Umingmak of the North
February 26th, 2020
Umingmak is the Inuit word for muskox and a symbol of strength, authority and protectiveness. It was also the nickname the Inuit gave Stuart Hodgson, the first resident commissioner of the Northwest Territories who arrived in 1967. Commissioners and their council were appointed then and Ottawa gave Hodgson the mandate to establish a modern, self-elected government in NWT with Yellowknife as its capital. Hodgson succeeded and did so, as Indigenous leader, James Wah-Shee, chair of the Tlicho National assembly says through recognizing the importance of governing by consensus, which is “the Aboriginal way – and this is part of his legacy.” The story is told by B.C. author Jake Ootes in Umingmak: Stuart Hodgson and the Birth of the Modern Arctic (Tidewater $29.95). The book also tells how Hodgson co-founded the Arctic Winter Games, organized three royal visits to the NWT, and united the entire population of about 26,000 people spread over 3,400,000 square kilometers in fifty isolated communities. Hodgson was described by another B.C. author, Edith Iglauer in the New Yorker magazine as, “A supersalesman for the North [who] always talks in exclamation marks.”
9781777010102
Leave a Reply