Inuit Day: The Story of the Qulliq | Office of Indigenous Relations

Today is Inuit Day, an acknowledgement and celebration of Inuit culture and contributions, but most importantly a day to affirm the voices of Inuit across the circumpolar world.

At the 2006 Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) General Assembly in Barrow, Alaska, November 7th was proclaimed as Inuit Day to honour the birth date of ICC founder Eben Hopson.

Hopson was one of the Arctic’s greatest leaders who called on Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka to work together in order to defend Inuit Rights and to make certain no Inuit community is left behind as change and development increases in the Arctic.

Inuit — for “the people” — are an , the majority of whom inhabit the northern regions of Canada. An Inuit person is known as an Inuk. The Inuit homeland is known as Inuit Nunangat, which refers to the land, water and ice contained in the Arctic region.

The Inuit homeland is known as Inuit Nunangat, which refers to the land, water and ice contained in the region. The term Inuit Nunangat may also be used to refer to land occupied by the Inuit in Alaska and Greenland. By 2021, according to Statistics Canada, the Inuit population grew to 70,545, an increase of 8.5 per cent since 2016.

In 2021, approximately 69 per cent of all Inuit in Canada lived in Inuit Nunangat, with 44 per cent living in , followed by Nunavik (in northern ), the western arctic (��Ի��), known as Inuvialuit, and Nunatsiavut (located along the northern coast of ).

Associate Vice President, Jean Becker (Inuk), a member of Nunatsiavut Territory of Labrador, tells the history of how Inuit culture was replaced with European culture in the centuries after John Cabot arrived in North America in 1497.

For example, the Qulliq (KU-lick), a traditional oil lamp used by the Labrador Inuit (Labradormiut) was lost during that time. Today, the Qulliq, has been brought back and is used as a representation of Inuit spirituality and culture in a ceremonial way across the North.

The lamp is commonly made from soapstone in the shape of a half-moon. Traditionally whale or seal blubber would be used with a wick made of cotton grass (suputi)��or moss (ijju/maniq) dellicately placed along its groove. Once lit, the wick slowly burns and is tended with a hook-shaped tool (taqquti). The Qulliq provides heat, light and traditionally was used for cooking.

Here at ��ݮ��Ƶ, research is being done in Inuit communities to advance the pursuit of information and amplify traditional knowledges:

Vision and Image Processing Lab - Combining Indigenous knowledge and AI to support safer on-ice travel. Read the full story in ��ݮ��Ƶ News.
Faculty of Science - Conserving Arctic char with Western science and Indigenous knowledge. Read the full story in ��ݮ��Ƶ News.
Faculty of Health – Country Foods for Good Health. To learn more, visit the .
Faculty of Engineering – Nunavut Urban Futures. To learn more, read the .

And ��ݮ��Ƶ alumni are working in the north with Inuit communities to create positive impact:

School of Pharmacy – Janna Jenkins and Christopher Voss. To learn more about their work read the full story in ��ݮ��Ƶ News.
Faculty of Health – Wilfred Ntiamoah. To learn more, visit Ntiamoah's profile.

For more information about Inuit Day, Inuit communities, the Qulliq visit the following sources:

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