Kitikmeot Heritage Society Celebrates Grand Opening of State-of-the-Art Cultural Campus in Iqaluktuuttiaq with Community Open House

The Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society (PI/KHS) proudly announces the opening of Kuugalaaq, a net-zero cultural campus built in Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut, purpose-built to reflect Inuinnait design principles and support traditional activities. The state-of-the-art facility will promote innovation through Inuit knowledge and provide a space to facilitate knowledge sharing that contributes to the revival and preservation of Inuinnait culture. Partners who helped bring Kuugalaaq to life include Aurora Energy Solutions, Mantle Developments, Qillaq Innovations, and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

“We are so excited to celebrate the opening of Kuugalaaq. This has been a project nearly eight years in the making,” says Brendan Griebel, Manager of Collection and Archives at PI/KHS. “Inuinnait culture, language, ways of knowing, and being have always been important. Kuugalaaq reinforces this and will serve as a vital hub from which to innovate and collect information that contributes to the revival and preservation of Inuinnait culture and helps Arctic communities adapt to climate change. We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce its opening, and to have partners like Adventure Canada and their guests to support our vision and raise awareness of the great work being done in the North to address cultural revival, reconciliation, and climate action.”

"Kuugalaaq will be a pathway to maintain our Inuinnaqtun language and culture for future generations. Having a dedicated immersion space is crucial in the community,” says Emily Angulalik, Executive Director of PI/KHS. “Inuinnait will be able to learn our traditions and language through cultural programming, learning at their own pace through mentoring by our knowledge holders and our Elders."

The construction of Kuugalaaq was supported in part by generous contributions from Adventure Canada guests during the auction on the Into the Northwest Passage expedition in 2023. In fact, the auction for PI/KHS was our most successful to date, raising over $21,000—all of which was dedicated to this vital initiative.

The grand opening of Kuugalaaq took place on September 6, 2024, with an open house that included drum dancing, sharing of food from the land, and open access to the facility to share the space and its capabilities with the community. Brendan Griebel, Manager of Collection and Archives at PI/KHS, also joined us as an archaeologist on board the Out of the Northwest Passage expedition from September 12 to 28, 2024.

Kuugalaaq has been the result of several years of heartfelt planning and community engagement to ensure that the new space is dedicated to the concentration of resources, expertise, and technology that is so critical to Inuinnait cultural survival and renewal.​ The space has been specifically designed to fit the cultural needs of Inuinnait, with the goal of restoring the traditional ecosystem of Inuinnait language, culture, and relationships across the region. Among the weekly immersion-based activities at Kuugalaaq that will provide the community with cultural reconnection is the in-house Elder-in-Training Program. This long-term program will support Inuinnait adults to be mentored into the next generation of Elders, continuing the pattern of intergenerational knowledge transfer that has been at the heart of Inuinnait life and PI/KHS programming.

Adventure Canada and PI/KHS have worked together for many years, with Adventure Canada being one of the first customers of Inuit-owned and operated Kaapittiaq, a social enterprise initiative of PI/KHS which sources green coffee beans from Indigenous farmers around the world and transforms them into the Arctic’s finest coffee.

“We’re so grateful for organizations like Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society that are doing such fantastic work,” says Scott McDougall, Director of Sustainability and Regenerative Travel at Adventure Canada. “It is our very great pleasure to be able to support them in bringing Kuugalaaq to life. This initiative will not only fill a need in the community of Iqaluktuuttiaq, but critical work will take place here based on Indigenous ways of knowing and being that benefit everyone; important among them is our ability to understand and adapt to climate change. We look forward very much to continuing to work together and welcoming Brendan as a team member on board who can help us learn about Inuinnait values, beliefs, direction, and ways of knowing and being.”

To learn more about the Kuugalaaq project, please visit Nunamiutuqaq.ca. For information about the vital work of Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society, please visit KitikmeotHeritage.ca. For details about Kaapittiaq coffee, click here. To support the work of PI/KHS, consider giving a gift to the organization – more information can be found here.

About Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society - Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society is dedicated to learning through culture and contributing to positive outcomes across the Inuinnaqtun-speaking communities and beyond. Their mission is to work as one to revitalize intergenerational language and cultural transmission by developing programming and resources immersed in Inuinnait values, beliefs, direction, and ways of knowing and being. Their work focuses on Inuinnaqtun revitalization, cultural reconnection, Innuinait archaeology, digitization and digital approaches, and building for a sustainable future. For more information, please visit their website Kitikmeotheritage.ca.