 8:00 p.m., Mayor Charlie Arngak meets for prayer at the Municipal Office.  This prayer meeting prays for peace to come into difficult situations wherever and whenever people are upset or angry.  He prays for peace and wisdom to bring the presence of God into that situation.  

What is evident in Kangirsujuaq is that while it is still not perfect, the peace of God is increasing.  The community workers are well motivated to do their best, and to serve the community with peace and joy.  They stay on top of their jobs, and keep the water tanks in each residence filled, and the septic tanks empty.  Even during a Conference when there is such a high demand on these services, nobody experienced a lapse in the community services.

The community workers are motivated to do their best, and to serve the community as a ministry unto the Lord, knowing that they will receive the reward of an eternal inheritance when they serve Christ joyfully and from the heart.  Today, this community is prospering in every sense, as they have been able to afford beautiful buildings for school, for a nursing station, a community centre, a swimming pool, a fitness centre, and they have also been able to organize family friendly activities for the children throughout the week.

Part of this is possible because the community leaders have been wise enough, and forward-thinking enough that they have responsibly developed the land and the resources that are available to them rather than to let it sit idle.  They understand that the environment is to be managed and stewarded responsibly, not worshiped and remain undeveloped while the people stay in poverty.

An Enlightened Spirituality is Foundatonal to the Economy and to the Wellness of the Community

The Raglan Mine, which is run by Xstrata Nickel, strives to become a model in the mining industry in human resource development, equity towards its multicultural workforce and respect for the local communities and the environment. They employ more than 950 workers and are committed to providing a safe, productive, healthy and stable work environment for many years to come. 

This map will illustrate how that the Raglan Mine is located, roughly ½ way between the communities of Salluit and Kangirsujuaq. 

Mayor Charlie Arngak of Kangirsujuaq (on the far right) is among other community leaders who are receiving a cheque from the Raglan Mine for $7,712,982.00.  This is in addition to the jobs created, and has added huge support to the community.  Clearly, it takes godly wisdom for the leaders of an indigenous community to have the leadership to build trustworthy relationships that can be win-win for the mine and for the community

Notice how new and well-built the buildings of Kangirsujuaq are!  This is greatly helped by the profit-sharing from the mine that is benefitting the community through sound business partnerships which are based on wise stewardship and management of the environment.

This year, there continues to be a lot of new construction in the community, and new housing and apartment units are being built to provide safe, clean and well-built housing for all.  

Does this mean that there are no longer any problems in the community?  By no means!  What we are saying is that Kangirsujuaq is a community that is in a process of transformation, and that it has come a long ways from the days of the 1960s when there were times when the entire community was drunk, and spiritual darkness was rampant.  

This community is indeed undergoing transformation that can be likened to the rising of the sun, from glory to glory, with ever increasing glory!

Having said this, I am sure that everybody realizes that material buildings alone do not a community make!  The basic building blocks of community are not material things, but relationships that are strong and healthy.

Healthy Relationships are the Building Blocks of Strong Communities

Building strong communities includes social events and recreational activities that are a lot of fun!

One of the events that the village of Kangirsujuaq seeks to organize monthly is a community feast to which the whole community is invited.  Those who have more than enough bring of their abundance, and those who have little or nothing to bring are welcome to come and be fed!

Everybody is treated to a bountiful community meal, but this goes deeper than coming for physical food.  It is also a time of relationship-building whereby people from every sphere of the community come together as having equal value, equal dignity and equal worth.

Look and see the mothers of Kangirsujuaq in their dignity as they proudly carry their babies in their amauti.  This traditional eastern Arctic Inuit parka is designed to keep the child warm and safe from frostbite, wind and cold.  It also helps to develop bonding between mother and child.  

This Inuit woman on the right, dressed in her traditional dress, is lighting the qulliq (pronounced kudluk) for the opening of the Eastern Arctic Healing/Bible Conference which took place in Kangirsujuaq during the Easter week-end of March 24 to 28, 2016.  The qulliq was the only source of light and warmth that the Inuit had for hundreds of years, and contributed greatly to their survival.

Is Transformation by Way of the Spirit Permanent and Lasting?

Is the transformation that is taking place in Kangirsujuaq simply a “flash in the pan” that is based upon emotional hype and ballyhoo?  Just look at the radiant face of one of their “next generation” leaders, Jimmy Uqittuq.  In the centre of this picture, you will see his face at a Bible Conference in his community in 1997.  

Some thirteen years later, here you will see him at a Youth Conference in Kangirsujuaq in 2010 as he plays the Inuit drum during worship.  He is still going strong for the Lord while remaining connected to the healthy roots of his Inuit culture, using his culture to glorify God, the Creator!

Another six years later, his face is still glowing and radiant at the recent Easter week-end Conference in 2016 where he is pictured with Trina Qumakuk, a dynamic youth leader from Puvirnituq, another community in Nunavik!  Pastor Annie Tertiluk even had Jimmy lead several of the services at the Eastern Arctic Healing/Bible Conference that took place in Kangirsujuaq from March 24 to 28, 2016.

Both a report on this Conference, and the history of the Eastern Arctic Healing/Bible Conferences in Kangirsujuaq is the subject of part 2 of this report.  Kangirsujuaq is just one of those Inuit communities that are experiencing transformation, that is, true inside out change that begins with the hearts of the people as the Presence of God motivates them to let their lives shine into every sphere of the community!