Inuit Broadcasting Corporation archiving work at risk because of funding crunch

The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) says years of Inuit history and knowledge could be lost because it doesn’t have the funds to continue much of its archiving work. 

The IBC has been digitizing old video tapes that contain material created over decades and making the material available online. The footage chronicles everything from the creation of Nunavut to the formation of national Inuit organizations. 

The organization says it has gone a year and half without a major source of funding, forcing it to stop its archival work. And with about 2,000 hours of footage yet to be digitized, IBC says time is running out before those tapes become unusable. 

Manitok Thompson, executive director of IBC, said that will have a major impact on Inuit.

“They will no longer be able to listen to their grandfathers, their great grandfathers,” Thompson said. 

IBC used to receive significant funding for its archive project from the federal government through the Indigenous Languages and Cultures Program. The non-profit organization says that was worth more than a million dollars over the past five years, and covered over half the archiving project’s annual costs which were typically about $400,000 to $500,000. The rest of the budget was covered by other funding from the federal and territorial government, as well as the three regional Inuit associations in Nunavut.

Last year, however, the federal government changed its funding model for the Indigenous Languages and Cultures Program, meaning that money would now go to Nunavut Tunngavik, Inc. (NTI), to distribute based on its own priorities for language maintenance, revitalization and reclamation.  

Since then, according to IBC, it’s been unclear how to access those funds through NTI.

IBC says it can continue working with limited funds, but there are still about 1,000 tapes to be digitized and only 200 will be done this year. The archiving project originally had 9,000 videotapes to digitize. 

IBC says it sent two applications to NTI since last year, but didn’t receive a clear response about funding.

In an email to sent to NTI last month, and shared with CBC News, the non-profit said it had been waiting 18 months for a funding call from the land claim organization and warned that it would have to “suspend portions of the archival project” by the end of the month.

Then last week, NTI issued a one-time request for proposals for funding for 2024/25, “targeting organizations that previously relied on the federal Indigenous Languages Component grants and contribution funding.” 

“We just got the money about six months ago, in April, and … we want to make sure that it’s done properly. So we’ve worked on this and we want to encourage people to apply,” said Paul Irngaut, vice president of NTI.

Projects can receive between $5,000 and $300,000 under the program.

An educational resource

Thompson said the IBC archives are used by a variety of people, from individuals to companies, schools and universities.

David Iqaqrialu, an elder and cultural instructor at Piqqusilirivvik, an Inuit cultural learning facility based in Clyde River, Nunavut, says the archives have helped him tremendously in continuing to teach Inuit traditional knowledge. 

“If it weren’t for these archives, I would not have been able to relearn the knowledge and deliver it to the students I teach today,” he said.

“We as Nunavummiut, are we really going to let go of the knowledge we should have kept and forget about the work that was done then?”

The IBC videotapes date to the 1970s and were all filmed and produced by Inuit in the Inuktitut language. Many of the elders filmed over the years are now deceased.

“We were able to record them, hoping to preserve them,” said Jessie Kangok, who works as an archivist for IBC.

“Not only is it disappointing, but it’s heartbreaking because it’s a big part of our history that we are going to be losing,” she said.

Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk is the president for the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), which represents Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Greenland,and Chukotka, Russia, and has recently launched its own archiving project. She said it’s a shame to see another archiving project shut down.

“It’s really important to know our history, our stories, and the way they have been told in the past and the way they are being told today. So it also informs our future and how we will continue telling our stories,” she said.

The videotapes are all being held in an IBC office in Ottawa, where the archival work happens. IBC staff help view, identify and catalog the videotapes, and then IBC hires a contractor to digitize the footage. If funding was maintained, it would have taken another two to three years to finish the work. The archiving project would continue beyond that, for example, by adding subtitles to older footage.

Manitok Thompson said she hopes the IBC can still secure funding to continue its archiving work. She’s calling on Inuit organizations to rally together and push for NTI to save the archives.

“‘I’m talking about all the Inuit organization presidents, vice presidents, the board members from each community. If they can comprehend what I’m saying, if they can push forward, if that would be very good,” she said.

“It would be a big loss for Inuit communities.”