Celebrating the Imniarvik Cultural Experience: An Inuvialuit Youth & Elders Camp - Natasha Lyons, Lisa Hodgetts, Jason Lau, David Stewart, Mervin Joe and Ashley Piskor

In July 2019, Inuvialuit Youth and Elders spent five days at Imniarvik (Sheep Creek), located in Ivvavik National Park, in the heart of the Richardson Range of the Canadian Western Arctic. The camp, co-hosted by Parks Canada and the Inuvialuit Living History Project, sought to create an intergenerational land-based experience. We spent time hiking in the mountains, learning the plants and animals of the region, handling and making ancestral artifacts, and discovering local archaeological sites and cultural places. Youth used art, story, and video to document the summer high season, when the berries are ripe, the game are active, and the sun never sets. They recorded their Elders telling stories about subsisting, gold-panning, and tool-making on the Firth River and Beaufort Sea coast a half century earlier. This presentation is a mixed media celebration of the work and play of the Imniarvik cultural experience co-curated by Inuvialuit youth, Elders, and project team members.