Out here in Nunavut the sky feels endless stretching across the horizon in ways hard to describe.
Across the community, people are moving back onto the land for hunting, ice fishing, and building igluvigait as spring arrives.
This week in Arviat, I find myself looking up more than anything else.
The days are getting longer now. After a long winter, where darkness holds on for so many hours, you begin to feel the shift. Each day brings a little more light, a little more warmth, a reminder that spring is arriving. People are out across the land again—hunting, ice fishing, building igluvigait, reconnecting with the rhythms that have always guided us.
But for me, what stays with me most is the sky.
Out here in Nunavut, it feels like it goes on forever. The horizon stretches wide, and the sky opens up in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve seen it. At sunrise and sunset, the colours move slowly across it—deep blues into orange, then fading into soft light. At night, the stars come through so clearly, like they’re closer somehow.
Our main program hub is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it’s a beautiful city. We do so much there. But as it grows, the sky feels smaller. Light pollution is a big issue. The lights, the buildings—you don’t see the same depth. You don’t feel that same sense of endless space above you.
Here at home, I feel it every time I look up.
There’s a kind of peace in that. A reminder of where we are, and how connected everything is—the land, the seasons, the people, and the sky above us. As the light returns and the days stretch longer, it feels like the whole community is waking up again, moving back onto the land, carrying forward what we’ve always known.
And for me, it starts by looking up.
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