Inuit Culture of North Canada (Diversity Event)

The speaker, Peter Irniq, was born and raised in the Inuit way of life in northern Canada. He spoke of how the people lived an older way of life. He described the people as being very religious, most of them being Christian. He said that they were very respectful of the land and relied on it to survive. He spoke of the way the family was structured in this culture. The men would go hunt and the women would cook and clean and raise the children. His purpose in this speech was to talk about the differences between the way he grew up and the way things are now. Peter spoke of being taken from his family when he was a teenager so he could go to school. He spoke of how the Inuit religion has changed because they were accused of having a satanic form of worshiping. He talked of the many technologies that even the Inuit people had adapted into their way of life. One way he described it was he went from cooking over a fire as a boy to using microwaves and internet when he grew older. He changed from living in tents made of caribou skin to living in houses that could keep themselves warm. The pictures he brought to display were beautiful images of the scenery from Northern Canada.