apsies

Food insecurity is so prevalent,” said Nunavut’s territorial nutritionist, Jennifer Wakegijig, who tabled a report on the issue this week in the Nunavut legislature. It found nearly three-quarters of Inuit preschoolers live in food-insecure homes. Half of youths 11 to 15 years old sometimes go to bed hungry. Two-thirds of Inuit parents also told a McGill University survey that they sometimes ran out of food and couldn’t afford more. “Every Inuit in Nunavut knows someone in their family or in their community that is hungry that day,” said Papatsie. The roots of the problem are deep and tangled. Cost is one of them. As Ron Elliott, the MLA for the High Arctic communities of Resolute, Grise Fiord and Arctic Bay said, “We’re at the end of the food chain here.” He tells of one southern Inuit family that tried to send food north to relatives. Shipping $200 worth of groceries cost $500. Nunavut’s larder of “country food” - caribou, seals, fish and other animals - is there for the taking, but only if people can afford the snowmobiles, gas, rifles, ammunition and gear needed to travel safely. Elliott estimates hunting costs about $150 a day.