In 2015, Shelley Wright won the 11th annual George Ryga Award for Social Awareness. Her ground-breaking first book, Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers and Climate Change (McGill-Queens $39.95), reveals how the Nunavummiut (the people of Nunavit) have become the witnesses for climate change.

See full text of her acceptance speech below.

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In 1988, Pierre Berton, his publisher Avie Bennett and an entourage of approximately eighteen journalists undertook the most extraordinary book launch in Canadian history. They flew from Yellowknife to Inuvik, then took a helicopter north for about forty-five minutes to a Gulf Oil rig named Moliqpak, located 96 kilometres north of Tuktoyaktuk, in the Beaufort Sea. After being lowered by cable, one by one, onto the rig, they ate muskox and launched Berton's 672-page doorstopper about the search for the Northwest Passage, The Arctic Grail (M&S). The latitude of Inuvik is 68.3617 degrees north.

Hence Shelly Wright can boast the most northerly book launch in Canadian history for her ground-breaking history, Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change (McGill-Queens 2014), launched at a latitude of 74.2167 degrees north in Lancaster Sound. In early September of 2014, Wright launched her book in Lancaster Sound aboard the Akademik Sergei Vavilov, one of the ships that was involved in the successful search to find the ship for the doomed Franklin expedition. Wright was aboard the Akademik Sergei Vavilov about one week after the much-publicized discovery of the sunken Franklin ship, the finding of which was a pet project of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

As a professor of Aboriginal Studies at Langara College, Shelley Wright, having spent many years in the Arctic, has combined scientific and legal information with political and individual perspectives for an unprecedented overview of the Canadian Arctic and its people, Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change (McGill-Queens 2014). Focussing on Inuit history and culture, Ice Is Vanishing describes the legacies of exploration, intervention, and resilience alongside Wright's own recollections and photos -- revealing how the Inuit have become the witnesses and messengers for climate change. Shelley Wright lived and travelled in the Arctic for more than ten years beginning with her experiences as the Northern Director of the Akitsiraq Law School based in Iqaluit.

Pierre Berton concluded his landmark study with the hope that eventually the Inuit could be properly included in the history of the Arctic. Some twenty-six years later Shelley Wright has literally gone a long way towards realizing Berton's vision. Berton visited the Arctic for a few days; Wright's knowledge goes deeper.

BOOKS:

Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change (McGill-Queens, 2014) $39.95 978-0-7735-4462-8

[BCBW 2015]