Name: Aaju Peter
Vocation: Inuit culture advocate
Location: Iqaluit
Originally from Greenland, Aaju Peter has been a fashion designer, teacher, mother, law student, cruise ship cultural expert and the subject of the documentary Twice Colonized. Now, she’s speaking up on circumpolar Inuit issues because when she has something to say, she’s going to say it.
Loaded language When Peter was 11, she moved to Denmark for school, studying Danish, German, English, French and Latin. Seven years later, she returned home and didn’t remember Greenlandic. After she married an Inuk man and moved to Iqaluit in the early 1980s, she learned Inuktitut.
Rule of law Peter and her husband split in the ’90s, and she raised their five kids. When she picked up a law-school application for her eldest son, she learned the 18-year-old was too young to enroll. But she wasn’t. Law school helped with English, and the experience made her feel like she could get through almost anything. She never practiced law; it was more about the learning experience. Today, she teaches Inuktitut at the Pirurvik Centre and works as a clothing designer.
Fashionable fur Last fall, she travelled to Japan for Fashion World Tokyo, an international trade show. She took 30 garments, including a seal-fur kimono with fox-fur trim. Her goal: introduce the Japanese to seal fur, a material she regularly works with.
Black belt Peter has practiced yoga for nearly 50 years and started karate in the early ’90s through the Iqaluit Karate Club. The classes in the elementary school gym offered a break from being a mother for a few hours. (She now has eight grandkids.)
Threat level When Peter first heard U.S. President Donald Trump talk about buying Greenland, she thought it was ridiculous. As his threats intensified, she worried that he’d take over the country. Tuning into Greenland radio and hearing politicians talk of diplomacy and respect has assuaged her concerns, as have NATO’s and Denmark’s support.
A wider world Peter first learned that Inuit existed in other countries in 1980, when Greenland hosted an Inuit Circumpolar Council general assembly. She was amazed. Since Trump’s threats, she’s fielded media requests from all the over the world to talk about Greenland.
Two nations, one people “We have the same language, different dialects. We have different colonizers, but we are the same people. We eat the same food. We have been apart for 500 years.”
