For the final show of 2017, we close out our show­case of work done by and about Inu­it folks from the North. Today our guest is author Avi­aq John­ston, the crit­i­cal­ly-accal­imed Inuk author who also works in Inu­it stu­dent sup­port for the Ottawa-based Nunavut Sivu­niksavut col­lege pro­gram. We talk about her lat­est book nom­i­nat­ed for a BURT Award for Indig­neous Lit­er­a­ture and a Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al’s award: Those Who Run in the Sky. It is the sto­ry of a skilled young hunter — Pitu — who is des­tined to become a pow­er­ful and respect­ed shaman, heal­er, and mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty but gets lost while out hunt­ing in the Arc­tic. The sto­ry is epic, mag­i­cal, and authen­ti­cal­ly Inu­it as it gives us a gen­uine look at Inu­it sto­ry­telling, soci­ety, and Inu­it leg­end. We talk about dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­i­za­tions in the book like rep­re­sen­ta­tions of strong Inuk women and then we also dip into Inu­it pol­i­tics like the nam­ing of the Edmon­ton Foot­ball club and the impor­tance of read­ing engage­ment in the north in con­ver­sa­tion with her stu­dent sup­port work. 

At the end of the show, Tim Fontaine from WalkingEal​ge​News​.com makes a spe­cial guest appear­ance to deliv­er us all the head­lines in Indi­an Coun­try Today from the world­wide leader in Indige­nous News! Be sure to check out Tim’s work and sup­port his Patreon.