'First Inuit rock band' member given top Quebec arts honour

For somebody known as one of the pioneers of the first Inuit rock band The Harpoons, you wouldn't think William Tagoona got his start with the band at the age of 13, jamming to "white people music."

But singing in his mother tongue of Inuktitut wasn't allowed at the time, while attending a residential school in Churchill, Man., in the 1960s.  

"We were doing cover stuff, we were doing The Beatles, we were doing The Rolling Stones, The Animals… using white man's instruments – their bass, guitars and drums," Tagoona said.

Music, even if it was from "white people," gave him and other children at the Churchill Vocational School some solace, and he said it lit a fire in him.

"We realized something's wrong [at the residential school]. We had to make a change. The only way to do that was to learn the white man's ways, just as good as they do. Then we'll be able to contradict what they are saying, using their language, their tools," he said.

It wasn't until the 1970s that he began publicly releasing music in Inuktitut, and that's when he said he really amped up his activism for Inuit rights and culture. 

Now some six decades later, he's being inducted to the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec, in recognition of his work promoting Inuit culture and language, both as a singer-songwriter, and as a journalist with the CBC.

Tagoona was one of the first Inuit artists to get his work recorded on CBC's Northern Service Recordings in 1978.

Before that, most Inuit artists had to resort to doing recordings on portable cassette players.

Patrick Nagle, former station manager of CBC Iqaluit, said Tagoona forged a path for many Inuit artists to get their work recorded in a professional studio.

"I think just about anybody you talk to would reference hearing the likes of William Tagoona… those initial recordings really inspired a whole kind of musical industry in the North. It inspired the idea of top-quality, original Inuktitut material," Nagle said. 

Tagoona also challenged CBC to get more Inuit artists on its airwaves, during an era when "our language was dying out," the singer-songwriter said. 

"Music is where you're going to save the language. It's not putting millions in a school program," he said. 

Tagoona's latest accolade also recognizes his work as a journalist.