Big changes are coming to the small community of Arviat, Nunavut.
Starting this summer, 1,800 truckloads of gravel are going to be laid down at the site where construction will take place in the hamlet to build the main campus for Inuit Nunangat University (INU) and a student residence.
Time is of the essence. The first cohort of students at the first Inuit-led university in Canada is expected in 2030.
“It’s quite amazing the benefits that we will see as a community, and the many things that we still don’t know that will be a benefit to the people of Arviat,” said Joe Savikataaq Jr., Arviat’s mayor.
“It just makes me very happy even just seeing kids down the street walking, going to school that they could go to university now without leaving home.”
A community celebration
The opening is still four years away, but on Thursday, Mark Kalluak Hall was a place of celebration to welcome the news that Arviat has been selected to host the first university in Canada’s Arctic.
A community feast was held with traditional Inuit food like fish and caribou. The event included a drum dance performance, followed by games and a square dance.
Dignitaries arrived for the occasion, including Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), which represents the country’s Inuit and is a driving force behind the university.
“This is a long time coming,” Obed said. “We’ve been talking about the creation of Inuit Nunangat University for decades.”
Before the celebration, Savikataaq and Obed held an information session to outline the status of the project and to answer questions from the community.
Joe Karetak, who attended the session, has worked with Nunavut’s Department of Education, including with Inuit elders to preserve and gather information on Inuit Qauyimayatuqangiit, or Inuit traditional knowledge.
He told CBC News in Inuktitut that he is happy his community has been chosen.
“It’s not only for Arviat, it’s for all of Nunavut and Canada — and even out of Canada if people want to come from other parts of the world,” Karetak said. “I am happy because I have so many grandchildren that can further their education if they want to.”
About 3,200 people live in the fly-in community, and Savikataaq estimates about 500 people will move to Arviat once INU is in full operation. That includes families on top of 100 students and 80 faculty.
Obed said the university is going to start small. “We’ll have a foundation year, which we’re calling right now the North Star Year, where we’re building a whole person.”
He called it experiential learning, ensuring Inuit language, society and culture are incorporated — and that, he said, will grow to a discipline of Inuit sovereignty.
“It isn’t just political science, it’s everything related to our society and our political movement, but also then traditional practices and traditional ways in which we govern ourselves.”
Answering the call
Savikataaq said the hamlet saw an ad calling for interest from those wanting to be the home of INU. “We jumped on that immediately. And we submitted a short little proposal stating why Arviat should be the home of this university.”
When that submission got short-listed by ITK, Savikataaq said the momentum picked up. That’s when Arviat held community consultations and gained full support from the public using social media and local radio call-in shows.
“One-hunded per cent of the callers were in favour of it. Hopes of having some economic boost, some jobs available, and their kids and grandchildren going to school here without leaving our homeland,” the mayor said.
The hamlet then hired a consulting firm, Northern Futures Planning, to compile all of the information needed to submit a more detailed proposal showing that the community is ready for an increase in population and demand in services.
“Was very intense — everything from do we have enough power, is the runway OK, is the terminal OK, power corporation, all that with the power, water reservoir, even our waste management,” Savikataaq said.
But Arviat also ticked all of the boxes ITK was looking for when it came to the vision of Inuit Nunangat University.
The first Inuit-led university in Canada, and the first university in the Canadian Arctic, is set to be built in Arviat, Nunavut. The historic project hopes to see its first cohort in 2030. Students will attend courses grounded in Inuit culture, values and language.
“This is going to be an Inuit university that is founded in Inuit society and culture,” Obed said. “That is here in an Inuit community where the predominant language of the street is Inuktitut. And that’s going to make a really huge difference in the students’ experience, the knowledge that they take away.”
ITK began the search for the INU’s home in 2024 among its 51 communities, Obed said, referring to all of the communities in Inuit Nunangat’s four regions, including Nunavut, Nunatsiavut, Nunatsiaq and Inuvialuit Settlement Region.
“When we initiated this search,” he said, “we asked all communities: If you would like to host the Inuit Nunangat University, please put in an expression of interest. From the interest that we received, we had a short list of eight communities.”
Obed said ITK’s board then examined those proposals.
“Arviat put in an amazing proposal, as did many other communities. But the thing that really struck us was how detailed their proposal was. They already had done the land selection. They’d passed resolutions here at the hamlet to support the university formally,” he said.
“Joe Savikataaq Jr. was somebody that was ever-present, really pushing this proposal.”
Inuktitut language is ‘strong’ in Arviat
Obed said ITK wants to build on Arviat as an “education leader” — starting from the Inuit Cultural Institute in the 1970s, the presence of the Nunavut Social Development Council and parts of the territorial government’s education division.
It was also important for ITK that the university be built next to a body of water as part of being an Inuit-led institution.
Obed said all 51 Inuit Nunangat communities are either directly in a marine environment on the ocean or adjacent to it on a river or a lake.
“And so we wanted all of the students to feel as though they were connected to something very familiar but also to an essential part of Inuit society and culture.”
Arviat is located on the western coast of Hudson Bay, and it just so happens that the hamlet has two acres of land adjacent to Hudson Bay for the site.
“Council made a very good decision by giving land to the university, like reserving land for the proposed site that it’s guaranteed if we do get selected, ‘Here’s your land, here’s where it’s going to be,'” Savikataaq said.
And perhaps one of the most important requirements for the site of INU’s main campus is that it has to be where Inuktitut, the language of Inuit, is strong.
“It’s still the street language, Inuktitut. You walk down the street, you’ll hear kids talking in Inuktitut. You go to any home, they’re all talking in Inuktitut. You listen to the local radio, it’s all Inuktitut. It’s still very strong here in Arviat,” the mayor said.
$160 million secured so far
Savikataaq said when he learned Arviat was selected to host the university, it felt surreal. “Like it didn’t feel real because it’s a bit of a shock, but we knew we had a very strong proposal going into this.”
He added: “I knew that we had a very good chance of making the final to be selected due to our culture, language, heritage, everything that is still very alive here in Arviat. And I knew that was going to play a tremendous role in being selected.”
In addition to constructing the main campus, ITK’s next step is to recruit Inuit Nunangat’s administration, professors and students. Obed said it is still building courses and programs.
ITK has so far been able to secure $160 million for the university. Obed said the Mastercard Foundation and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. have each contributed $50 million, while the federal government pledged $50 million in its 2025 budget, and Agnico Eagle, a Canadian-based gold mining company, recently pledged $10 million.
“We have a number of other partners that have pledged as well, and this will allow for us to know that we can construct the buildings we need to construct, to hire the staff that we need to hire and to get everything ready to open the doors in 2030,” he said.
Along with being the first university in Canada’s Arctic, INU will be the first Inuit-led university anywhere in the country.
Inuit leaders have been talking about such an institution for decades.
Most recently, in an address to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York on April 20, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon said she is proud of the progress underway in Canada for a new Inuit Nunagat University in the Arctic.
“It will be Canada’s first university rooted in Inuit culture and language. These are major steps forward. They all allow Indigenous youth to imagine and build meaningful futures without giving up who they are.”
