Remembering Three Inuit Scholars from Igloolik

Within four months, the community of Igloolik (Nunavut) lost three esteemed members: Alexina Kublu on December 30, 2025, Jeela Palluq-Cloutier on January 1st, 2026, and Louis Tapardjuk on April 7th that same year. All three had made remarkable contributions to the advancement of Inuit society, culture, and language, regionally, nationally, and even internationally. They had put their knowledge and dedication at the service of their people, and this in various fields: linguistic and historical research, post-secondary education, and social development, as well as through their involvement in the administration of justice and in politics at both the community and territorial levels. Their positive impact on Inuit studies as both scholars and activists was widely recognized by all who knew them and who now grieve their loss. They are remembered here by three persons who related to them from different perspectives. A full obituary for Alexina Kublu, authored by Frédéric Laugrand, can be found in this issue of Études Inuit Studies. I will simply recall here a few features of her diverse and fulfilling career. Born in Igloolik in 1954, she was, as a child, sent to the Catholic boarding school in Chesterfield Inlet, which was also attended at the same time by her fellow iglulingmiutaq Louis Tapardjuk. She held ambivalent, but not entirely negative, memories of her time at school, during which she learned English without ever forgetting her mother tongue. Back from Chesterfield Inlet, Kublu enrolled in the Bachelor of Education program at the Eastern Arctic (now Nunavut) Teacher Education Program and started teaching at various Arctic community day schools. She then became an instructor in the Language and Culture program—later Inuit Studies—at Nunavut Arctic College (NAC) in Iqaluit. Thanks to the cooperation agreements that the then program director, the late Susan Sammons, had signed with European universities, she was invited several times to participate in courses in Paris (France) and Leiden (Netherlands). At some point during her career as a teacher, Kublu became a certified interpreter and translator from English to Inuktitut (Figure 1). In this capacity, she collaborated with several non-Inuit researchers, among them the anthropologist Bernard Saladin d’Anglure (d. February 13, 2025), a noted specialist of Iglulingmiut culture. In 2003, Kublu stepped down from her position at NAC to serve as Senior Justice of the Peace. She also was active as a volunteer and board member for several non-profit organizations, notably chairing the Akitsiraq Law School Society that worked to bring legal education to northern Canadians. In January 2009, she was appointed to the role of Languages Commissioner of Nunavut. In her position, she monitored the implementation of the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Languages Protection Act in Nunavut. In 2013, following her term as Languages Commissioner, Kublu devoted most of her time to a task she had already been collaborating on for some years with her husband, the educator and linguist S. T. Mick Mallon (d. 2023): preparing teaching materials and organizing course sessions to teach Inuktitut to non-Inuit. She passed away in Ottawa on December 30, 2025. Louis-Jacques Dorais Québec, QC Jeela Palluq-Cloutier, linguist, educator, author, and central figure in the standardization of Inuktut in Canada, died in January 2026. In a career spanning more than three decades, she worked to raise the standing of Inuktut as a written language, holding that if errors were not allowed to be published in English, neither should they be allowed in Inuktut. She was born in Igloolik in 1969. Her curiosity about language began in childhood, listening to her grandfather, the late Noah Piugaattuk, as he was interviewed by Louis Tapardjuk (d. 2026; see below) …

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