Aaju Peter

About Aaju

Aaju Peter is an Inuk lawyer, activist, educator and sealskin clothing designer. In the 1980s she married a Canadian and moved to Frobisher Bay, now Iqaluit, where she raised five children. In 2005, she was part of the inaugural graduating class of the Akitsiraq program—a partnership between UVic Law, the Akitsiraq Law School Society and Nunavut Arctic College. She continues to defend Inuit rights in Canada and Greenland, raise global awareness of the challenges facing Inuit communities and fights to preserve their language and culture, especially the seal hunt. In 2012, she received the Order of Canada and has appeared in the documentaries Tunniit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos (2011), Arctic Defenders (2013), Angry Inuk (2016) and Twice Colonized (2023).  

Fierce defender

“When I was 11 years old, I was sent off to school in Denmark.… Even though it was not residential schooling, it was being sent off to families where you never got to meet any other Greenlander… I forgot my own language. When I went back to Greenland, I couldn't even speak with my mother, and I was told, ‘You're not Greenlandic, you're an Oreo—you're brown on the outside and white on the inside.’ And that really hurt. So, my drive came from losing my own language and my own culture and fiercely defending Inuit going through the same thing.”

'Swiss Army Inuk'

“I call myself the Swiss Army Inuk, which means you have to be able to do many things. As an Aboriginal, twice-colonized person, you get exposed to so many things. You learn so many new skills. You get to see the world very differently than just being in a small community. Taking part in international laws and legislation and the fact that I can affect change just as a tiny person—that's amazing.”

It is about us

“In Denmark, what we were taught was you are the centre of the world, you're above everybody, and then everybody else is down there. But what I have learned from the Inuit on the Canadian side, where I had to unlearn that attitude, it is never about you. It is about us. It's about our well-being. It's not just one person. One person cannot survive. I had to take years to unlearn that.”

Lawyer/activist/educator/artist

“For me, one cannot go without the other… I think it affects different parts of your brain where you always have to learn. When I get tired of one pursuit, then I have sewing, I have other things to do. For me, they're all helping each other.”

Impact of UVic

“When we were taking our studies, our professors and the people who were running the UVic [program] up here were amazing. They had to bend over backwards and be so accommodating because most of us had children. Most of us had no money, especially me. They had a tough learning curve, but they did it so well. They were incredibly accommodating and understanding. I'm so proud to have gone to school at UVic.”