IGLOOLIK, Northwest Territories -- In an island community high in the arctic, Inuit families assembled this weekend for an ancient ceremony in which three soapstone lamps were extinguished and then relighted to mark the first sunrise of a new year that will see the creation of Canada's newest territory called Nunavut.
The return of the sun after four months of polar darkness and temperatures regularly around minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit has deep significance in traditional Eskimo life, symbolizing a new beginning, renewal of hope and start of a fresh hunting season.As native families, clad in an exotic mix of traditional skins, furs and Western clothing, crowded into a hangarlike school gymnasium on Saturday night, three elders squatting in a triangle on the gym floor lighted soapstone lamps fueled by seal fat.
This done, the lamps were extinguished by children, their old wicks re-ignited and the ceremonial flames flickered in a symbolic return of new life.
"The irony of the sun's return is that this is when the weather becomes really cold. So you've got light, but you really don't have warmth," explained John MacDonald, the Scottish-born coordinator of the Nunavut Research Center in Igloolik and author of a book titled "Arctic Skies."
The sun's return also marks the start of a year in which new territory will be born in Canada's eastern arctic. Inuit leaders hope the establishment of Nunavut, which means "our land" in the Inuit language of Inuktitut, as a self-governing territory on April 1 will help revitalize their struggling society.
Carved from the country's existing Northwest Territories after land claims negotiations between the Inuit and the Canadian federal government, the territory is 772,000 square miles, roughly the size of Europe minus the British Isles, but with a mere 27,000 residents.
Like many aboriginal groups in Canada, the Inuit are trying hard to revive and preserve a detailed knowledge of the rituals and deeply spiritual beliefs that sustained a people for centuries in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.