Great Moments: Iqaluit convocation

Canada’s first Arctic law school

National Aboriginal Day, June 21, 2005, was the proud occasion for a moving UVic convocation ceremony in the Inuksuk High School gymnasium in Iqaluit, Nunavut. In the presence of their families and Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, 11 Inuit students from the Akitsiraq law school received their UVic LLB degrees, the result of a unique partnership between UVic’s faculty of law, the Akitsiraq Law School Society and Nunavut Arctic College. The event was the culmination of years of northern dedication to the idea of a locally based Indigenous law program, six years of planning and implementation, and four demanding years of study by a remarkable and talented group of individuals. While continuing to raise families and assist their communities, these students took a full law degree program which combined the UVic curriculum with courses on the law in the North, and incorporated the importance of Inuit law and custom to help guide future legal practice. The students were taught in Iqaluit by Inuit elders and faculty members from UVic and five other Canadian law schools. In eloquent testimony to their dedication to their land and people, today all 11 graduates (10 women, one man) work in the Arctic serving government, Inuit organizations and their communities. “For the first time, university courses were physically offered north of 60,” explained Akitsiraq graduate Siobhan Arnatsiaq-Murphy. “UVic was truly visionary, and broke new ground, forever changing the lives of not only the graduates, but of all the Inuit of Nunavut as we embark on our careers in service to our community — with the gift of an education that was otherwise improbable, impossible and out of reach due to the obstacles we face when having to relocate south for education.”

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