These Nunavik students helped write and illustrate their own award-winning book
CBC
When Nelly Duvicq's students held a print edition of L'inugagullirq in their hands for the first time a few weeks ago, their pride was palpable.
It was the end of a six-month-long process for the students in grades 5, 6 and 7 from Nuvviti School in Ivujivik — the northernmost village in Quebec's Inuit territory of Nunavik, close to where Hudson Strait meets Hudson Bay.
L'inugagullirq, based on a local Inuit legend, has been published online as part of Un livre à la fois, a Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) project linking elementary and UQAM students, who work together to create an illustrated book.
It is the first time a school in Nunavik has been involved with Un livre à la fois, which usually partners with a Montreal school. And the result proved to be a huge success.
On May 26, Duvicq, who teaches French as a second language at Nuvviti, will accompany three of the student authors to Montreal to accept one of the Quebec government's reading recognition awards.
Duvicq, who moved to the community from the south of France 13 years ago, says when she first heard about Un livre à la fois last October, she asked her class what they'd like to write about.
"About Ivujivik," she says they told her.
Duvicq then invited two community elders into her class to provide her students with inspiration for their original story.
The book draws on a traditional Inuit legend, following a family on a fishing trip where one of the family members encounters the inugagullirq — a "mini-version of humans, but a lot smarter," says Ulluria Mangiok, 12, one of the co-authors and Duvicq's daughter.
"I kind of felt like it was finally a small story about something that we really like," said Ulluria.
"We created a story in November," said Geneviève Lafrance, the UQAM French literature professor who helped the students refine the text of the story and draw the illustrations.
She visited the school alongside her colleagues, Alexandrine Hugonnier, a UQAM student, and Daniel Chartier, UQAM professor and director of the Laboratoire international de recherche sur l'imaginaire du Nord, de l'hiver et de l'Arctique.
"After that, the children, they translated the story themselves in Inuktitut with the help of their Inuktitut teacher," Lafrance said. Another of the students, Deseray Qaunaaluk, narrated the Inuktitut version of the audiobook.
Lafrance was there, in Ivujivik, at the end of March, when the school held a book launch party — the first of its kind in the community of 480 people.
It was sometime in 2008 that Henry Walter got a message from his lawyer.
When Fredericton High School student Matthew Jeon wanted to start saving money for university, he started applying for summer jobs.
After yet another major flood at the Sainte-Croix Hospital in Drummondville, Que., family doctor Catherine Tétreault says the situation at the facility has reached a point of no return.
As the calendar is about to flip to an election year in Winnipeg, the time is growing short for candidates to mount a serious electoral challenge to Mayor Scott Gillingham.
Claude Hardenne occasionally tries out new packaging or moulds for his locally made chocolates, but he would never tinker with the recipes Harden & Huyse has used for almost 50 years.
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of the gang leader at the centre of the murder of Tiki Laverdiere.
As temperatures plunge and Islanders crank up the heat, the City of Summerside is preparing its power plans amid mounting pressure on P.E.I.’s electricity grid.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse.
Ten years ago, Canada responded to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Syria with an unprecedented program that rapidly resettled 25,000 Syrian refugees in roughly 100 days.
Alberta separatist leaders expect to start canvassing in January to get their independence referendum question on the ballot, thanks to the provincial government’s latest legislation to make it easier for them to succeed.
With the holiday season fast approaching, plenty of people are making a list and checking it twice. But for many in Thunder Bay, Ont., a hot meal is their number one concern of the season.
As Mayor Olivia Chow heads into what could be her final year leading Toronto — or final test before she asks voters to re-elect her in the fall — she’s reassuring ratepayers that they won’t see property taxes rise as sharply as they did earlier in her term.
Health Minister Marjorie Michel says she worries about how recent actions by U.S. public health agencies, like removing a universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for American infants, could hurt Canadians’ health.