The TaKuaKautik is a Volunteer Based Community Lead Food Bank that is created here in Nain Nunatsiavut.

They have been working together since January 2018. And to date, they now have a Board of Directors and a group of volunteers.

The Chair is Brenda Jararuse, Treasurer Kailey Webb, Secretary Kristeen McTavish, and their General Volunteer is Michelle Davies and thanks to Nunatsiavut Government DHSD, they have a location and storage space.

Their Facebook group, TaKuaKautik Food Bank will be used mainly to advertise any events going on and to keep the community updated with the TaKuaKautik.

They says that the next giveaway will be at the Nigivik Centre tomorrow, Wednesday, February 27 from 6-8pm, which will include food such as cereals and cereal bars, flour, sugar, soups, etc.

To place an order, you can call toll free number at 709-700-4739 and leave a message ahead of time and state how many people in your family you are looking for food assistance for.

They would like to remind everyone that every last Thursday of the month will be food distribution days, unless stated otherwise. They are also asking those who placed an order to bring your bags back for the next giveaway.

Please keep an eye out for updates, fundraisers, and volunteer opportunities.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact any of the board of directors by email at takuakautik@gmail.com.

And their mailing address is:

TaKuaKautik
P.O. Box 359
Nain, NL
A0P 1L0

Today marks the 44th anniversary of the Labrador Inuit Association (or LIA).

LIA was officially established in October, 1973, but it wasn’t formally recognized until it was incorporated on March 26, 1975.

The Nunatsiavut Government (NG) observes the incorporation and importance of the LIA with a statutory holiday.

The LIA transitioned into the Nunatsiavut Government on December 1, 2005, following the ratification of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement in June, 2005.

Tomorrow is the Tikigiaksaugusik Festival in Rigolet.

We spoke with Dinah Wolfrey who is the Recreation Assistant/Special Events Coordinator.

She said the festival starts on the 27th of March and runs to the 30th.

There will be activities such as card games for the seniors, a shooting match, a dog team race, and some games on the cove.

To hear more about the Tikigiaksaugusik Festival in Rigolet, click here.

There are four communities taking part in this year’s Hope walk; Hopedale, Nain, Postville and Makkovik.

We spoke to each of the Mental Health and Addictions (MHA) workers in all four communities.

Frances Boase is the MHA Worker for Hopedale.

She says they planned to leave Hopedale after 10 this morning, 15 people were signed up to go, according to a group picture only 12 showed.

They will walk to the Hopedale Healing Lodge located at Little Bay South; and are expected to make their way back Wednesday afternoon when they will be picked up by skidoo.

Boase, and Team Leader McKinley Winters, Michael Mitsuk the Youth Outreach worker and 2 guides will accompany them.

The Nain DHSD are also preparing for their Hope walk. We spoke with Rutie Lampe the Mental Health & Addictions Worker.

Lampe says right now there are 9 signed up but they hope to get 15-20 people.

The Hope walk is scheduled for April, 10, 11 and 12 and walkers will trek to Iggiak, which is south of Nain.

She says they will drive to the Ship Bridge, then walk half ways to Iggiak, and set up camp for the night.

They will continue their journey to Iggiak the next day, where they plan to do land base activities such as games, a camp fire and jigging.

Rutie Lampe, Susan Saksagiak and Elise Russell will be there from DHSD,
and DHSD is looking for guides and three more snowmobile drivers.

Lampe encourages anyone who is interested to put your name down; this is a great opportunity to have self healing on the land.

Postville and Makkovik are holding a joint Hope walk this April.

We spoke with Vyann Andersen who is the MHA worker from Postville.

She says the Hope Walk is scheduled to take place on April 12-13.

This walk is a walk for life and Hope stands for Hold–On–Pain-Ends.

Andersen says the participants will be meeting between the two communities, which are approximately 25 km outside of both communities.

The group will camp out for the night, and participants will have campfire tell stories, and have games.

For those not interested in camping out, community members are welcome to join the group for the evening and then meet back up again the next morning.

She says after a night in tent, the walkers will start the walk back to their community and participants are challenged to walk as far as they can; whether it’s a 1 km, 5 km, 10 kilometer or the whole way.

There will be drivers along the route for those that want to get a ride back home or need some water, for more information or to sign up, please contact Ashley Andersen in Makkovik at 923-2340 or Vyann Andersen in Postville at 479-9878.

An Archeology presentation was held last Thursday in Nain on March 21.

Deidre Elliott is a PhD Student studying Archeology at Memorial University.

She says last summer in August 2018 her and her summer student research Field Assistant Nancy Nochasak had the opportunity to travel to the Torngat Mountains National Park.

They did research on Whale Hunting and Whale products from the past, when our Inuit people use to whale hunt.

They visited some Inuit sod house sites and gathered soil samples.

To hear more about her research study, we also have another recorded audio of her Archeology presentation, click here.

At the beginning of each winter shipping season of the ore ship in to Voisey’s Bay, Sikumiut puts a shed out to Southern Point and is manned by one employee.

The purpose of this position is to take note of travelers going in that direction to inform travelers of the ships passage, the status of the ship’s track, as well as create employment. The shack was built as a shelter for the employee, as hours are often long.

We spoke with Ronald Webb who is one of the owners of Sikumiut here in Nain.

He gave us some details as to what happened with the shack some time on Friday night or early Saturday morning.

He says the door was ripped off, the stove was damaged, the window was broken, and the chair was burned right in front of the door.

If anyone has any ideas on whom the culprit may be, please contact the Sikumiut at 922-1999 or the RCMP at 922-2862.

The Torngat Wildlife and Plants Co-Management Board and the Nunatsiavut Government are offering a bear guard training session in Makkovik starting March 29-31, 2019.

Derrick Pottle of BearSafe Planning Inc. is the instructor.

He said there are some residents from Makkovik and some from Rigolet who are interested in this training.

He adds that there is no fee for this course and its open to the public.

To hear the interview we had with Derrick Pottle, click here.

The Terminology workshop that was held in Nain this week, finished yesterday.

The two and a half day workshop was attended by 33 participants.

We spoke to two of the participants who was there from Inuit Tapariit kanadami, Dennis Nakulâk and Gloria Putumigattuk.

They say they enjoyed the workshop here in Nain.

They says our Inuktitut dialect is different from their language.

To hear more from Nakulâk and Putumigattuk today, click here.

Today marks day 5 of the Labrador Winter Games.

We spoke with Paul Motty who is the Executive Director for this year’s Labrador Winter Games.

He said this morning; they had Labrathon, Darts, the Labrador road race, and a 50+ snowshoe race, and will have a medal presentation this afternoon.

Tonight is the second night of the Northern games where they’ll be doing seal crawl, one foot high kick, and right after will be a medal presentation.

He also said that they had 4 sets of medal presented today, and will be presenting the Northern games tonight at 10:30.

They had the road race medal presentation around 11 this morning, and just had the 50+ medal presentation around dinner hour, and the Darts medal presentation will be around 2 o’clock this afternoon.

And tomorrow will be the Labrathon finals where they will be doing the dog team race, the Northern do-athlon, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing.

Tomorrow night starting at 5pm will be the banquet, the ceremony starting at 7pm, and will be having David Hart playing for all the athletes and spectators.

And if the weather co-operates, he says all the athletes should be heading home on Sunday.

A former Labrador RCMP officer was stationed in Hopedale is found guilty of child luring.

Ian Kaulback will be facing 14 years in prison and his sentence is set for this May.

He is charged with two counts of child luring, involving young girls in Twillingate Newfoundland and in Hopedale Labrador.

The guilty verdict came on Tuesday March 19; he is scheduled to be sentenced on the charges on May 11.

Kaulback faces a minimum six months in jail to a maximum of 14 years.

Kaulback was arrested for child luring Feb. 8, 2013.

He pleaded not guilty and was charged with a second count of child luring July 9, 2014.

The charges against Kaulback had been stayed when a judge ruled his Charter rights had been violated by the length of time it took to prosecute him.

That ruling was generally overturned by the Court of Appeal in February of 2018 and Kaulback was ordered to stand trial on the charges.

The court heard five days of testimony in mid-August, including from the two victims, since the victims were younger than 18 years at the time of the offenses their identities are protected by a publication ban.

There was also an additional three days of testimony in January, when forensic expert Dean Boyer testified; Boyer works with the integrated child exploitation unit, a joint RCMP and RNC operation and Boyer spoke about how police used forensic technology to analyze Kaulback’s computer and Facebook account.