{"id":763903,"date":"2026-06-27T03:54:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/763903\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:54:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:54:39","slug":"nuclear-in-nunavut-inuit-and-the-element-that-never-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/763903\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear in Nunavut \u2014 Inuit and the element that \u2018never ends\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 4 | \u2018How do you explain to an elder something you can\u2019t see, taste or smell?\u2019<\/p>\n

This is the fourth article in a four-part series exploring how advancements in nuclear technology might impact Nunavut.<\/p>\n

To get a sense of what Inuit think of uranium, many Inuit will point to the Inuktitut word for it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Joan Scottie is the author of a 2022 book on colonialism, uranium mining and Inuit resistance in her community of Baker Lake. (Photo courtesy of Joan Scottie)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it nungusuittuq, which is the product that never ends,\u201d said James Eetoolook, president of Kitikmeot Inuit Association.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear who came up with the term, but it\u2019s been the subject of debate over the years.<\/p>\n

Some have criticized the word as too negative, said Baker Lake elder Joan Scottie, who wrote a letter<\/a> to Nunatsiaq News in 2007 about the development of Inuktitut words for nuclear terms.<\/p>\n

She recalled a territorial government delegate proposing \u201cnungu-qattaqtuq\u201d instead, meaning \u201cit gets used up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Scottie wrote the book<\/a> on Inuit and uranium, literally, when she published I Will Live for Both of Us in 2022. It tells the story of her community\u2019s fight against exploration companies that came to the Kivalliq Region over recent decades, looking to explore for uranium around Baker Lake.<\/p>\n

While Scottie was not available to speak to Nunatsiaq News, her writings describe the challenges of coming up with Inuktitut words for technical concepts.<\/p>\n

Uranium has a very long half-life, meaning it can take thousands of years to decay. It provides nuclear power \u2014 but it\u2019s also deadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake radiation, for example,\u201d Scottie said in her book. \u201cHow do you explain to an elder something you can\u2019t see, taste or smell?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1989, as part of the push for uranium exploration, a group of federal politicians, businesspeople and nuclear regulators travelled to Baker Lake to explain to local Inuit the potential risks and benefits of uranium mining.<\/p>\n

Language was a clear hurdle.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

At one point, according to a transcript of the meeting, a participant requested an official to sign a paper promising it would be translated into Inuktitut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill I sign a piece of paper? That\u2019s a tricky one,\u201d answered Bernie Zgola, who at the time worked for Canada\u2019s nationalized nuclear energy company Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will do my very best to have something translated. Now the question is exactly how much we can translate and how much time we have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2011, and the conversation around uranium was still getting lost in translation.<\/p>\n

That year, Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit, the territorial government\u2019s language authority, hosted a uranium terminology workshop at the request of the Nunavut Impact Review Board.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The meeting appeared to be a response to demands from the Baker Lake hunters and trappers association, which wrote the board asking it to halt a proposal for uranium exploration near the hamlet \u201cuntil a vocabulary can be developed that allows the draft guidelines to be translated into the Baker Lake dialect of Inuktitut.\u201d<\/p>\n

The review board responded that such a request would create an \u201cindefinite\u201d delay of proceedings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what has changed since then.<\/p>\n

Nunatsiaq News emailed Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit to ask about the issue but did not receive a response. Nunatsiaq News also tried to contact the Office of the Language Commissioner of Nunavut but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n

Generally, the likelihood that any Nunavut community would take the lead to bring in nuclear power is low, say people in the nuclear and mining industries.<\/p>\n

But the federal government is set to spend billions<\/a> to bolster Canada\u2019s Arctic defence. Part of this work is a $40-million project to assess the potential of using a nuclear microreactor to power northern defence installations, the federal government announced on April 29.<\/p>\n

David Novog, an engineering professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., who specializes in small nuclear reactors, says it\u2019s a unique situation in Canada that dual-use military spending \u2014 meaning it benefits the military and the local civilian population \u2014 is part of the country\u2019s NATO commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilitary or dual-use technologies that support energy for isolated places like a military base are pretty high on the agenda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may be a lever that gets some reactors built. And then, of course, once it\u2019s built a few times, then a northern community can be pretty sure that this is going to work because we built one over here, you know, and it\u2019s not even that far away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nunatsiaq News emailed Nunavut\u2019s three regional Inuit associations to ask their leadership about their thoughts on nuclear power.<\/p>\n

Only Eetoolook, with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, responded.<\/p>\n

He said KIA does not have a position on nuclear energy but credited the Nunavut Impact Review Board for raising awareness of its potential opportunities and risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are burning fossil fuel right now and it\u2019s not friendly to the environment and the atmosphere,\u201d Eetoolook said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Nuclear] is probably coming down the road. So I think we have to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part 4 | \u2018How do you explain to an elder something you can\u2019t see, taste or smell?\u2019 This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-763903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}