As Nicole Giles hit the karaoke stage at Iqaluit’s Nunavut Brewing Company just after 8 p.m., she didn’t want to perform one of those screamy party-killers that no one can sing along to. Instead, she went with an unquestionable hit—Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” The cheers were so loud Giles could hardly hear herself. Canada’s northernmost brewery, a small space with just a dozen tables, was at capacity with more than 50 people eating, drinking and singing, and as the song wound down with a bass guitar instrumental, Giles made a long-expected shout: “Sociable!”
The patrons with any experience in Iqaluit karaoke culture raised their beer glasses and issued such a well-coordinated cheer that two tables of first-timers, mostly Coast Guard workers from the NWT, shrugged and took a drink as well. Along with kissing the cod, the “Sociable!” toast is one of the most Newfoundland of traditions. Giles, who was born and raised in Paradise, has an outline of the province tattooed on her back and is responsible for bringing this East Coast quirk to the northern capital.
One night while hosting karaoke at Iqaluit’s Legion, she announced to the crowd that they were about to do a “Sociable!” toast. At first, people were confused. “Then, they were like, ‘We get to have a drink, right?’” Giles says. The tradition stuck. In her mind, it happened “approximately 1,000 years ago,” but it was shortly after she moved to Iqaluit in 2007. Back then, like all newcomers, she still had to answer the most Nunavut question, “So, how long are you here for?”
The question isn’t meant to be rude—the turnover of residents is so rapid that it’s hard to keep up. The nearly 8,000 residents of Iqaluit are almost evenly split between Inuit who have lived in the area for generations and non-Inuit from all over the world. The latter have started the town’s francophone association, two African societies, a mosque and, recently, an Asian takeout restaurant, the first of its kind in the territory.
Still, most of those government workers, teachers and nurses aren’t likely to stay for long. In a few years, they’ll finish their contracts, find better jobs or marry out of Nunavut. Although Giles has seen dozens of her friends and colleagues come and go, she’s stuck around.
About a dozen singers followed her at NuBrew, as locals call the brewery, and all repeated the “Sociable!” toast. A Vancouver-born daughter of Chinese immigrants said it quietly after finishing Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” An Ottawa native in a freshly minted Shania Twain T-shirt performing “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” growled it, then gave a Mickey Mouse-like “ha ha.” And a Coast Guard worker singing Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” delivered it more like a question, as if he wasn’t sure he was doing it right.
“Sociable!” is also a regular feature at The Storehouse Bar & Grill, the Chartroom Lounge and every other Iqaluit bar that allows karaoke. Every time Giles hears the toast, it reminds her of her hometown more than 3,000 kilometres away. In her 18 years in Nunavut, she has won awards for her baking, sat on half a dozen volunteer boards and made the territory a place she doesn’t want to leave. Like Newfoundland, Nunavut is a place with a distinct character. And, in a small way, she has helped shape it.
