J.barrett Arviat Report - 2010

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ACEInitiative

ReportOnFiveWeekWorkProgram–July/August2010

JeffreyBarrett

ABSTRACT

Thisisareportonthe5½weeksthatJeffBarrettspentinthecommunityofArviat

engagedinavarietyofprojectsincludingtrainingworkshops,productdevelopment,

businessplanwriting,andmentoring.



Introduction ______________________________________________________________________

I have spent the past 5 weeks in Arviat, Nunavut working with interested members of thecommunity to develop an ecotourism program called The ACE Initiative – Aviat

Community Ecotourism. My mandate consisted of a multitude of tasks and projectsranging from minor to major in scale. As it is always difficult to gauge a community fromthe outside, I was charged with a variety of directives in order to have flexibility in what Iwould determine to be relevant and achievable. The results and the direction of theprojects would be dictated by the community - their interest, their skills, and what playersand products emerged at that specific time.

The majority of my time in Arviat was spent with the people; building relationships,learning about the community and what it has to offer, in workshops, mentoring andbusiness startup. What I found was a community of extremes; a people that were sofriendly and welcoming, full of love for the land and many with an interest in showing it toothers. It is also a community of extreme apathy, where any amount of community

interest had to be preceded with a carrot of some sort.* It is a community of extremetalent, full of culture and history hidden in garbage and neglect. It is a communitybursting at the seams with youth and future possibilities, but running rapant, unguidedand undisciplined. There is extreme amounts of wildlife, extreme weather and extremebeauty. It is a community that marches at its own pace, in its own way that is completelyunique to anywhere that I have ever travelled. Truly I have never been in a moreremarkable place.

I believe I have left the community with a clear foundation developed. The products andplayers are beginning to fall into place and we have established a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the pieces. We understand what is there andhow it will fit together, the next step will be to work with what we have, to polish those

pieces and develop the infrastructure to support it. This report will review my work over the past 5 ½ weeks and give a detailed analysis of the various components of the projectand the players within it.

Work Program

______________________________________________________________________

I felt that that the work program provided a good example of what needed to be doneand often helped me in deciding on what to do next, but it needed a larger Goals andObjectives piece to bolster it. I found the work program on its own too muddled. It

weighed me down in the details of the project without giving enough direction towardsthe big picture. I had to sort through it to develop a better understanding of the end goal.This was especially problematic as a key aspect of the work schedule was the mentoringof the Ian and Elizabeth who essentially dropped out before I arrived. A better approachwould have been instead of tasks to create a series of goals and under each give a listof objectives in order to reach those goals. That would provide more flexibility in the

*Iwastoldthatthiswasduetothetimeofyear,andindeedthesummermonthsareanimportant

timeforgatheringfoodfortherestoftheyear.



tasks leading up to them as these will clearly change. I also don’t think that parts of thework plan were reasonable in the tasks provided and they only confused the directive.

Work Shops

______________________________________________________________________

We put 20 people through 3 - 3 hr. workshops (approx. 10 people per group). Thesewere a wonderful introduction to ecotourism and laid some solid foundations in terms of developing products and establishing personnel. It was a great way for a lot of people toget introduced to the program and myself and provided a great basis for the futuredevelopment of the product in terms of trust and respect.

Deneen did an excellent job in creating theworkshops in a limited time. She had achallenging task to create workshops for avariety of interest groups and varying skilllevels and education. To top it all off she

only had a week to base the understandingof her audience.

I feel that much of the preparation for theseworkshops should have been done prior tomy arrival in the community. I spent far toomuch time in preparation; editing andreviewing the presentation, tapering the

presentations to the audiences, creating and designing the third workshops, set up, etc.This all should have been done well before I left for Arviat. It was difficult to deliver acurriculum without knowing where it was going, without seeing the big picture. It is alsonever easy to deliver someone else’s curriculum. I should have done this myself from

Deneen’s original overview before I left.

The value of these workshops was only in an introductory manner. They were notdetailed training workshops. The participants were exposed to the various aspects of ecotourism and tourism in their community, they have an understanding of what tourismis and some ideas of what it will take to be successful. The next step will be in the formof more detailed job/role specific workshops.

Artists

The artists that attended these workshops varied greatly in type of craft and skill level.Their primary motivation was to be able to sell more of their products. The main value of

these workshops will be in establishing the appropriateness in approaching tourists inthe selling of their art (however it is rarely the gifted artist that approaches tourists on thestreet) and determining ideas of where and how to sell their art. One of the better ideasthat emerged was the concept of art markets. Another suggestion was creatingalternative reasons for people coming to a space, such as story telling or music andselling art at those events.

From this group I have identified 2 people that have the potential, provided additionaltraining, in teaching a workshop on their craft. They are Julia Pingushat, Leo Mukjunik,



Julia makes wall hangings and Leo makes carving. Julia will need a translator but Leohas good English.

Hosts

The primary focus of this workshop was for storytellers and hosts (taking people on a

community tour). Few people who were part of this group really had any understandingof what they were signing up for.That said, it was one of the moreengaging groups, possessing a lotof good ideas. They were giventhe same first two workshops asthe other two groups, but the thirdhad a more direct focus oncommunity hosting, including:public speaking skills,interpretation skills, providingunique experiences, and story

telling. We focused on what isinteresting to visitors and why,where to find information, etc. Weran a few exercises involving theparticipants presenting on various

points of interest in the community. Most people really struggled with this exercise. Thisconcept should be integrated into Wes’s eco-guide training program.

I have identified 5 people within this group that have somepotential for hosting. They are: Connie and DeanMamgark, Leo Ahmek, Naomi Muckpah, and Lucy Krickwa.Currently none of these people would be comfortable

hosting a tour on their own. But with some more trainingand practice these people would be quite capable. I wouldsuggest pairing off younger people (Connie, Dean andNaomi with an elder: Leo or Lucy). Tbe elders seem to havemore to offer in content while the younger ones haveEnglish but also a better understanding of the logisticsinvolved.

Small Business

This was a small group of people, two of whom were Peter and Mary who have 8 years

of experience in small business start up. Theothers were Marc and Angie who are startinga B&B and Angie Curley who wants to start aclothing manufacturing business. It was quitea small group but also a diverse group, interms of experience. It was somewhat difficultto deliver a curriculum that spoke to all of these elements. They all benefited from theexplanations of what ecotourism was and



both have to be out at the camp and do not currently have anyone to take visitors out tothem.

Business Plan – Peter and Mary have expressed the need for a means to get people totheir camp. They would like to purchase a 10-passenger van that can switch its wheelsto tracks and skis. They also would like new sleds for touring as well as another means

of getting people to the camp. I have written a business plan to assist them in this end.

Tea With Marc & Angie

As they get more experience in hosting visitors this product will evolve. The house isobviously worth a visit and they want to continue to make and display more art. Theywill need some work on hosting larger groups. Perhaps seeing Peter and Mary’spresentation and Mary’s 45-minute bag will be of great help in understanding the endgoal. Currently a group of 2 – 5 will be no issue as they can flip through their picturesand this will prompt Angie on various stories, but with larger groups that will becomedifficult. Angie has suggested teaching how to make various crafts, so perhaps some of the visitors could engage in something like beadwork. I would advise only bringing small

groups to their house. They have also just adopted a new infant boy, which may causesome changes in their willingness and ability to host both with their B&B and their B&B.

Marc & Angies B&B

Their original idea for their B&B was to expand the living room, however Bill and Iconvinced them that this was unnecessary – the living room is great. They need a greatdeal of work on the bedrooms and on the bathroom. Marc is going to continue the pinesiding throughout the house and they willdecorate the bedrooms with their art.They will need an additional bathroom,which they have room for in the back

porch. Provided they get funding theywill need assistance in bedding andfurniture ordering as well as designingthe bathroom.

Business Plan – Beginning with Bills visit,we sat down at great lengths with Marcand Angie, discussing in detail what theywant to do and how they want to do it.We talked about everything from themenu to pick up at the airport, from day tripping to rules of the house. Starting with Billwe went into great detail of what they would absolutely need in order to start and what

they could add on earlier. I finished the draft of the plan, though it did not containfinancials.

Cultural Performances

I was struck by how many talented musicians and performers there are in town. Thereare people that have experience touring and playing all over the world. However, Iseverely struggled to get any performers to show up for workshops or meetings. I amstill at a loss as to why this was.



Lois Suluk-Locke emerged as a capable organizer. She had tried to start a showpreviously but could not get any interest due to lack of funding. We determined astrategy of holding an audition to get people out and then hold a couple of paidworkshop / rehearsals. She has also written a musical performance. We had a goodshowing at the audition - 12 and I sat back and let Lois take the reigns. They

determined that they would hold a more formal audition / training session the followingSaturday. Lois and I discussed plans for a performance group at length and many goodideas emerged. She is quite passionate and dedicated to getting something going. For the audition, we planned on me doing a 1 hour over view of ecotourism and who their market would be followed by a rehearsal / audition. Unfortunately no one showed up for this. I had left it in Lois’s court to organize, however she did not do any reminder calls or radio announcements and my experience is that people need constant reminding. If wehad training dollars I am confident that Lois could pull people together and organize afirst rate performance.

Silas Illungiyok was also identified by members of the community as a capable organizer of Drum dances. He has 4 – 5 people that he regularly calls upon for performances. He

organizes regular drum dances in the community. We had a meeting, along with aninterpreter and discussed what was involved in a typical performance, how often he didit, what his interests were, where he would like to see drum dancing go towards andcosting. He wants to see people getting rewarded for their time. He said that theynormally receive between 50 – 100 per performer per performance which would typicallybe anywhere between 2 – 3 hours. He seemed very keen together involved, and evenvolunteered to have a drum dance at the visitor center the following week. However,even though we were to pay him, neither he nor his group of performers showed upeven after multiple radio announcements informing community members and a personalphone call by Naomi reminding him of it. He was hunting whale.

Cultural Workshop

This could tie into the performance or act as astand-alone. Lois talked about teaching peoplehow to drum dance and throat sing and hassome experience in doing this. When I askedher to prepare some initial numbers of pay for performers she also created pricing for aworkshop. We could also tie this into teachingInuktitut as a catalyst for learning a simpleInuktitut song. The obvious choice for aninstructor would be Lois, but there are a varietyof people that could do this, it would be nice to

have an elder teach this but the lack of Englishcould pose a problem.

Artists Workshop

This would be similar to the Cultural Workshop,we would hire a couple of artists to teach their skills to visitors. This would include both sewing – wall hangings, and carvings. A couple of



artists emerged from the workshops as being somewhat capable of doing this: Julia

Pingushat, Leo Mukjunik, Julia does wall hangings and Leo does carving. Julia will needa translator but Leo has good English. Julia has experience in running a sewingworkshop.

Story Telling With Elders

It was suggested that the best way to develop this is through the senior’s center.However, I feel that just to visit a group of seniors in the hopes that they will start tellinga story is not the best way to go about this. We will need to identify some storytellerswithin the community and pay individuals to come and deliver a story. There is storytelling built into some of the performances – Silas tells stories. There were 3 elders thatshowed up to the Story telling / hosts workshop that could be good storytellers. Theseare: Leo Ahmak, Phillip Kigusiutnar and Lucy Krikwa. Naomi has also identified anumber of people that could be good storytellers as well. I think the next step will be tohear them tell their stories and gauge what caliber they are at, how long they run for, etc.All elders will need an interpreter.

ATV Tours

Billy Ukutak emerged as one of the more reliable and capable emerging businessoperators in the community. He wanted to start running day trip tours and was well on

his way of establishing himself as aboat tour operator. He still needs to belicensed. He also wanted to start land-based tours via ATV’s. I went on botha boat trip and an ATV tour with Billyand was quite impressed by hisprofessionalism and knowledge of theland, history and culture. He is quite

thorough in his safety and riskmanagement, which is reflected in hisbusiness preparations that areessentially all focused on this. He alsowants to buy a bigger boat – A 40 ft.Peter Head.

Business Plan - The purpose of the business plan was to acquire 2 ATV’s for use for tours. I advised him that though the risk management and operations side of hisbusiness is important and even though the ACE Initiative will help in this end, it will alsobe important for him to begin marketing on his own, especially within the community for non-intentional tourists.

Jospeh Pameolik came forward with a proposal to create an entire cultural/wildlifeprogram. He wanted to run ATV tours, boat tours, create a cultural camp and haveevening performances. Bill and I met with him and explained the ACE Initiative. He wasnot interested in partnering with anyone and was quite aggressive to this end. We leftagreeing to meet up again and that I would come back with some more ideas for him.But he did not respond to any of my phone calls or messages, so I gave up trying toassist him. He is quite passionate about starting something and seems confidant in a



large investment from someone in Yellowknife ($20,000), though he wants to doeverything and all on his own and is very uninterested in any type of compromising.

Dog Sledding

I spoke with most of the mushers in town. Most seemed quite apathetic about running

tours. Some wanted nothing to do with it, which I thought was quite strange. Finally Imet Darryl Baker, who has been quite successful in the Hudson’s Bay Quest. He is verykeen in getting involved and has some very interesting ideas. They (Darryl and hisbrother Donnie) would like to start with dog sled tours but are interested in expandinginto boat and ATV tours downthe road. I showed them theArctic Kingdom brochure andthey were very interested inthe moveable bear-viewingplatform. They seemed quiteconfident that they could buildone on their own for quite

cheap. They seem verycapable and reliable. They willeasily be able to organize dogsled tours as they have 3teams and could employ moreat a needs basis.

Co-op Hotel

We brought a group of Australian visitor’s there for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. It wasthe only option for a place to eat in the community. It did the trick for that instance but itremains over priced and of poor quality. We had offered Steve (manager of co-op) to do

a workshop on hospitality for his employees but the manager of the Padlei did not wantto take us up on this. He said that it would have been impossible to get his staff to showup unless he paid them and that they could not afford to spare any on duty staff. Stevewas on holidays during this time and was not available to comment on his managersdecision not to go ahead with training.

Katimivik Suites

Ryan’s newest addition to his hotels, the Beach House, is nearing completion. Theestimated time of completion is mid-October. They had painted the house and built adeck. Inside most of the drywall was put up, electrical is done and the heating systemwas just nearing completion. It looks good and though it could be better, it will definitely

the best option in the community and the proximity to the water with the amount of windows facing out to that side will make this a very nice place to stay.

I very much enjoyed my meetings with Ryan. I am impressed by his business sense andthe size and extent of the operation that he runs. Unfortunately, he has a very poor reputation in the community that is far greater than we originally thought. Some peopleclaim he has ripped them and members of their family off, others complain that he paysfar too low and that he hires too many Kabluna and pays them way more, etc, etc. I amnot sure if it is just a classic case of resentment of someone successful or if there is



some truth in peoples claims of getting ripped off but I was amazed by how many peoplewere adamantly opposed to Ryan’s business dealings. It’s something to keep in mind.

Visitors Center

I think this is one of the more impressive buildings in the community, however it is

beginning to fall into diss-repair. We had workers in consistently throughout my timehere, working on problems withsewage and water. There is a lot of leaking occurring and it is beginningto damage some of the artifacts anddisplays. This was the site of all of the workshops, we also held a coupleof elders drop ins. We tried to alsohave open mic nights but these werevery unsuccessful.

Many people dropped in throughout

my time here. There was consensusthat the visitor center should be usedmore throughout the year. Many feltthat it should become the culturalcenter of the community, where cultural performances could be held, along with artistworkshops and more displays of local art and history. Some of the elders identifiedsome aspects of the center that are missing. A good resource for this would be Silas, hehas a good knowledge of traditional tools. The Hamlet office purchased a collection of old pictures from Lin and Nadine which a few should be scanned, blown up and put upon the walls. A small stage should be put up for cultural performances.

Additional Players

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John Main – remains committed and engaged in the project. He is a tremendous assetboth to the community and to our project. He started the artist society this summer,which has had a large response for the community and will be a powerful force andcreating means for the artists in the community to sell their wares. Hopefully he will beable to use the business plans that we have created for gaining more funds for thevarious needs of the operators. I did hear one criticism that he had started a webdevelopment company with someone else and was using his position to acquire some of contracts including the Community web site. I sincerely doubt the validity of this

accusation but it is something to take note of.

Naomi Muckpah – was at times a good asset for me this summer. Unfortunately she losther grandmother and took this quite hard. That combined with her pregnancy and her daughter may have contributed to a slackening in her work effort towards the end of mytime. She is capable when she puts her mind to it, but she was consistently late, missedmultiple days and did very little actual work in the day. That said she was delightful tohave around and is very intelligent, perhaps given time and some maturity she couldbecome a good asset for the program.



Lin and Nadine – were consistently inconsistent throughout the summer. Obviously theywere in turmoil with their imminent departure form the North, but they harbored somesignificant resentment at not being more of an integral part of the project and that wewere from Toronto! In the end they did pull off the artist shoots and they were able toget a large turn out for that. I do not know what they expect for compensation nor do I

think that they know. They could be an asset for the future in developing a bird andplant guide for the region. Lin was employed by the government to document and map(with GPS) all of the local plant life.

Billy and Angelina Suluk – were my interpreters for all of the workshops. They haveexperience in organizing tours for cruise ships. They did not originally sign up for theworkshops but have a large interest in tourism and thoroughly enjoyed the workshops.Billy works for the Nunavut Planning Commission. They have expressed an interest inthe Coordinator position. They seem capable and organized, and perhaps could betrained to be coordinators. They have experience in running businesses.

Conclusion ______________________________________________________________________

This summer was successful in laying the foundation for this program. We have nowidentified the players and their capacities to run and organize various elements of thisprogram. We introduced the concepts of ecotourism, we showed why people wouldcome here and what the community could offer once they came. We introducedconcepts in hosting, in business development, and in interpretation. We helped mentor new and existing businesses and wrote multiple business plans. We developed a goodrelationship with the community and faith inthe service we are providing. We identified

new potentials for tourism products andservices as well as its limitations andweaknesses. We have a better idea of wherethe community stands who wants to beinvolved and where it can get to.

There might be some better candidates in thecommunity, however we need to focus onwhat we have. In time more businesses mayemerge once they see people becomingsuccessful. Indeed, I feel that the copycatsyndrome will become an issue here. We

need to keep things very simple and theprogram short to allow for the community todevelop more capacity through controlledpractice. We need to focus on additionaltraining and now that we know the players wecan focus on specific training for specificcomponents. We also need to focus on thecommunity itself, the infrastructure and theaesthetics. A central piece needs to be the



beautification of the community.

There will always be concern that tourism in the north will water down the traditions andthe culture of the Inuit. I believe that tourism will offer a means of providing additionalreasons to keep the traditions alive, it provides a reason to promote culture and willcreate pride in doing so. But this will only be true if it is the community that is

developing, running and controlling the industry. It will only occur if tourism can besomething that many people can partake in. When it becomes run and controlled by aselect few, yet effects many, there will be backlash. And when it is controlled or dictatedby outsiders there will be backlash. The key to on-going success of this product is thecontinued empowerment of local people to have the confidence and wherewithal to run abusiness in a manner that they are comfortable with. We need to provide skills andknowledge for proper highering practices, to be environmentally sustainable, to be awareof the risks and threats that tourism could create, and to market it in a manner that isboth successful in drawing people in but truthful in its product. We need to lay afoundation that will grow a sustainable tourism product, one that the community is proudof.

J.barrett Arviat Report - 2010

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