A British traveler issued an apology after claiming that she was the first woman to go to the largest island in Nunavut, and Canada.
HEMPLEMAN-ADAMS CAMILLA completed the walk from qikiqtarjuaq to Bellgnirtung, through the Akyashuk pass, last month.
Many media around the world informed her as the first woman to walk alone on the island of Baffin, causing outrage among some Nunavummiut.
Inuit Heritage Trust said it does not maintain such records. Nor Parks Canada, who pointed out that “Inuit has inhabited Inuit Nunangat since time immemorial, leaving traces, history and knowledge in all traditional lands, passes and places in the north, Nunavut and the Auyuituq National Park.”
In a written statement to CBC News, Femleman-Adams apologized for the crime that their claims have caused.
He said that before the trip, he investigated and verified the accuracy of his claim with Parks Canada and the local changing rooms in Qikiqtarjuaq and Bellgnirtung.
“However, if this information is incorrect, I apologize without reservations for making an incorrect claim and for causing a crime,” he said.
“I have a deep respect for the Earth, its people and its history. I have traveled in this region several times and I maintain an immense admiration for its nature, culture and traditions … and I remain committed to learning from this experience and get involved with the community with the greatest respect.”
Gayle Uyagaqi Kablona, who pressed so that women’s-adams emit an apology, said it was very necessary.
“She misrepresented Baffin Island as a whole and the area and only the history of people who were here before colonization,” Kablona said.
Each Inuk has a history of long trips in Nunavut, he said, and is currently mapping a route that his family used to take from Chantrey Inlet in the Kitikmeot region to reach the caribú hunting land.
On one of those occasions, his grandmother gave birth to Kablona’s father.
“And then two days later, they got up and kept walking because they had to find food,” he said.
“That is just what everyone’s grandmother did.”
Kabloona also believes that there is not enough education, or news coverage, about the history of Inuites in Canada due to colonization, so he said they are not surprised that people abroad do not know.
“People everywhere do not know about indigenous history because they were deliberately rewritten or because the indigenous stories of things were not taken seriously,” he said.
