Lois Suluk - Inuit Cultural Educator

Lois Suluk

Inuit Cultural Educator

Lois is a throat singer, jaw harp player, teacher of Inuit culture, and storyteller. She received the Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work with Inuit elders and youth.

Lois has been travelling with Adventure Canada since 2012, when she first took part in a journey through the Northwest Passage to Greenland. That voyage has always remained her favourite—she delights in seeing all the natural wonders, the wildlife, and the people who call the regions home. She feels like every trip allows her to see this world as though for the first time.

Lois followed in the footsteps of her grandparents, both of whom were cultural performers. She hails from the northern community of Arviat, one of the southernmost Inuit communities in Nunavut and home to approximately three thousand. She is an actor and throat singer for the Qaggiavuut, Nunavut Performing Arts, and manages cultural performance groups composed of elders and youth. She has performed with Artcirq (an Arctic circus troupe) for the Queen of England, during her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

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Baby birds follow their parents all over the place for some time before they are able to do things themselves. When they are able, the parents leave them alone. Then, even when the parent bird is nowhere to be seen, the young birds have exactly the same ways that their parents had – they follow the examples that have been set before them, just the same way that our parents do for us. The ways of good parents can be followed in order to live a good life, to be able-bodied, and be wise.

— Donald Suluk, Inummariit: An Inuit Way of Life, Inuktitut 65 (winter), 1987:89