INDUS TRY P ROF IL E
museum, and are used as templates for
further school-based workshops. A local
800-year-old gathering house has been
reconstructed within the May Hakongak
Centre and repurposed as a movie theatre
to showcase the vast collection of interviews and documentary films created
during the projects.
The Legacy of the KHS
Local models strut the catwalk at the KHS’ traditional clothing fashion show
On any given day, the Centre hosts
youth sewing classes, after-school literacy
and cultural immersion programs, research
workshops, and an elders-in-residence
circle, all of which aim to seamlessly
combine traditional culture with modern
learning needs and technologies. Perhaps
more important than its in-house activities, the May Hakongak Centre doubles as
a launching point for Traditional Knowledge projects that take place outside the
confines of the town.
Regular land-based camps are held
by the KHS to facilitate the process of
repairing connections between people,
Traditional Knowledge, and the engagement of natural resources. These camps
typically focus on a skill or technology that
teeters on the brink of collective memory,
and which local elders have decided is
essential to the maintenance of a healthy
Inuit culture. Ranging from one to two
weeks, these camps attempt to create the
right social and cultural environment to
ease Traditional Knowledge back into the
everyday. A camp to reconstruct a traditional style of kayak, for example, is not
simply about building a boat. It requires
leaving the town behind so that participants can feed themselves with whatever
the earth and the sea give forth. It is also
about bringing together the right people:
Forager 2 Fall 2015
elders who fish details from the deep pools
of their minds to feed adults and youth
eager for a taste of their cultural past.
While experiential learning is the
primary goal of these workshops, documentation plays another key role. Artifacts and associated stories from camps
become exhibits in the May Hakongak
Hovering on the 20th anniversary of the
organization’s beginnings as a non-profit,
the team at the Kitikmeot Heritage Society
has recently been thinking hard about the
legacy of their work. They believe that the
most significant impact of the KHS in a
community context is the creation of projects to restore traditional values, cultural
awareness, and intergenerational relationships in a manner that is both relevant and
accessible to local people. The organization
envisions knowledge building as a community-oriented process that, when engaged
through specific socially and culturally
sanctioned ways, helps young people
better position their lives and identities
within the continuum of Inuit culture.
A successful seal hunt
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