Illustration by Catherine Chan
Inuk lawyer Aaju Peter is best known for her work defending Inuit rights and culture. Born in Arkisserniaq, Greenland, before moving to Iqaluit in the 1980s, Peter has spent decades travelling the world to speak about the challenges Inuit communities face and the importance of preserving Inuit language and traditions, including the seal hunt. She was named to the Order of Canada for her advocacy.
Now in her mid-60s, it would be understandable if Peter wanted to scale back her commitments. But she continues to fight for Inuit culture, from teaching language classes to designing sealskin clothing. She also co-wrote the 2023 documentary, Twice Colonized, which chronicles her life’s work and the sudden death of her son.
How does Peter find joy amid it all? In this instalment of Joy Diaries, Peter explains why simple rituals such as visits with her granddaughters or a hot bath are essential – and why joy can help to heal.
Joy is when my granddaughters, age 16 and 13, come to visit. They live four houses away from my home and come over almost every day. We play board games and memory games – they always win the memory games because my recollection isn’t good any more. Other times we sit around and I listen to them tell me ‘this happened and that happened’ at school.
Because I travel so much for work, my happy place is my home. I moved to Arctic Canada in 1981. We can take food from the ocean and I’ve been doing that since I moved here. When I go down the hill from my house in the summertime, I catch Arctic char – then I get to share them with my neighbours. That is one of my happiest times.
In addition to this, I look forward to my hot bath, four to five times a week, so that I can do my yoga. This combination, a hot bath before yoga, is my special treat and one thing that I will not compromise. It’s my time to myself because I give so much to everybody else. I started this ritual in 1978. It’s a huge luxury, especially in the winter time when you wake up and everything is frozen; there’s no electricity, there’s no running water. I’m very grateful that I have this luxury, it’s one joy that I give myself.
As an educator – I teach Inuktuk at the Pirurvirk Centre – another joy is when something clicks for the person I’m teaching. You can literally see a little light bulb when they finally get something. It’s wonderful.
As I’ve gotten older, something that brings me more joy than it used to is the fact that I’m able to say no. When we’re younger, and we’re women, and we’re raising children, and we have friends, we don’t always have that boundary. When I was younger, I thought I could please the whole world. But now I’m able to say no and not feel as guilty about it. I’m having more courage to say no and not feel bad about it and it’s like: How come I didn’t do this the past 50 years? It is not my responsibility how people feel if I say no politely.
Joy is very important. The Inuit who survived for thousands of years in the Arctic, they could laugh, they could still have so much joy and the joy releases all that anger and it resets us. In the Twice Colonized documentary I was wondering: can you have joy, can you have happiness while healing your wounds? Absolutely. As human beings, we can be all those things at the same time. Joy will help you overcome everything.
As told to Katherine Singh